Showing @ Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh until Sat 6 Oct – run ended
Out of the Bard’s 38 extant plays, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of his most widely performed. This also means that, by default, it is also one of his most widely abused. Fortunately for Traverse however, award-winning children’s theatre company, Wee Stories, have tackled this long suffering work with initiative and exuberance.
Focusing specifically on ‘The Lovers’ narrative of Midsummer, this production fuses plain English, song and Shakespeare’s original text into a succinct and agile production. This unfortunately means the mechanicals never made it past auditions but it does give Egeus a greater share of the limelight (taking his asinine role from Bottom).
All four actors give performances which are energetic and endearing without ever becoming mawkish or patronising to the younger members of the audience. They also very cleverly utilise puppetry in their show to give it a sense of perspective. The fairies are portrayed using rod, shadow and talking-head puppetry (the latter being very reminiscent of Punch and Judy shows) along with the regular live action performances, so as to emphasise their stature compared with the Athenians.
Yet the most impressive thing about this production is its transitions. And that’s by no means as mundane as it sounds; when you have a cast of four performing a dozen roles, everything rests on the fluidity of scene and character changes. There are moments where an actor’s second or third character is on stage while the first is still exiting, requiring some remarkable prestidigitation. On top of that there is also a satirical streak, with a musical coda taking a subtle stab at the funding cuts which the company suffered last year. And with a piece of theatre like this, as rewarding for adults as it is for younger generations, you do have to question the logic. Simultaneously evoking the magic of the original and making Shakespeare accessible to the young, without alienating the old, may be a tall order but Wee Stories manage it admirably.