Showing @ King’s Theatre, Edinburgh until 19 April @ 19:30 (on tour)
Edward Hall’s tipsy and exuberant production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream enchants from the get go, with the lads from Propeller Theatre Company certainly singing, dancing and cavorting for their supper. Even during the interval the cast serenade the theatre crush bar with old classics like Dream Lover while circulating a charity bucket.
The twisting plot of pairs of lovers bewildered and confused by Oberon, king of the fairies, and his changeling boy Puck is presented with minimum fuss on a bare yet dramatic set by Michael Pavelka with a moody lighting scheme by Ben Ormerod. There’s an open admission to the influence of Czech animator Jan Svankmajer on the surreal aesthetic.
The sprites, dressed like the Droogs in A Clockwork Orange, are at turns joyful and menacing while the leggy Puck (Joseph Chance in a star turn) in his tutu and ruby slippers channels Aladdin Sane by way of a cross-dressing, ragdoll Peter Pan. Worthy of particular note is the exuberant playing of Hermia by Matthew MacPherson. It’s refreshing to see the female characters rendered without resorting to fussy wigs and panto padding although it takes a moment to get used to the idea. And this makes the acting all the better. It’s all part of Propeller’s special magic, famous for combining trueness to the text with a devil-may-care muscularity that wilfully defies the weedy term “physical theatre”.
At one point Oberon (Darrell Brockis) and queenly Titania (James Tucker) face each other from far across the stage on highchairs like tennis umpires and their riddles and casting spells seems totally believable. And of course they are right: what fools these mortals be. Propeller has a reputation for the uncanny knack of reinventing Shakespeare for modern audiences without mucking about with the text. As much as anything, the play is a cautionary tale for the mischievous.