Reviews: Drama

Shakespearian classic

The Bard's most popular comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream "is the last of the true comedies", said Paul Stebbings, founder and artistic director of TNT Theatre from Britain which will perform the play in English with Chinese subtitles at the Centenary Hall of Peking University on May 10 to 12.

It's a play where classical heroes are mixed with amateur actors; English forest spirits with Roman and Greek fairies; the theater is mocked, love is mocked; tragedy is insulted; lust is turned on its head. Lovers and poets are bundled together with madmen. Rhyming couplets prevent people from taking it all too seriously and death is threatened then waved away.

Written in 1596 as a celebration of a marriage, A Midsummer Night's Dream remains a timeless exploration of love. The TNT production begins by dramatizing the conquest of the Amazon Queen by Theseus and links the final comedy of Pyramus and Thisby to the drama. The whole show combines music, dance and song with powerful conflict that demonstrates not just the joy but also the pain and madness of love.

"Shakespeare happily mixes traditional English spirits with classical heroes and fantastic creatures. What unites these traditions is paganism and that energy lies at the root of our production," Stebbings said. "Too often the play becomes an excuse for easy laughter and is neither believable nor are its themes and characters united. We will attempt to unify the themes and characters and link the serious with the comic to create an original but faithful version of Shakespeare's finest comedy."

The success of TNT's Oliver Twist staged in March in Beijing made Stebbings decide to return to Beijing with the new production. "TNT is a world touring theatre and we believe that drama could help people from different countries and different cultural backgrounds to know each other. We must come to China because you have the largest potential theater-goers here," Stebbings said.

Chen Jie

(China Daily 05/09/2007 page20)