Benjamin Britten’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” Doesn’t so much set Shakespeare’s play to music as release the music inherent in the text, the drama and most of all, the characters. It brays, it soothes, it tricks and it celebrates, matching and enhancing every magical moment. This production replaced the expected setting of leafy bowers with translucent strips of plastic, the historical costumes with some high-end 1960s hippy chic gear, put Oberon and Titania in reflective metallic robes and had the chorus of child fairies sporting their tiny white wings in combination with school gym kit and identical Midwich Cuckoo-style blonde wigs. But then, the faerie realm can presumably be anywhere or nowhere, especially with Britten’s evocative score effortlessly transporting us to a location that transcends time and place.  Everyone knows the plot, and it’s here in all its magnificent absurdity, complete with ass’s head, rude mechanicals and mismatched lovers. It’s always a surprise to discover just how funny Britten’s music can be, embodying Shakespeare’s comic tropes in its own inimitable language rather than just relying on the words and action to make us laugh. Henry Waddington’s Bottom was as expansive as it has to be, as he tries to take on every role as well as adapting to every situation, and his moments of doubt following the encounter with Titania were strangely touching. Favourite character is invariably Puck, who declaims rather than sings but whose physical antics were played to the hilt by Daniel Abelson, resplendent in red satin boxers and faun-like hairy legs. The cocky spirit of the mischief that drives the action, his unashamedly animal-like antics were the perfect foil to (and swiftly eroded) the attempted dignity of the other characters, The romance was there too, with the lyrical repetitions of the quartet “For I have found Lysander like a jewel” perfectly expressing the bewitched strangeness of falling in love.

Gail-Nina Anderson