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Athletic Version Of The 'Dream'
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Exeter's Northcott Theatre Company took time out rehearsing their major jubilee production of A Midsummer Night's Dream to tackle the stamina-sapping Royal Marines Infantry Training Centre assault course. Now we know why. Geoffrey Reeve's "Dream" is an athletic balletic, rope swinging and trapeze-hanging world of action. Fantasy, music and roustabout comedy, and it calls for actors who are in condition. Perhaps the traditionalists will view this production in much the same way as the inhabitants of Lord's Longroom react to Kerry Packer's unconventional approach to cricket. But others - and I am firmly on their side of the fence - will find it exhilarating, inventive, and a highly entertaining interpretation of the Bard's masterpiece. The fairies weave their mischievous magic on the Athenian lovers from trapezes, arch across the stage on ropes, and shin up and down poles to platforms from where they gleefully observe "what fools these mortals be." The mechanicals - straight out of a works outing - invade the realm of theatre with much the same disastrous and gloriously funny results of Benny Hill's wicked send-ups of the world of amateur dramatics. It was that brilliant director Robin Phillips who gave the Northcott audiences a "Dream" to remember nearly ten years ago, who said "kick Shakespeare about - he can take it." By that he meant the plays can always stand intelligent and unusual treatment and that there is constantly something new and fresh to be mined from such limitless veins of genius. Mr Reeve's approach achieves a definitely different impact which is both stimulating and immensely enjoyable. There are too many actors to single out, nut Tim Iremonger's Puck, both Tumbler and Trickster, is a powerful packaged of fun and fitness. Garfield Morgan's Bottom is as rustically artisan as Gareth Armstrong's Joint Theseus. And Oberon and Jacqueline Pearce's combined Hippolyta and Titania are both richly regal. For all the zest of this production, though, the beauty of the poetry is not lost, and is highlighted in a final scene that surely is visually and verbally satisfying to all - including the purists. Derek Lean. Western Morning News Saturday 18th July 1977
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