A Midsummer Night's Dream
(British)
Read other reviews about this film
Hippolyta/Titania - Lindsay Duncan
Theseus/Oberon - Alex Jennings
Bottom - Desmond Barrit
Philostrate/Puck - Barry Lynch
The Boy - Osheen Jones
Hermia - Monica Dolan
Lysander - Daniel Evans
Demetrius - Kevin Doyle
Helena - Emily Raymond
First Fairy - Ann Hasson
Those who saw the RSC stage production a delight in its 1994 debut in Stratford, England, but a flop last season on Broadway may be bemused to find its distinctive visual signature carried over so thoroughly (and even more elaborately) to the screen. This "Dream" could serve as an antithesis to the current "Twelfth Night," directed by a very literal-minded Trevor Nunn, which places Shakespeare's sorrowful comedy in real locations throughout.
By contrast, Noble and production designer Anthony Ward present a mirrored court, and later a lovers' forest, set in an often hazy, soft-focus dreamscape of colors and props rows of candles in the royal palace, floating lightbulbs defining the woods at night, and other images (a bank of doors, suspended sacs, upturned umbrellas) that dominated the stage version.
Still, what makes the theater a place of enchantment can look like overkill onscreen, and it's not long before the heightened visuals raise more questions than they answer. (A fundamental one: Where is this movie taking place?)
In the tradition of Ingmar Bergman's "The Magic Flute," Noble brings in a child Osheen Jones as the Boy to act as audience surrogate, awakening us to the wonder that the material should induce. But what we're left with are three worlds the Mechanicals' hut is the third, into which the Boy hurtles, crying "Mommy" that have no cohesion. Jokey refs to "E.T.," "The Wizard of Oz" and the illustrations of Arthur Rackham only emphasize the unreality of a movie that often comes off as an ambitious film-school experiment.
The cast mixes actors who have been with the production from its Stratford debut (Alex Jennings, Barry Lynch) and others hired for the film and the American tour that followed. Among the latter, easily the best is the Hippolyta-Titania of Lindsay Duncan, who, with her radiantly translucent skin, is a natural for movies. So suggestively sexy is Duncan as the fairy queen that it seems a shame any implicit eroticism is scuppered elsewhere by a tendency to bump and grind.
No sooner is she confronted with Desmond Barrit's sweet-faced Bottom in his new guise as an ass than Barrit launches into a pelvic thrust, vulgarizing a potentially tender and comic encounter. Similarly, all Lynch's homoerotic, bare-chested Puck need do is mention "the dark and dirty ground" when he begins his own gyrations.
If the erotic subtext is gone, these Athenian lovers, it must be said, are difficult to love. Unrewarding parts at the best of times, they are charmlessly served by a Lysander (Daniel Evans) who is too silly and a Demetrius (Kevin Doyle) who is too manic. Emily Raymond's doe-eyed Helena the one role of the four that usually grabs an audience has gravitas but no spark.
Elsewhere, the hard-working Mechanicals generate more laughs from the royal audience-within-the-film than they're likely to do from moviegoers.
Tech credits are almost disconcertingly lush, particularly in a finale that presents the company in a liquefied limbo, dry ice and all. Despite the invention that has gone into this screen "Dream," it's so busy whipping up a stylistic storm that it lays low Shakespeare's true topic love.
For the record, the play has been filmed at least eight times before, starting with the celebratedMax Reinhardt William Dieterle version in 1935. Other directors who have brought it to the screen include Peter Hall (1969) and, directing the fanciful Lindsay Kemp version, Celestino Coronado (1984).
Camera (color), Ian Wilson; editors, Paul Hodgson, Peter Hollywood; music, Howard Blake; production design, Anthony Ward; supervising art director, John Fenner; set decoration, Peter James; costume design, Ward; sound (Dolby), Adrian Rhodes; 3-D animation, Jon Bowen, Chas Cash, Dave Child; special photographic effects, Cliff Culley, Neil Culley; assistant director, Francesco Reidy; casting, Alison Chard. Reviewed at Century preview theater, London, Oct. 28, 1996. (In London Film Festival.) Running time: 105 MIN.
With: Alfred Burke, John Kane, Mark Letheren, Howard Crossley, Kenn Sabberton , Robert Gillespie, Gemma Aston, John Baxter, Emily Button, Jane Colenutt, Tim Griggs, Guy Hargreaves, Sarah Kruger, Joseph Morton, Nicola McRoy, Darren Roberts, Matt Patresi, Oscar Pearce.
Variety is striving to present the most thorough review database. To report inaccuracies in review credits, please click here. We do not currently list below-the-line credits, although we hope to include them in the future. Please note we may not respond to every suggestion. Your assistance is appreciated.
