A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Shakespeare’s Globe, 2016; directed by Emma Rice

“Why is everybody so obsessed with text?” cries Robin Starveling, dressed in an astronaut suit to imitate Moonshine, as they charge at a heckling patron, Theseus, of the play-within-a-play, in director Emma Rice’s 2016 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare’s Globe in London. This throwaway line may as well serve as the motto of Rice’s transgressive and innovative production of Dream. Indeed, the traditional text is but suggestive in Rice’s production, a three-hour spectacle that interpolates popular music, features original lyrics and interjected comments, and offers a raucous musical spectacular; dramaturg Tanika Gupta is also credited as a lyricist in working with Rice to add modern references and interludes to Shakespeare’s text, actively working against purist inclinations. Set in modern day, the four lovers, or “Hoxton hipsters”, are translated from Athens to the bankside of London; the production features a first-aid fanny pack, Bon Jovi, David Bowie, multi-colored lights (a first for the traditional Shakespeare’s Globe), portable phones, a doublecast Egeus and Puck, and light-up sneakers. “Helena” becomes “Helenus”; Rice speaks of the change: 

“I always knew when I went to do this play, it was the first thing I knew about it, was—I found the part very difficult to stomach as a woman, because she’s such a victim. And she begs for the love of this man, who in his right mind, no drugs involved, says he hates her and that she’s nothing to him. And I find it very hard to celebrate that marriage at the end. So, I always knew that if Demetrius were fighting something in himself, that it would liberate us all to celebrate that match.”

Inspired by the Indian changeling boy that Titania and Oberon are fighting over, the production sports Indian-inspired designs, with marigold flowers strung on the set and a sitar player prominently presented on the balcony throughout the production and in the score; Emma Rice speaks on the subject, with Orientalist reasoning, “The Indian boy, which is the object of their desires. So, I felt that right at the heart of it, there is this fight over exoticism and beauty and something other.” The show boasts high audience interaction with much of the action taking place in the audience, where actors mingle with the groundlings of Shakespeare’s Globe; this lends to a spontaneity and vivacity of performance that injects the first four acts of the play with excitement. On the subject of the fairies, Rice speaks:

But the fairies, they were—Shakespeare gave birth to them, so they’ve been around for 400 years. And I thought, what would you be like if you’d been immortal? You’d have done every drug, every party, absolutely wrecked. So, I’m thinking, you know, they’re kind of thrill-seekers. I think there’s something rough about them that I really enjoy.

The production was commended for its diversity in casting and irreverence. Critics noted that the lackluster performance of the “Pyramus and Thisbe” interlude did not match the superb comedy of the first four acts, an early and disappointing climax to the high-energy performance. The amount of musical numbers was also criticized as a couple more than necessary. Most notably, the performance brought forth the meta-theatrical aspects of the text in thought-provoking ways; the show features a prologue that seemed to be a routine conduct-and-safety announcement on behalf of employees of Shakespeare’s Globe, who don “Shakespeare’s Globe” aprons and wear matching blue “Shakespeare’s Globe” t-shirts. Only in the second scene, when the “rude mechanicals” show up, is it revealed that the aforementioned “Health and Safety Officer”, “cleaner”, and “Robin [who is] in charge of snacks”, are in fact the performers acting the roles of the mechanicals. The play-within-a-play of the original text traditionally draws attention to the role of imagination in theatre, asking the audience to question what their eyes can see, much like the lovers do at the end of their dalliance in the woods; the very literal “Shakespeare’s Globe” setting to the mechanicals’ actions allows for both a plain and compoundingly meta- exploration of the same thoughts, lending to the psychedelic tone of the production. 

• Director: Emma Rice  
• Dramaturg & Lyricist: Tanika Gupta
• Set Designer: Börkur Jónsson  
• Costume Designer: Moritz Junge
• Composer: Stu Barker  
• Lighting Designers: Victoria Brennan & Malcolm Rippeth
• Sound Designer: Simon Baker  
• Choreography: Etta Murfitt & Emma Rice
• Cast: Edith Tankus (Snug), Lucy Thackeray (Quince), Alex Tregear (Snout), Zubin Varla (Theseus, Oberon), Anjana Vasan (Hermia), Ankur Bahl (Helenus), Maggie Bain (Flute, Philostrate), Nandi Bhebh (First Fairy, Starveling), Edmund Derrington (Lysander), Tibu Fortes (Fairy), Ncuti Gatwa (Demetrius), Meow Meow (Hippolyta, Titania), Katy Owen (Puck), Ewan Wardrop (​​Bottom)