A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Pheonix Performing Arts

A Midsummer Night’s Dream, written by William Shakespeare is a play centred around the Magic and Mystery of a Summer’s Night. The play is set simultaneously in the woodland, and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon. Theseus, the Duke of Athens (Charlie Hawley), is preparing for his marriage to Hippolyta (Shannon Wells). A courtier (Iona Macdonald) seeks the Duke's intervention because his daughter, Hermia (Harriet Dunn), will not agree to his choice of Demetrius (Omar Al Khina) as a husband as she's in love with Lysander (Robert Presly). The Duke tells Hermia to obey her father, or either die or accept a life as a nun in Diana's temple. Lysander and Hermia plan to elope, and they tell Helena (Jane Cottrell), who is in love with Demetrius, but he loves Hermia. The lovers run away from Athens but get lost in the woods. They are followed by Demetrius, and then by Helena, who has told him of their intentions. Oberon (Toby Smith), king of the fairies, who lives in the woods, has quarrelled with his queen, Titania (Emily Heywood), over an Indian boy (Jacob Malone) she refuses to give him. Oberon overhears Helena and Demetrius arguing and sends his mischievous servant, Puck (Annie Risner), to get a flower whose juice has the power to make people fall in love with the first creature they see when the juice is placed on their eyelids while asleep. He instructs Puck to put some drops on Demetrius' eyes. Mistaking the Athenian he seeks, Puck puts the flower juice on the eyes of the sleeping Lysander so that when he is woken by Helena he immediately falls in love with her and rejects Hermia.

Some mechanical from the town are rehearsing a play about the tragic love-story of Pyramus and Thisbe to present to Theseus on his wedding day. Bottom (Nick Beat), the weaver, is to play the lover Pyramus, while Flute (Josh Mears), the bellows-mender, is to play Thisbe. The others play the parts of the Moon and the Wall (Joel Arnold) and the Lion (Jack Bounds) and they are directed by Peter Quince (Joel Taylor). Puck overhears their rehearsals in the wood and he plays a trick on them by giving Bottom an ass's head which frightens the others away. Bottom is lead to the sleeping Titania who Oberon has treated with the flower juice. On waking, she falls in love with Bottom but when Bottom falls asleep beside her, Oberon restores Titania's sight and wakes her. She is appalled at the sight of what she has been in love with and is reunited with Oberon.

Puck removes the ass's head and Bottom returns to Athens and rejoins his friends as they prepare to perform their play. Meanwhile the lovers' arguments tire them out as they chase one another through the woods and when Demetrius rests, Oberon puts magic juice on his eyes so that both he and Lysander pursue Helena until the four lovers fall asleep, exhausted. Puck puts juice on Lysander's eyes before the lovers are woken by Theseus and Hippolyta and their dawn hunting party. Happily reunited to each other, Lysander with Hermia, Demetrius with Helena, they agree to share the Duke's wedding day. The rustics perform the play of Pyramus and Thisbe before the wedding guests. As the three couples retire Puck and the fairies return to bless the palace and its people.

The Promenade nature of the Performance saw the Audience moving around St. Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, to the different sets; the Duke’s Palace, the Woods and the Fairy Bower. The Costumes added to the Characters. Several Performances stood out Nick Beat, playing Bottom the Weaver had excellent comic timing and played well with the other actors in interactions. Annie Risner, playing Puck, used tumbling well to illustrate the character‘s mischievous and sometimes Childlike manners.
Overall it was a well directed and Acted Performance which did arguably one of Shakespeare’s best plays justice. 

By Helena