As part of the University of Birmingham’s collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), a number of Shakespeare Institute students had the opportunity to join the Press Night performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Nori tells us more about their experience.
As part of the enriching partnership between the RSC and the University of Birmingham I was able to attend the press night of their new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This was a delightful experience for me as being an invited guest of the RSC comes with its perks. The main one is the networking opportunity created in the before show drinks and during the interval. This is an incredibly valuable resource for me.
Accessibility
During the pre-performance social drinks there were speeches by the new Creative Directors of the RSC they talked about their renewed commitment to accessibility for the audience. They revealed that this production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream included live audio descriptions for blind and visually impaired audiences. These descriptions were given by the actors as the show was going on which is incredible.
Staging
On a personal level I was ecstatic to be seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the RSC. Even though I have a quote from this play tattooed on me and 15 copies of the script, I’ve never seen it on stage before. I was very excited for the set as being able to convey Athens and a mystical woodland is a set design challenge. Initially the set seemed underwhelming, but once the show began the true magic happened. The design team focused on the dream elements of the play by delving deeply into the art of illusions. This was achieved by the amazing lighting and design team; particularly John Bulleid the illusion director and designer, Lucy Osborne the designer and Matt Daw the lighting designer. There were trap doors, levitation and holograms.
Performance
Something else that the other invited Shakespeare Institute students and I were excited about were the actors. There was a particular buzz around the casting of Mathew Baynton, many young brits first crush, as Nick Bottom. He is perfectly cast in this role and was a clear highlight of the production for much of the audience and we got to see a lot of him. Other stand out performances were Ryan Hutton as Lysander who played both the sensitive side of the character and the fairy induced madness very well. Boadicea Ricketts, as Helena, who made every part of this character believable. Finally, Premi Tamang was incredible understudying as a surprisingly sweet yet wholly mischievous Puck.
All in all, this evening as an incredibly fancy, most honoured guest of the RSC was a lot of fun.