Opera Holland Park, London – until 1st July 2023
Reviewed by Fozia Munshi-Nicholson
4****
This Classic Shakespeare’s comedy full of magic and the celebration of love, is beautifully set in the Holland Park open air auditorium.
The play started with a laugh as Joelle Taylors Puck plays impish gags on unsuspecting mortals and maintains its sense of fun throughout.
Eleanor Sutton playing Helena is both funny and sincere, but Hannah Rose Caton edges it as the lovelorn Hermia with her comedic timing and occasional northern accent. Jonathan Munir’s swaggering Demetrius in a top knot was hilariously villainous, we all hated the idea of him winning Helena from her lover Lysander played by Emmanuel Olusanya.
The play was put together beautifully and played out completely, making full use of the quirky Holland Park stage. The best part for me was the stunning Anna Leong Brophy who brought the role of Titania, the Queen of the fairies to life. She was everything I imagine Shakespeare’s Titania to be, beautiful, poised, and elegant. Ray Fearon’s Oberon was acted with aplomb, his deep rich voice carrying across the auditorium.
Lastly Jay Mailer was hilarious as the pompous Bottom haplessly dragged into Titania and Oberon’s bickering lover’s tiff. His Donkey was played for laughs and deservedly got them. The play culminated in a confusion of bewitched people falling in love with one another on sight, at one point the cast broke into a rendition of ‘Let’sGet it On’. Figure skillfully wove in modern elements to this classic tale of love, magic, and tragedy the latter bought to you courtesy of ‘the Mechanicals’. The final scene with the play ‘Pyramus and Thisbe in Athens’ deserves a special mention, it was played so hilariously terribly as to be perfect.
A play well worth seeing, apart from a couple of hiccups with microphones not being turned on in time and sound being distorted at some points. This rendition of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was a beautiful end to the week.