Waiheke is lucky to have two different versions of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream currently being presented by the Rogues and Vagabonds Wandering Players. Now I was one of those kids on whom the great Bard was forced at too early an age, so when I saw the version called Athens Survivor Idol advertised as Shakespeare for those who don't like Shakespeare, I thought, that's for me.
In fact, I'm sure I would have liked even the traditional version of A Midsummer Night's Dream (reviewed in last week's Gulf News) because it is Shakespeare's weirdest play, with mischievous fairies, wildly improbable misunderstandings among four young lovers, and a play-within-a-play that was absolutely designed to be over the top. All of this comes through in Athens Survivor Idol, with the added spice of being a hilarious send-up of modern reality TV shows.
In Shakespeare's original, the numerous stories of the play are held together by a thin plot line involving discord in the royal court of Athens and a similar argument in the realm of the fairies. Well, stuff that for a joke. Athens Survivor Idol replaces all that with an unctuous TV hostess and three bizarre judges (two fops and one Goth; the fops are clearly based on Donald Trump and Martha Stewart, and the Goth looks straight out of 1980s Germany). The young lovers are "Team 1" and the Rude Mechanicals, preparing the play-within-a-play, are "Team 2".
Then the modern television banter suddenly gives way to the original Shakespearean English as we watch the progress of one team or the other, and just as suddenly switches back again when the hostess (Kate Loughmane) bursts in with a commentary. The effect is riveting and completely convincing. The audience was hooting with laughter from beginning to end. Even an uncultured eye such as mine can see that this is exactly what Shakespeare intended. His style of language may no longer be in fashion, but the social postures that the Bard was lampooning -- the pretence of the rich and powerful, the fiery passions of youth, the self-importance of his own theatrical profession -- are every bit as ridiculous today as they were in 1600. We just have more kinds of media to make fun of now.
Some of the plot devices are brilliant. In the original, the fairy king transforms the actor Bottom into a donkey and uses a love potion to make the fairy queen fall in love with the donkey. In Athens Survivor Idol it's the fairy king himself who gets squirted with the love potion and becomes "undignified" over Bottom, thereby threatening the reality show's family rating. At one point, one of the Rude Mechanicals gets into an argument with a judge over a missed cue. Then, at some impossible moment -- several impossible moments, in fact -- everyone will burst into song, usually a reworking of some well-known show tune. And the ending... well, suffice it to say that it's even more over-the-top than Shakespeare's play-within-a-play ending.
The Rogues and Vagabonds are presenting both Athens Survivor Idol and the traditional version of A Midsummer Night's Dream this weekend. Pick one (or pick both) according to your humour and go see it. You will not be disappointed. Sac Darwin, Oneroa |
