Bolton Octagon presents A Midsummer Night's Dream
BOLTON'S Octagon Theatre welcomes in the New Year with one of Shakespeare’s best-loved comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
When two pairs of lovers take flight to the forest to escape the tyranny of Theseus’ regime, what follows is a night of magical confusion. A Midsummer Night’s Dream features some of Shakespeare’s best loved characters, including Bottom the weaver, who is transformed into an amorous donkey.
This large-scale production, complete with live music, is set in the late Sixties and will be directed by the Octagon’s artistic director, David Thacker.
His many modern dress productions of Shakespeare include Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet for the Young Vic, Measure For Measure for the BBC and The Two Gentleman Of Verona, Julius Caesar and The Merchant Of Venice for the Royal Shakespeare Company. He received Olivier Awards for Best Director and Best Revival for his RSC production of Shakespeare’s Pericles.
He says: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a passionate, funny play that never fails to surprise me. No play like it had ever been written, and no play like it has been written since.
“Workmen, lovers, royalty and the fairy kingdom bumping into each other as they all try to deal with the problems, joys and delights of the force that holds so many of us in its unpredictable grip – love!
“Like many of the productions of Shakespeare that I’ve most enjoyed directing, and have been most appreciated by audiences, I’ve decided to set this in a modern context.
“I hope our own Magical Mystery Tour will release its dynamic energy and reach the Octagon’s audience in ways that may surprise them too.”
The cast of 14 includes MEN Theatre Award-winning Russell Dixon, as well as Vanessa Kirby. She returns to the Octagon following her professional theatre debut in David Thacker’s production of All My Sons, a performance which earned her the Biza Award for best up and coming talent at December’s Theatre Awards.
Prejudice
Starring as Starveling/First Fairy is Australian-born but now Manchester-based Kiruna Stamell. She recently appeared in Channel 4’s comedy drama Cast Offs, but is perhaps best known for her scene-stealing role in Baz Luhrmann’s lavish Moulin Rouge.
She said: “I don’t think I’ve ever worked on a more exciting production than this. So much modern stuff on TV, film and in the theatre gets hung up on being ‘real’. I’d much rather a production like David’s where you’re immediately aware that entering a magical world where the rules are made to be broken.
“Contrary to what some people have said, it’s the perfect time of year for this. All the cynicism of winter is left at the door. I know I was seduced straightaway when I saw the set and concept.”
Kiruna, who has dwarfism caused by a genetic condition known as acromeseomerlic dysplasia, is passionately eloquent but not bitter about the prejudice faced by some disabled people.
“People never cease to surprise me with their prejudices,”” she says. But it has given me the experience of difference, and that is one of the most valuable experiences to ever have.”
Of Cast Offs, she observes that ‘it’s frustrating that it’s 2010 and that programme is considered groundbreaking. There needs to be more drama that’s socially inclusive’.
Kiruna first met Thacker at a Shakespeare workshop in London, where she’d come to advance an acting career that she felt was being limited by the sometimes conservative Australian theatrical scene.
“Like many people,” she laments, “I had an English teacher back home who killed Shakespeare for me for a number of years. I didn’t understand how fabulously he wrote until he was brought to life for me during a performance, not just reading it in a class.
“Maybe it shouldn’t seem so important,” she laughs, “but to have the opportunity to perform Shakespeare in his home country is special for me!”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is at the Octagon from February 4 until March 6, 2010.
Published: Fri, 29 January, 2010
Comment on this article
You need to be logged in to comment. Login | Register