Michelle Terry’s Puck is an agent of chaos. She slinks and scurries around the stage, revelling in the mess she has made. There is something of the Grinch to her green-gold costume, which makes her look like a creature dragged up from deep beneath the forest floor. Her unnerving performance steals every scene, and will be sure to haunt a child or two’s dreams.
Elle While’s giddy production attempts to tread the line between Shakespeare’s glittering humour and the dark undertones of abused power. While Terry’s unruly Puck gets closest to this uneasy balance, the rest of this woodland comedy largely tips over into genial jokes and easy laughter.
For the most part, the Globe’s stage is a playground for the lost lovers. After their starring role in I, Joan, Isobel Thom is a hungry, jealous Helena, brilliantly baffled by the changes of hearts around them. Francesca Mills is a stubborn, foot-stomping Hermia, Vinnie Heaven a soft-boy Demetrius and Sam Crerar a hopelessly lovelorn Lysander. It’s a delight to watch the four of them get tangled up in their quick-change desires.
Streaks of darkness thread through the lovers’ scenes. Most chilling is when Demetrius and Lysander both turn on Hermia, whose demands to explain their bullish remarks draws revelatory meaning from the text; no longer just teasing, the boys’ ableist taunts become cold-hearted verbal attacks. These shades of violence are striking, but without being fully rooted throughout the scenes, they are easily overpowered by the good-humoured bickering and the raucous silliness of the rest of the night’s events.
Mariah Gale’s Bottom is a comedic highlight, boisterously taking charge of her fellow craftsmen, her donkey sounds escaping from her like hiccoughs. She softens the role too, turning Bottom’s moment of realisation upon waking into a gentle lament; when she says “methought I had – ” and flails for words, it is not the physical tail or ears of an ass she is thinking of, but the brief, shining instance of love she has now lost.
There is little cohesion to the chaos. Nothing can match the boldness of Terry’s performance, and the magic can’t quite find its feet with the fairies. But this ensemble piece is full of bright, playful moments, and the flighty charm of the play’s woodland shenanigans breezes this Midsummer night along.
At Shakespeare’s Globe, London, until 12 August
