I really want to write about the Indian Midsummer Night’s Dream we saw at the Roundhouse last night (note the link is a bit fat on the bandwidth). It was certainly the lushest Shakespeare I’ve ever seen, with iridescent silk costumes, an ultra-sexy Titania, a live Indian orchestra, and rope acrobatics, but … but … well, as a start, only 1/3 of the spoken language was comprehensible (I had no idea they weren’t going to subtitle the Hindi/Bengali/Tamil etc.), and that really detracted from my ability to plug into the show.
But also … I wasn’t seeing a lot of acting, but I was seeing a lot of spectacle and hearing a lot of bellowing into the cavernous depths of the Roundhouse. And for spectacle, I don’t think the price I paid was bad (£15), but … I like to leave theater feeling moved and losing myself in the story and it just didn’t happen, even though I admired how it was performed and the fun they had with the set. The best part for me were the scenes with Bottom, who was hysterical both as an actor and as a donkey.
That said, I got to see it with TheKumquat, Spikeylady, Booklectic, AdjectiveMarcus, Envoy, J and Wechsler, and with so many great people with me, I couldn’t help but consider this an evening very well spent. Thanks for coming out, guys!
(This review is for a performance that took place on April 4th, 2007. A much more flattering review can be found on the Guardian‘s website.)
Life in the Cheap Seats - Webcowgirl's London theatre reviews 
February 14, 2009 at 3:04 pm |
[…] said the whole performance took only 90 minutes! (The previous Midsummer I’d seen, at the Roundhouse, seemed to go way too long, and I didn’t want a repeat of that, even on a Friday.) The flyer […]