Puck snatches the lovers’ breath from their bodies. They stop mid-sentence, floating under his spell, lanterns shining in the frozen night. Sergo Vares’ malevolent clown, dressed in half tux, half tutu, has chaos in his veins. In this wintery co-production between Headlong and the Globe, comedy and horror sit cheek by jowl, as director Holly Race Roughan conjures a nightmarish take on Shakespeare’s classic dream.
Vares’ crow-like Puck, a nimble shapeshifter, may be the face of the dark deeds in this frosty landscape, but Michael Marcus’s Oberon is the vengeful controller, his every action designed to get his hands on the young girl (Pria Kalsi) in Titania’s care. By shifting the show’s centre of gravity to revolve around this changeling, Roughan brings the play’s brutal undercurrents roaring to the surface.
The King and Queen of the fairies’ feud over the stolen child has shaken up the seasons like a snow globe. This typically summertime show glides smoothly into a winter’s tale on Max Johns’ spotless white set, candles flickering above. Cloaked in luscious, heavy furs, the lost lovers leap at each other’s throats at every opportunity, Demetrius (Lou Jackson) and Helena (Tara Tijani) locked in an aggressive, sultry power play, while a softer, sweeter love moves between Lysander (David Olaniregun) and Hermia (Tiwa Lade).
With magic in the air, CS Lewis’s White Witch could be just about to stumble on stage. But these woods are already full, with our practising players and watchful fairies. The latter are conjured here as black-tulled ballerinas, their melancholic renditions of pop songs the one off-key note in this otherwise aesthetically assured production. Attentive restaurant staff serve as our players, with Danny Kirrane’s head chef Bottom repeatedly stealing the stage. His ass is given no pointed ears but a pair of cloven boots, wrestled on to him by Puck, which have Hedydd Dylan’s gothic Titania hurling herself at his hooves.
When the players finally perform their show, muddles and marriages all sorted, Roughan sets out a strikingly sinister and surprisingly bloody reinterpretation of the finale. Collapsing the distance between the worlds of reality and illusion, this chilling end gives a new, electric explanation for Puck’s apologetic epilogue. “If we shadows have offended,” he says innocently, swinging his legs like a child and ignoring the wet smear of blood streaked across the pristine white snow.
