A Midsummer Night's Dream part 2: The Royal Shakespeare Company 1968

Dear lord, this is a dream cast!

Helen Mirren.

Diana Rigg.

Judi Dench.

Ian Richardson (the guy from the original British House of Cards).

Ian Holm (Bilbo from Lord of the Rings).

David Warner (best known as the Cardassian who tortured Picard).

Clive Swift (Friar Lawrence in the Thames Television/Ann Hasson Romeo and Juliet. He’s also been on Doctor Who twice, I believe).

There will never be a better Helena than Diana Rigg. She’s perfect. She understands every line, every motivation. If you’ve been cast as Helena, watch Diana Rigg. Or maybe don’t. You’ll lose hope.

Helen Mirren is incapable of putting out a bad performance, and she absolutely rocks as Hermia.

If the chemistry between Ian Richardson and Judi Dench (as Oberon and Titania) doesn’t make you blush, their costumes might.

Ian Holm is suitably weird as Puck.

The tragedy of this production is that in contrast to the extremely high quality acting, it appears to have been directed, filmed, and edited by a team of college freshmen taking Filmmaking 100 as an elective.

Tracking shots are hand-held. In the 1935 Max Reinhardt film, you can occasionally see rails on the ground behind James Cagney, which is a little cheesy, but in this one, Diana Rigg is looking straight at the camera, nailing Helena’s monologue, and the image you have is of the cameraman stumbling backwards across the field, desperately trying to point the lens in the right direction.

The splotchy green makeup is more reminiscent of Santa Claus Conquers the Martians than magical forest creatures.

The attempts at special effects are really really bad. I mean, my siblings did better with their production of Scrooge back in the early ‘70s. In fact, the production values of Scrooge compare well to this Midsummer Night’s Dream. Scrooge features characters appearing through jump-cuts. So does Midsummer Night’s Dream. Scrooge has scenes where the lights are pointed straight at the camera. So does Midsummer Night’s Dream. Scrooge has family members playing magical creatures. So does Midsummer Night’s Dream (Fairy and Peasblossom are played by Judi Dench’s nieces). The production team of Scrooge was amateurs aged 1-14. I can’t confirm that this is also true of the production team for Midsummer Night’s Dream, but the evidence on screen points in that direction. The only elements missing are double-exposed scenes and an interlude with the Memorial Day Parade.

So, no, I don’t recommend this version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but if you have to watch it, I suggest you use the smallest screen you can find. The shaky hand-held shots would be bad enough, but it looks like in the transfer from film to DVD, the frames were dancing around, so even where they did use a tripod, the picture is still shaking and bouncing. It’s very distracting on a large screen, but if you shrink the image on your computer, or watch it on your phone, you might be able to get through it without Dramamine.

Romeo and Juliet Part 2 - Kemp-Welch

If you only have time to watch one Romeo and Juliet, this would be a good one to watch. Excellent directing. Excellent acting. Even the fights are believable.

Produced by Thames Television in 1976, and directed by Joan Kemp-Welch, this version is as good a Romeo and Juliet as I expect to see. 

I don’t know how old Ann Hasson was in 1976. IMDB.com has no biographical information about her, and if she wants her privacy, that’s fine. She looks to me to have been in her early twenties, but she easily passes as thirteen. If there were a Fantasy Shakespeare League, I would have her on my team to play Juliet. Her performance is excellent. Casting Juliet is a huge problem. For one thing, Shakespeare makes it clear that she’s thirteen years old - almost fourteen - and (at the beginning of the play) thinks of herself as a child. So obviously, you should cast a child actress. But good luck finding one that can play this role! Shakespeare, of course, was writing it for a teenage boy, but that’s neither here nor there. By the end of the play at least, Shakespeare wrote Juliet so that you could believe her to be anywhere from seventeen to twenty-two. I suspect most casting directors look for an actress in her early twenties and hope that the audience will play along and believe that she could be thirteen. Ann Hasson pulled it off. If you want to know how to play Juliet, watch Ann Hasson. 

(By the way, based on her performance in True Grit, I have high hopes for Hailee Steinfeld, who will be seen as Juliet in a Romeo and Juliet scheduled to be in theaters in October 2013. Here’s the trailer: http://www.imdb.com/video/imdb/vi3520702745/.)

Christopher Neame is a very active Romeo. Unlike Alex Hyde-White, he understood the words coming out of his mouth. He and David Robb (Tybalt) appear in the special features discussing their memories of the production. Apparently they were in school with Robin Nedwell (who kills it as Mercutio) and fight coordinator William Hobbs. 

I also gave to mention the excellent performances of Clive Swift as Friar Lawrence (who you’ll recognize from at least two appearances on Doctor Who) and Patsy Byrne, who is now my Fantasy Shakespeare League Nurse. You’ll recognize her from playing essentially the same character in Blackadder II.

This production currently ranks as my favorite Romeo and Juliet.

Here’s the overall ranking so far:

1. Romeo & Juliet. Dir. Joan Kemp-Welch. Perf. Christopher Neame, Ann Hasson, and Robin Nedwell. Thames Television, 1976. DVD, A&E Television Networks, 2005.
2. Shakespeare Series: Romeo and Juliet. Dir. Larry Sullivan. Perf. Alex Hyde-White, Blanche Baker, and Dan Hamilton. Shakespeare Video Society, 1982. Amazon.com, 15 AUG 2013.