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.

Love's Labour's Lost Part 1 - Moshinsky

I found two versions of Love’s Labour’s Lost were available to me. This post is about the 1985 BBC/Time Life production directed by Elijah Moshinsky.

The play is one of Shakespeare’s Stupid Comedies. The Idiotic King of Navarre decides to take three years off from being king (I guess Navarre pretty much runs itself) to study with three of his friends. In order to concentrate on their studies, they will eat very little, sleep very little, and stay away from women. Somehow this moron has forgotten that a Princess is due to arrive on an official visit, and that she is a woman. The four friends immediately have to break their agreement, meet the princess and her ladies, and fall madly in love. Idiotic comedy ensues, and we’re supposed to pretend it makes sense.

The BBC/Time Life production is set in the 1700s, so there are lots of wigs and lots of powder. The silly costumes work very well with the stupidity of the play.

The shining light of this production is David Warner, best known as the Cardassian who tortured Jean-Luc Picard in season 6 of Star Trek: The Next Generation (http://youtu.be/o_eSwq1ewsU). He is absolutely brilliant as Don Adriano, and plays the love-sick Spanish knight-errant with such realism that he seems to be in a different play. Don Adriano is pretty much the same character as Sir Eglamore from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, so it may be that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men had an actor who was really good in that kind of role (or the audiences were shouting for more Sir Eglamore).

The play breaks down into two ensembles: The Nobles Ensemble, and the far more compelling Villagers Ensemble, comprising Costard, Moth, Dull, Holophrenes, the Curate, Don Adriano de Armado, and Jaquenetta. Holophrenes must be Shakespeare’s parody of every self-important school master he’d ever known. The audience soon learns to cringe when he appears.

In the Pageant of the Nine Worthies scene, the Villagers put on a show for the Nobles. This scene is crucial to the play.  Shakespeare directly compares the two ensembles and all but asks the audience to judge between the two: The Country Bumpkins present noble archetypes from history to the educated nobility, who heckle them mercilessly. The Nobles show poor manners, and the Villagers stand for their own dignity and honor. 

Shakespeare could have written out at least one, but better two each of the King’s men and the Princess’ ladies. If you have Longueville, you’ve pretty much got the same character as Dumaine, and if you have Maria, you’ve pretty much got Katherine. In my opinion, you’re better off without any of them.

Oh, and you’ll recognize Valentine Dyall, who has the walk-on role of Mercade. He played the Black Guardian on Doctor Who back in the 1980s (http://youtu.be/40FQXpJlFiY). He had an amazing voice.