The prospect of international collaboration is always exciting for the theatre, which is always finding new ways to make things work, to engage that audience, to flesh out that script, to meet that budget in the best possible way. Thus – and especially for those who saw the 2012 production of Man in a Suitcase from the same director and collaboration – the glorious romp of A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings the baggage of anticipation. That is not always a useful business and indeed the “open mind and an open heart” approach, counselled by Artistic Director Ross Gumbley in his programme note, is the only way to come to this production. 

Setting aside the familiarity of this favourite romantic mix-up and the range of interpretations many of us will have come across (such as the feminist reading of the way women in the play are treated or the way power and status operate), what is the fresh perspective Joseph Graves offers us and with what success? 

The dream and the bed are at its heart, underpinning design choices as well as the shaping of the play. Bottom’s Dream begins and ends the scene arrangements. The “Are we all met?” piece wherein the wonderful Mechanicals set up their own play, is what we see first, instead of the pomp of Theseus and Hippolyta. In place of the accompanying grand ducal music which often announces the court, we have a chorus of tradesmen’s tools at work, led by the eerily beautiful sound of Bottom’s saw, making music, not cutting wood.

The visual scene is similarly enterprising. At its centre is a grand wooden bed /stage /bank which will move about and furnish every location. The actors are spaced not as a natural group, but already well spread – each in his own dream perchance? – which makes Bottom’s “Masters, spread yourselves” seem the instruction of a man who is already out of touch with what the rest of the company is doing. 

It is an ambitious approach then, well supported by Derek Miller’s set design and splendid lighting (long shafts from above or low at the sides) from Shego Wang. Ryan Hooper’s clever sound design and a carefully neutral costumes from Joel Ebarb complete the work of an harmonious creative team. The reverie, at once familiar and fantastical, is realised in fresh terms. 

A special note in the programme should alert the audience to the huge challenge faced by the seven Chinese actors who play the lovers as well as Oberon, Titania and Puck. For many, we are told, English is their third language. But given audiences cannot – should not? – be relied upon to read a programme, or even buy one, the heavily accented language and staccato delivery are likely to pose a problem. They do, however, bring a strangely surreal quality to the dialogue, not incompatible with the whole dream experience, and the fragmented rhythms are to some extent resolved by bold physical moves.   

Oberon (Shi Li) commands real authority and imbues the role with an exotic and slightly sinister presence to considerable effect. Similarly, the wild energy and distinctive voice of Puck, played by Dan Ni Zhao, creates a fresh note for a role so often seen as merely that of mischief maker. 

The stand out scene, though, belongs to the same Mechanicals who initiate the play. The Tragical Comical tale of Pyramus and Thisbe, where their own ideas of entertainment are given free rein, is an uproarious success.

Colin McPhillamy embodies the bumbling anxiety of the Peter Quince director role, struggling to have his cast meet the grand occasion of multiple nuptials which brings the romantic plot to a happy conclusion. Dan Bain is plain speaking Tom Snout, Wall. Stephen Papps has the tricky Moon role given to Robin Starveling and Guy Langford, gorgeously bewigged as Francis Flute playing Thisbe, is attacked by Rutene Spooner, a gentle Snug playing fearsome Lion. Together they are are a comic delight.

That leaves Tom Trevella in the key role for the production, that of Bottom the weaver of the stuff of dreams. Playing Bottom playing the most gallant Pyramus, Trevella is in full rant, interspersed with even funnier reassurances to the Duke. As the tradesman who is given a donkey’s head and becomes the love object of Titania, queen of the fairy world, he is robust and inventive. Most appealingly of all he is able to project sincerely the Everyman role which matches Joseph Graves’ vision for the play.

Not Shakespeare of this society or that, but Shakespeare which claims our universal human need to stretch our imaginations and let the dreams take us to brave new places.

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