Midsummer Night's Dream

Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream ; Oberon and Puck (on trapezes) watch Titania and Bottom ; designed by Sally Jacobs. Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream for the RSC is often described as one of the 20th century's most influential productions of Shakespeare, as it rejected many traditional ideas about the staging of classic drama. Shakespeare's play is set in Athens and a fairy-inhabited forest nearby. Brook's aim was to reject the 19th-century traditions of realism and illusionism in the theatre, and focus instead on locating the play in 'the heightened realm of metaphor'. As such, he avoided any realist scenery or props. Instead, the set, designed by Sally Jacobs, was a simple white box, with no ceiling and two doors. In Stratford, black drapes were hung above the box to hide the stage machinery ; on tour, Brook decided to remove them, leaving stagehands and lighting technicians visible. The purpose of this was to return the stage to the simplicity of the Elizabethan theatre, in which there was little scenery and the sense of location was generated by the poet's words. However, this approach was blended with modern elements: the trees of the forest were represented by giant slinky toys, and Titania's bower was a huge red feather. The fairy magic was represented by circus tricks. For example, the fairies entered on trapeze bars, and the love potion that Puck fetches was a spinning plate on a rod, which Puck handed to Theseus from a trapeze fifteen feet above the stage. When Bottom turned into an ass, he acquired not the traditional ass's head, but a clown's red nose. The costumes were non-Athenian and non-English Renaissance. Instead, they were a colorful mixture of elements from different times and places. Oberon wore a purple satin gown. Puck wore a yellow jumpsuit from the Chinese circus. The mechanicals were dressed as 20th-century factory workers. The young lovers looked like 1960s 'flower children' in tie-dye shirts and ankle-length dresses