DARTMOUTH SHAKESPEARE WEEK 2018
Lord what fools these mortals be! S
ixteen years ago Dartmouth Shakespeare Week
was born and with it The Inn Theatre Company. We have, over the years, faced many problems and managed, with the support of some amazing people and businesses, to overcome them. But there’s always one thing that has us scratching our heads, year in and year out: what shall we do at the castle next year? We answered the 2018 conundrum by deciding to
revisit one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. It’s been eleven years since audiences at Dartmouth Castle dreamt away an hour or two in the company of Oberon and Titania, the Mechanicals and the Lovers, so we decided that it was high time they renewed the acquaintance: time flies when you’re having fun! Of course, deciding to produce this particular play threw up a conundrum of its own: how do you present something that has been produced so many times, in so many ways, and put your own stamp on it… without it losing its punch and weighing it down with modern ‘messages’? The answer was actually fairly simple: you don’t. You take something (a theme, a character, a line within the play) and use that as a hook on which to hang the whole; in this case, the domestic tiff in which Oberon and Titania are engaged and the line uttered by Puck: ‘Lord what fools these mortals be’. We realised that the conflict between the two lead fae-
ries has been used before, but, as we usually do, we’ve put a slightly different slant on that. Although the ‘little boy, stolen from an Indian Prince’ seems to be the hub of the problem, we decided to take it a step further, look slightly deeper into what may have been actually going on. Faeries, particularly those that were widely believed
in around the time this play was written (1595 or 96 – about the same time as ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and ‘Richard II’ – and scholars disagree as to which of these was written first), were very different beings to those envisaged by Shakespeare. In fact, it is generally accepted that before The Dream was written, faeries were never thought of as tiny, sparkly, merry, non-threatening little things that hid in acorn cups and rode on bumble bees. They were in fact rather more dangerous and a great deal darker than we have been taught. The conflict in our production was born of the idea that, although Oberon is seeking Titania’s Indian boy, it is about much more than that. It is about the transition from the darker, more malevolent faery (which Oberon wishes to remain) to the lighter, sympathetic, more human-friendly
creature which Titania be- lieves they should become. We also wanted to tease a little more comedy from the whole. The Mechanicals, it’s generally accepted, are the real light relief in the play (al- though the lovers have their moments) but we wanted to explore what might happen when the characters more usually associated with serious exposition and general dourness, were allowed to be…well, funnier. We thought we’d poke a little fun in the direction of
Theseus and Hippolyta, Egeus and whoever else we thought could take it! What we wanted to do was create something that, whilst fun and amusing, had the air of threat to it; the thought that, perhaps, it could turn on a sixpence at any moment, being almost farcical one second then actually a little scary the next. All the humans in this production are the butt of somebody’s joke – usually the faeries and, more particularly, Puck – ‘Lord what fools these mortals be’. But please, don’t take it personally! We hope to present you with a production that is, so we
have been told on many occasions, ‘…right up there with anything you can see at The Globe’ (thank you) and this year there are many new faces in the company which we are very excited and very pleased to welcome. For some, it’s their first foray into Shakespeare or their first open-air production or both, but rest assured, it’s not their first time on stage and they, along with the familiar faces you may see, are really looking forward to giving you the best possible version of our interpretation of ‘The Dream’. This is the 16th successive year that Shakespeare has been presented in the magical surroundings of Dartmouth Castle and patrons have seen comedy (As You Like It; The Taming of the Shrew), tragedy (King Lear; Othello), love stories (Romeo and Juliet; Much Ado About Nothing), adventure (The Tempest; Macbeth) and modern dress Shakespeare (The Merry Wives of Windsor) all presented by the talented and dedicated people who make up The Inn Theatre Company. And if you feel you’d like to get involved , in any
capacity, with us, please drop us a line…all the information you need is below. And, once again, thank you so much for all your support and we all really hope to see you up at the Castle sometime between 24th and 28th July. Come and join us and experience the magic, not only of The Dream but that of Shakespeare.
Tickets can be obtained from the company website:
www.theinntheatrecompany.co.uk • Email:
theinntheatrecompany@gmail.com Facebook:
www.facebook.com/inntheatre • Twitter: @inntheatre Instagram:
www.instagram.com/theinntheatrecompany
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