Shakespeare’s Globe, London
Goody-bag props, party-hatted fairies and a donkey-shaped piñata sweeten the bard’s dark comedy in a revival of Sean Holmes’s vibrant 2019 production
A donkey-shaped piñata dangles above the stage. It’s a decent metaphor for this play’s colourful, sweet-centred festivities amid destruction. A Midsummer Night’s Dream chimes with lockdown nightmares of confinement and separated lovers, the discombobulation of a world turned upside down and climate chaos. But the Globe throws a party instead, reviving Sean Holmes’s ebullient 2019 Dream, vibrantly designed by Jean Chan, as the venue reopens for the first time since the pandemic hit.
Nicholas Hytner, Dominic Hill and Joe Hill-Gibbins have all recently drawn out the play’s more troubling aspects; here we have bright bursts of dance, brass musicians (from Hackney Colliery Band) who are partial to blasts of Jimi Hendrix, and goody-bag props including bubble guns, water pistols and starry headbands. It’s a fun night, lovably silly with some smart surprises, but doesn’t spin that difficult, delicate web required to let this enchanting play do more than amuse.
