A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
June 1991
 

Cumbernauld News - “What better to do on a midsummer night”
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An extra touch of class comes to Cumbernauld Youth Theatre this season.  For one thing they are tackling a play by the Bard himself, William Shakespeare’s comedy, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Better still, they have enlisted the services of a professional director to give the production that extra sparkle.

Edinburgh based Benjamin Twist, has worked at the city’s famous Traverse Theatre, as well as with TAG Theatre and Merry Mac Fun Co.

The cast members are aged between125 and 21.  With a 14-strong cast the numbers are about right, since Shakespeare apparently worked with a company of 16.

Describing his approach to the production, he said: “we have done it very simply, with just words and music”

“The themes of the play are just right for a youth audience,” says Benjamin “love, sex and marriage”

“It’s a good story about things young people will be interested in.  It should be an enjoyable evening for the audience.”

The production runs from Thursday to Friday, June 20-22, at the Cumbernauld Theatre.

The performance starts at 7.45 p.m., tickets are £3, £1,50 concession.

Appropriately enough June 21 is midsummer night, the shortest night in the year, and said to be a natural time for magical happenings.

A Midsummer Nights Dream is one of Shakespeare’s lightest comedies, a fantastical romance based around a quarrel between the King and Queen of the Fairies.

Into this walk various star-crossed lovers, from the nobles to commoners.

After the usual complicated plot convolutions, all is resolved to everyone’s satisfaction – no duels, no envenomed blades, and no vengeful ghosts, slain Kings or bloodstained hands.

Just good clean family entertainment!

Midsummer is the perfect time to become lost in Shakespeare’s magical world of love, magic and woodland spirits.

“A Midsummer Nights Dream” was Cumbernauld Youth Theatre’s summer production, performed at Cumbernauld Theatre last week.

Remembering the weeks spent struggling through the play in a stuffy classroom, I wasn’t sure what to expect from the production.

The stage was simply but effectively lit, bereft of props, and peopled with actors dressed in shorts T-shirts and mini skirts.

This absence of traditional Shakespearean costume may have denied the play some immediate impact.  But once introduced to the characters such doubts began to disappear.

Any Shakespeare play is difficult for an actor to master, whether amateur or proffessional.  The language is difficult, and is not always easy to under stand.  But Cumbernauld Youth Theatre managed to cross all those barriers.

Cheryl Robertson played the part of Hermia, Lysander’s lover, with great feeling and looked genuinely relaxed in her role.  When spurned by Lysander because of imp Puck’s mischievousness, Hermia’s intense and bewilderment was so powerful, the atmosphere on stage could have been cut with a knife.

Keith Sharp, who player Lysander, at First looked a trifle uncertain, but comfortably settled into his part by the second act.

Paul Osborne, as Oberon, made a good King attempt at the role, although lacking some of the power needed as King of the Fairies.  His Queen Titania, Debbie Murry, was convincing as the love-struck pursuer of Nick Bottom.

Michael Ahearn gave an excellent performance as Bottom, and mastered the difficult comedy role admirably.  As the ass of the play, he brayed and trotted about the stage to appreciative spectators.

Lesley Stokes played puck, Oberon’s dogs body, with tremendous enthusiasm.  She potrayed the menace with relish, and had every one giggling when she tormented poor old Bottom by pulling his Donkey ears.

The cast raised many laughs with the play’s ridiculous twists and turns, but also captured the feelings of the audience at the more serious and tense moments.

All in all a vast improvement on a text book – and the Bard would have been proud.

CAST: Theseus – Joste Bowen; Hippolyta – Caroline Mullen; Egeus – Sharon Penn-Dunnett; Hermia – Cheryle Robertson; Lysander – Keith Sharp; Demetrius – Anthony Q Keirnan; Helena – Nova Stevenson; Oberon - Paul Osborne; Titania – Debbie Murray; Puck – Lesley stokes; Peter Quince – Suzanne Fleming; Nick Bottom – Michael Ahearn; Francis Flute – Carol McCabe; Robin Starveling – Sharon Penn-Dunnett.

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