Summary
Bell Shakespeare updates A Midsummer Night’s Dream with love, pop — and a dash of Shakespeare. This accessible version of the story has a solid foundation and some bangers to boot.
Bell Shakespeare‘s THE LOVERS, a modern musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, arrives with all the energy of an educational van pulling up to a school. The players emerge from the vehicle, so to speak, with legs akimbo and ready to teach the kids all about love, pop and Shakespeare.
Which is probably no surprise coming from Bell Shakespeare, a company now in its fourth decade of bringing relevant versions of the Bard to Australian audiences. Writer Laura Murphy adapts one of the more famous of the 39 dramatic works, complete with original songs. From the opening number ‘Love Pop and Shakespeare’ — played on and around a giant statue of Shakespeare covered in kisses — it’s clear that Murphy and director Shaun Rennie (Rent, Baby Doll) are settling into a self-aware groove that’s been recently owned by Six and Fangirls.
Murphy takes the threads of the original play and weaves them through the lively soundtrack. In its basic form, Oberon (Stellar Perry) and Puck (Monique Sallé) have spent centuries trying to construct a perfect happy ending between would-be lovers. They strike upon a love quadrangle: Helena (Natalie Abbott) is besotted with Demetrius (Blake Appelqvist), who in turn only has eyes for Hermia (Brittany Shipway). It’s Shakespeare, so Hermia can’t envisage a future without Lysander (Jerrod Smith), despite the strenuous objections of her father (also Sallé). Heartbreak and hilarity ensues.
Most Sydneysiders of a certain age first saw in A Midsummer Night’s Dream the Royal Botanic Gardens, long before physical distancing encourage such outdoor pursuits. That version, cheekily referenced by Puck in this new play, was designed to make the Bard feel less confined to the theatre. Murphy, who began her journey with the material in a high school production, is very keen to reduce those barriers for a modern audience as well, as the characters literally strip away their historic costumes in lieu of street clothes. Her central question is what would a generation used to dating apps make of Shakespeare’s recurrent theme of love.
“Do you remember a time when you didn’t have to swipe right?” asks Oberon in ‘A Story About Love.’ It’s a fun line, one that gets to the heart of Murphy’s approach, although it is made slightly cringey by immediately pondering whether the ‘kids’ are DTL (down to love). It’s here that some of the seams start to show, with the material caught a little bit between audiences. Is it being empathetic to a young audience struggling to find love in a digital age, or is it the musical equivalent of a ‘I’m This Old’ meme?
Murphy is so besotted with this refrain about swiping right that it’s reprised at least twice more throughout the play. They don’t serve as motifs so much as literal showstoppers, meaning that the narrative comes to a screeching halt whenever a song comes on to elucidate things we’ve just seen. It does throw the pacing off a bit, especially given the commitment to (mostly) using huge slabs of Shakespeare’s original text. There are no donkeys to be seen in this production, though.
Which doesn’t mean we should take an inch away from the passionate and insanely talented performers who give it their all. The Voice finalist Perry, in her musical theatre debut, commands the stage as effortlessly as it was a pop show. Sallé as Puck was definitely a crowd favourite, and has one of the more challenging roles in her mixture of rap and other vocals. Familiar face Appelqvist builds on their recent work as a lead with Hayes (Bonnie and Clyde, Brigadoon), while Smith brings the comedy chops.
Staging is minimal, with the aforementioned Bard, a giant heart, or an oversized stuff bear usually one of a handful of things occupying the stage. A clever use of sparsely placed Christmas trees recreates a forest, eliciting some oohs and aahs from the audience. Marg Howell’s costume design is a little bit of a 90s throwback, right down to the Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet t-shirt that Appelqvist was sporting at one point.
THE LOVERS is ultimately a bold attempt at bringing Shakespeare to a different audience. Who that audience might be is a matter of debate. Yet thanks to the terrific cast and some legitimately catchy tunes, Murphy and Rennie have at least a solid foundation for a new direction.
2022 | AUSTRALIA | DIRECTOR: Shaun Rennie | WRITERS: Laura Murphy (based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare) | CAST: Stellar Perry, Monique Sallé, Blake Appelqvist, Natalie Abbott, Brittany Shipway, Jerrod Smith | PRODUCTION: Bell Shakespeare (World Premiere) | RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes incl. interval | RELEASE DATE: 23 October – 20 November 2022
