Seasons Bleetings

As the dog days of summer draw to a close, I suppose we could say this is Lammastide. 

Lammas Day itself was August 1st, but like Christmastide, Lammastide must surely mean the time around Lammas Day, right? 

I think about quarter days and cross-quarter days quite a bit, partially because any family historian with British roots needs to know when Lady Day is. (It's March 25th, and before 1752, it was the beginning of the new year, which makes a difference if you're looking up christening, marriage and burial dates in pre-1752 church registers.) 

However, lately, I've been thinking about Midsummer Day (June 24th). It's probably a mark of how geeky I am, that I think: Well, the middle of summer is surely early August, right? Halfway between the soltice and the equinox? Why isn't Lammas Day called Midsummer Day? This is probably why I shouldn't play Sudoku. 

Last spring, when the plague that has enveloped our planet was just getting started, the National Theatre made about a dozen of its filmed stage productions available online for about a week each. I watched each one, even the ones I'd seen in cinemas, and eagerly awaited one I'd missed -- the Bridge Theatre production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which the NT released on or about June 24th (Midsummertide?) 

In this scene, the Rude Mechanicals are about to rehearse their fractured take on Pyramus and Thisbe, but they need to check if the moon will shine on the following evening. If you've watched this excerpt (and you should), you'll know that the evening they're checking is June 24th. (You might recognize "Mistress Quince", who directs the play-within-a-play, as Felicity Montagu, who plays "Perpetua" in Bridget Jones' Diary among other things.)

While this scene gives a taste of the humour, improvisation, and audience involvement of this production, it doesn't show half the magic of the show.  The fairies, for example, are aerial artists, or have trained extensively for the show.  The music is arranged by Grant Olding, who wrote the songs for One Man, Two Guv'nors (another National Theatre hit). Olding's delightful arrangements of the lullaby to soothe Oberon (yes - Oberon - in this production it's Titania [Gwendoline Christie] who puts her Fairy King [Chris Oliver] under the love spell) is sung by fairy Rachel Tolzman, who describes herself on social media as a trained opera singer and a champion pole dancer.  (Believe me, it explains a lot.)  The lullaby reappears later as a soulful variation, sung by a sultry torch singer  -- who turns out to be one of the most formidable of the Rude Mechanicals, as played by Jamie-Rose Monk.

Most astonishing of all is the beginning of the play, set in a dystopian "Handmaid's Tale" version of Greece, where the Amazonian Hippolyta is encased in a glass cage, facing a forced marriage to the triumphant Theseus.

I, as someone who has loved and watched MND so many times, wondered how on earth they would make the transition from fear and oppression to the light-hearted comedy, how Hippolyta and Theseus would transform into Titania and Oberon. To see how - and it really is remarkable - you can subscribe to National Theatre at Home for a reasonable rate to see this play (until, I believe, Midsummer Day 2022), and a couple of dozen other National Theatre productions.  Different recordings are added each month, and the beauty of the service is that you can return to productions time and time again - which is how I made most of my realisations about this MND, including the key to transitioning out of the rather terrifying and wildly creepy first scene: consent.

I believe the word "consent" is only mentioned in the first scene where Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius.  However the reason, we can relax and laugh is that, time and time again, there is a act of consent.  My favourite is the rather adorable moment when Bottom (Hammad Animashaun) agrees to go off with Oberon, but it needs to be seen to be appreciated.  See it.  See the other National Theatre production available online.  (They do need to make more comedies available; we're still in the midst of a ruddy pandemic.)

Meanwhile, I may ruminate on "In the Bleak Midwinter", and how I think we really should sing it at Candlemas, which actually is the middle of winter.

I won't burden you with that, I promise.