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 productions 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.

Dreaming past midsummer

Photo: David Bukach

I have been well "Shakespeared" this summer: two Tempests - one on a warm summer's evening in the park a short walk from our Hades home, and one during an actual tempest in a leaky tent at Ogden Point in Victoria; A Comedy of Errors as envisioned by A Company of Fools channeling Dr Seuss at Strathcona Park in Ottawa; Romeo and Juliet by the light of a not-quite-full moon amid the Garry oaks on the Lansdowne Campus of Camosun College in Victoria. I didn't make it to the Hamlet by "Victoria's Shakespeare by the Sea", so instead of six summer Shakespeare plays, I'm only seeing five.

Last night, the Resident Fan Boy, younger daughter and I made our way to Camosun College to see A Midsummer's Night Dream, the other production of the Victoria Shakespeare Festival. It's our seventh summer seeing VSS's plays; they've been doing them for something like 25 years.

There was pre-play entertainment from singer Colleen Eccleston, whom I remember as a young and rather flaky folk-singer doing pre-shows for concerts. She's now rather older and still a bit flaky. She used to sing a rather ghastly ditty which began: "I apPRECiate the sensitive man…" The songs tonight were a mix of her own compositions and standards, not a sensitive guy among them, thank goodness.

The play began with eerie flutes and strumming guitars, and odd drum rhythms.  I recognized the musicians as actors who had speaking roles in the Romeo and Juliet the week before.  I also recognized the fairies, mostly female with at least one uninhibited male, clad in colourful skirts and body stockings with outlandish headdresses, trilling and whooping, as befitted unsettling Shakespearean sprites.  The body stockings were soon concealed under Athenian robes as we launched into the romantic conundrum that begins the play.  Theseus and Hippolyta did a quick change to appear in elaborate costumes as Oberon and Titania quarrelling over the young boy that Oberon wants as a servant.  Soon the "rude mechanicals" began their rehearsal and Bottom - played with perfect comic timing by Paul Henry Oppers - was a hilarious trial to beleaguered Peter Quince - played by Taylor Lewis.  Neither of these gentlemen had appeared in the Romeo and Juliet, and they added a welcome energy to the company. I had enjoyed R&J, mind you, but this play excelled in its ensemble work.  It's always been one of my favourites, anyway, and this turned out to be one of the best VSS productions I've seen

At intermission, I entertained myself by listening in to the debate in the row behind me.  A boy flatly informed his mother that "the part in the beginning never happened; it wasn't in the book."  The "book" to which he was referring ("with Shakepeare's words") had to be a stripped-down version of MND, focussing mainly on Bottom.  Being thirteen or so, this fellow had no patience with his mother when she assured him that this was the authentic play.

Once the lovers were sorted out, Titania and Oberon reconciled, and everyone who needed wedding married off, we were treated to the "rude mechanicals"' mangling of Pyramis and Thisbe.  Susie Mullen, who had been an admirable Nurse in R&J, made a lovely Wall.

The RFB, younger daughter and I made our way back to the house-sit through the dark, under a canopy of summer stars.

Photo: David Bukach

The Bard of Avon meets the Fab Four

I spent all day waiting for the thunderstorm, taking the Accent Snob for walks while nervously scanning the lowering sky and wearing too much clothing for the oppressive sticky heat. The storm arrived at dinnertime, sheets of rain, flashes and claps very close together. The Accent Snob cowered in front of my knees under the desk as I worked. Finally, shivering, he wedged himself under a neighbouring chair. When the storm passed, I strolled out past torn off branches and watched the pavement beside Rideau Hall mist and steam in the considerable heat of the setting sun. Spring has hoisted her skirts and fled.

I feel too wrung out to write much, but I stumbled across this gem while looking for Yellow Submarine stuff last night, and showed it to my delighted younger daughter after dinner this evening. Shakespeare and the Beatles! Two of her favourite things ever! (Elder daughter shrugged and said she'd seen it on Tumblr ages ago.)One of the hecklers is Long John Baldry, well-known to Canadians because he eventually settled in Vancouver. (I may be mistaken, but two of the other hecklers look very much like Peter Cook and Eric Burdon.) The actor who opens "Pyramus and Thisbe" (the play-within-a-play from A Midsummer Night's Dream) is Trevor Peacock, most famous these days for playing Jim Trott in The Vicar of Dibley (the no-no-no-no-guy).

However, he has a huge and impressive CV in classic theatre, and on top of that, he's a song-writer. Probably his best known ditty is "Mrs Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter" which became a big hit for Herman's Hermits in 1965:
A whole story within a wistful little song. If you're interested, compare it with the original, sung in 1963 by none other than Tom Courtney with images of a very young Julie Christie: That's enough of the sixties for now, innit? I think I'll delve a bit into the nineties tomorrow.

A mid-autumn week's dream

When the Resident Fan Boy was still in hospital, one of the things he was most worried about was the prospect of missing Spamalot and A Midsummer Night's Dream at the National Art Centre this week. It would have been a great pity if he had missed the glorious silliness of the former, but, oh dear, thank goodness we didn't miss the latter!

This MSND is the Dash Arts production featuring an Indian and Sri Lankan cast, most of whom are quadruple threats: they can sing, dance, act, and do acrobatics. No, wait...quintuple threats. They do all this in several languages, and this was the cause of a minor controversy here in Ottawa. An enterprising co-worker of the Resident Fan Boy set up a group-rate for the office, then sent out a warning e-mail with an offer to cancel the tickets when it was reported that some people were walking out. Apparently the issue was that this Dream is performed in eight languages including (Shakespearean) English, Tamil, Sanskrit, and Hindi among others. Actually, this was only a problem if you are unfamiliar with the play and you could probably work out much of what was going on from the eloquent body language, although I was silently grateful I had shown some tapes of MSND to younger daughter beforehand, both for my sake and hers. I had a quiet giggle listening to a couple behind me in line for the washrooms at the interval. She knew the play and, although he was claiming some knowledge, he muttered something about Coles Notes.

Anyway, I was enchanted, entranced, mesmerized. The actors seemed to switch seamlessly between languages (rather like a lot of Ottawans flip from French to English and back again within the same sentence), so all of a sudden, you'd realize that the words you were hearing were Shakespeare's original lines. The three female leads, Hermia, Helena, and Titania (who doubled as Hippolyta), were the only actors to speak in English exclusively, and what stunned and charmed me was how natural Shakespeare sounds flowing off an Indian/Sri Lankan tongue. What also struck me was the female strength in these characters: Hermia had the confidence of a pretty girl who has always had her way; Helena had the drive that comes from the desperate conviction that Demetrius is the man for her; and Titania had the power of a queen not bound by earthly restrictions and morals -- there was never any doubt that she was not Oberon's equal in every way.

Then there was the physicality of this production. The performers climbed the structures, balanced on platforms, tumbled and twirled in the dirt that made up the stage floor. Titania spent a good portion of the end of the second act and beginning of the third act folded up in a hammock like a beautiful crimson chrysalis, a testament to her endurance and flexibility. Much has been made of the sexiness of this production (elder daughter predicted, correctly, that this would fly over younger daughter's head), but it's not a leering sexuality; it's frank, funny, and urgent. When Bottom is transformed, he not only sports woven ears, but a wooden phallus hanging from his belt. Given the gentle, innocent fallibility of the character, we only hope that he will enjoy his erotic adventure -- which he does.

The cast were uniformly wonderful, but I particularly enjoyed Vivek Mishra, a Delhi actor who captured Peter Quince's exasperation, but also danced with expressive fluidity. When the cast brought the play to an end in a joyous and contagious song and dance, the audience clapped along spontaneously. I only wish we could have hung around for the impromptu cast discussion afterward, but younger daughter was slipping into a mid-autumn dream of her own. Her outstanding Grade Four teacher (who also taught elder daughter in Grade Five) had been somewhere behind us in the balcony, and caught us before we left in search of a taxi and younger daughter managed a sleepy greeting.

While madly putting holds on various MSND performances prior to the play, I had a chance to re-discover my two very favourite recorded productions, both done within a year of each other. The first is Jonathan Miller's interpretation, done as part of the BBC's Complete Plays of William Shakepeare for television in the late seventies and early eighties. It featured Helen Mirren as Titania, Peter McEnery as Oberon and Nigel Davenport as Theseus, but to my mind, the best thing of all about it was the "eternal quadrangle" of Hermia, Lysander, Demetrius and Helena as performed by Pippa Guard, Robert Lindsay, Nicky Henson, and Cherith Mellor, respectively. Overlapping each others' lines, struggling in muddy water, and bewildered by fairy forces, these are the funniest and most likeable versions of the lovers you're likely to find. I don't think this is available in DVD format outside of Region Two. The other is a 1982 Joseph Papp production for Shakespeare in the Park (Central Park, that is) with William Hurt as Oberon, a very young Christine Baranski as Helena and bizarrely, Emmanuel Lewis as the changeling boy that Titania is protecting. The lovers are very funny here too (their costumes scream "Eighties!!"), and William Hurt is very much William Hurt ("Ill...met...by...moonlight..." -- I always said he must have attended the William Shatner School of Acting), but the Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-a-play is, hands down, the most hilarious rendition you'll see anywhere. Doubt this is available on DVD either. Sigh. See them if you can get your mitts on them, and if the Dash production comes your way (although it seems to have been around the world already), for heaven's sake, go.