King's Theatre, Edinburgh
Four stars
It may be a tad early in the year for
Shakespeare's sunniest rom-com to come blinking into the light, but
that hasn't stopped the all-male Propeller company from hitting the
road with the frothiest of double bills, with Ed Hall's productions
of the Dream and The Comedy of Errors playing the King's on alternate
nights. Neither does it stop the array of long-john clad fairies, who
drape themselves about a netting-lined stage before a stripey-tighted
Robin Goodfellow, as Puck is credited here, bursts out of a box feet
first as if from an upside-down toybox come to life.
As the cast of fourteen flit between
the play's three worlds, what follows resembles a 1980s alternative
comedy troupe doing an elaborately choreographed role-play. At first,
Joseph Chance's Robin seems to call the shots, click-clacking chaos
into the four young lovers all-night exploits with a wooden rattle.
Soon it's Darrell Brockis' Oberon who's casting a spell, in a Dream
which requires little of the usual doubling up of parts.
The Mechanicals are a Dad's Army
am-dram group, whose cross-gender casting of Flute as doomed lover
Thisbe is a knowing wink to Propeller's own men-only aesthetic.
Alasdair Craig's gangling Flute goes from stupid boy to Barbie doll
as Thisbe, eventually throwing an almighty strop at Bottom's Pyramus
with a Dr Who scarf that becomes a deadly weapon. Accompanied only by
a bell, a xylophone and some solitary harmonica drawls, this a
knockabout Dream that prompts several ovations for its comic
set-pieces, even as it revels in its own magic before the spell is
ended and Puck must climb back into his box once more.
The Herald, April 18th 2014
ends
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