After a train journey
consisting of a woman shouting at us- don’t ask- which resulted in us moving
seats in what felt like a dreary game
of musical chairs, we were happy to finally be in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The main purpose of the day was to see a
performance of the Shakespeare play ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at the Royal
Shakespeare Theatre. This all sounds
quite pleasant, I am sure, but we faced one problem when watching it that threw
us off guard. The play was an adaptation
of the normal story, but more importantly.... it was in Russian.
Of course there would
be subtitles, but the play itself was like nothing I had ever seen before. Normally, A Midsummer Night’s Dream revolves
around the adventures of four young lovers in a forest- Hermia & Lysander
and Helena & Demetrius- who end up falling in love with the wrong people
due to the interference of Puck- a mischievous fairy servant. On top of that, the King of the Fairies-
Oberon, is jealous of the attention his queen Titania is paying to a human boy
she is taking care of, and decides to get Puck to use a magical flower that
will make her fall in love with the first thing she sees. This hilariously results in her falling madly
in love with Bottom the weaver, who at this point has the head of a donkey due
to a spell that Puck cast upon him.
Needless to say that none of this happened in the performance that I
saw.
The third story in the
play is the one that the Russian actors and actresses portrayed in their
performance. A basic overview is that a
group of workers are rehearsing a humourous play about two lovers, Pyramus and
Thisbe to perform for the Duke Theseus on his wedding day, only they are ill
prepared and things begin to go wrong.
When the actors and actresses initially came out on the stage, bumbling
and making the audience laugh, I sat back, thinking that this would be an easy
play to watch. Oh how wrong I was. The thespians left the stage, only to return
half dressed, carrying their trousers, shoes and other clothes and for five
minutes, we watched them awkwardly get dressed in front of the audience. The majority of these people were middle aged
to old men- so you could imagine my discomfort.
I understand that they were playing characters that were unprepared for
the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe, but I could have done without seeing
some half naked fifty year old men
and their hairy legs, thank you very much.
As the play progressed,
I began to wonder which man would play Pyramus, whilst it was fairly obvious
that the only woman on the stage would be playing Thisbe. Once again, I was wrong. The actors started huddling around what
looked like the bags criminals shove dead bodies in when you’re watching a
crime film, pottering around and putting different parts together. Bewildered as a cat when it sees its
reflection in the mirror for the first time, I watched them attach different pieces
of old metal together to make a giant person, which I then realised was
supposed to be Pyramus. They did the
same for Thisbe, the actors using metal rods to make it look like Pyramus and
Thisbe were interacting with each other.
I was slightly annoyed that there was no dialogue between the two and
only the giving of flowers, but a little, energetic Russian actor described
what happened after each interaction, to my relief, so things began to make
sense.
However, like a flash
of a light, my little Russian friend had disappeared and I was left to work out
what was going on by myself, which at times, was impossible. In fairness to the actors that I saw, they
did tell the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, however it was only when I read in
depth about the story afterwards that the play I saw began to make even a
morsel of sense. At times, I would look
around the theatre in search of anyone else who was as baffled as I was. In a sea of delighted and sometimes nodding
appreciatively elderly folk, on the upper tier I noticed a man with his two
sons. These boys couldn’t have been any
older than eight or nine, and their expressions of utter confusion brought joy
to my eyes. Yes, they were only children
who had no hope of understanding the play, but I felt like I wasn’t alone-
there were others who didn’t get it! I continued looking around the audience to
see a teenage boy, about my age, looking just as puzzled as me, possibly questioning
if he was actually seeing ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and not a different, very
weird, play.
Towards the end of the
play, I saw a bit of hope when my guardian angel returned, saying- in Russian,
of course- that they would now translate what had just happened so that it
would make a bit more sense. My prayers
had been answered; the last hour of operatic singing between two mechanical
people would finally make sense. One by
one the thespians returned to the stage, but to my dismay, began making all
sorts of strange noises that were in fact complete gibberish.
If you’re looking for a
moral to the story, maybe it could be to check whether a play is in your language
or if it is going to make sense to you before you see it. Despite spending the
rest of the day in a state of confusion, I can’t deny that Chelsea and I had a
great day. We had ventured out to an
unknown land, found our way around this mysterious place and seen a hilarious
play- even if it was only hilarious because we couldn’t understand it. I take my metaphorical hat off to those
Russians- never before have I watched a play I didn’t understand and come away
from it with a big smile on my face. In
my day at Stratford, I learnt that an adventure worth having is one that
teaches you that life doesn’t make much sense... so you might as well just laugh
at it.
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