A Midsummer Night’s Dream descended upon us in all its summery glory on three consecutive, chilly evenings in November at The British School under the aegis of the Nepal Britain Society. The production celebrated the 400th anniversary of the bard’s death and 200 years of Nepal-Britain friendship and was performed by the New Shakespeare Wallahs.

Inscribed below the play’s title on the brochure that I found on my seat, were the perplexing words, ‘adapted and directed by Greta Rana MBE’. What exactly ‘adapted’ could mean, I wondered, since this was surely going to be a production in the English language! Minutes later Rana herself appeared on stage to explain why she had left out parts of the original play, et voila, walked in Lysander saying “How now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?” to his beloved Hermia. And we realise that the first five minutes at the Athenian court had been erased, and so were the mythic Theseus and Hippolyta. I am not a big fan of tweaking texts that are created by geniuses of their craft. And Shakespeare’s plays are so cleverly balanced that any toying with its content and language usually does them disservice. However, by the time A Midsummer Night’s Dream ended, I had begun to appreciate director Rana’s decision to play around with things: we have more than enough social violence and gender discrimination around us already to not want to reiterate those further. And she did compensate the losses in terms thematic resonances/contrasts that add dramatic edge to the action, as well as the rhythmic swell of emotions by delightfully highlighting the device of staging a play within a play.

Possibly composed in the 1590’s to celebrate an aristocratic wedding in Elizabethan England, A Midsummer Night’s Dream brings together two distinct sets of beings. The gentry, represented by the lovers, and the yeomen class   by the ‘mechanicals’ or craftsmen constitute the realm driven by human socio-economics; a parallel and supernatural realm unfolds through Oberon and Titania (King and Queen of the fairies of the forest), their entourage and of course, the mischievous Puck. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was one of Shakespeare’s most successful plays, probably because of its clever balancing of character pairs, the love intrigues, and the refined craft of its language. We must remember that Elizabethan England was steeped in unchristian lore and Welsh myths of the forest and the supernatural, and having these as integral parts of a play no doubt resonated with its contemporary viewers, irrespective of the pit and the gallery. The forest is also a space outside the city and its laws, a kind of a heterotopia where categories and hegemonies dissolve. That Lysander and Hermia should run to the forest, away from the reach of the state and the community was almost a structural necessity. In recent times, it is the same elements that are putting A Midsummer Night’s Dream in focus again, from the perspective of eco-criticism, and justifies the New Shakespeare Wallah’s choice of production. By freeing the sylvan fairies from demonic associations, Shakespeare seems to have done our anthropocenic era a service.  

Yes, Lysander played by Divya Dev was unexpectedly elegant and courtly. The precision of his gestures matched his improved enunciation and brought us a whiff of Elizabethan courtly grace. He was matched by the very sprightly rendering of Helena by Gunjan Dixit. Her spirited deliveries helped pin the play down to the here and now. My expectation of Akancha Karki was a little thwarted in Hermia—I can’t help feel her fiery nature was a miscast for the role and though Shanti Singh (the wardrobe mistress) did a splendid job otherwise, she should have made Karki’s costume less distracting. Hermia did sparkle on the opening night though in her heated exchange (and cat fight!) with Helena. Utpal Jha’s Demetrius, on the other hand, happily dripped sartorial and gestural flamboyance that was hindered a little by his articulation.

Saguna Shah’s Titania was convincing, if a little staid. The fairy glitter on her brow sometimes matching the glitter of her words brought us rare insights from the world of nature. The women are not served well in this play. They come across as mostly passive, sexualised objects of desire. The speed and ease with which Hermia takes back erring Lysander after having been deserted by him in the forest, says much about the position of women in Shakespearean society. Even Queen Titania had to pay the price of resisting her husband’s will by being made a public fool of—she is reduced to bestiality and her stature is irreparably damaged for she ‘straightway loved an ass’! Oberon, played by Manoj Basnet, was adequate.

The ass brings us to Bottom and the show stealer, resurrected for the Kathmandu stage by Aashant Sharma. Sharma was pure brilliance in terms of vitality and stage presence as he alternated between Bottom, the ass and Pyramus, the lover. He was ably counterpointed by Saroj Aryal’s gender-bending Thisbe. Another strong presence was Chirag Bangdel as Peter Quince. Bangdel’s Quince handled Elizabethan English with an unforeseen ease in vocal inflection.

Desire, its denial and subsequent fulfillment is a theme that holds the comedy genre together. Shakespeare is of course a master at handling plot devices that bring such sexual tensions to a peak: in A Midsummer Night’s Dream the resolution comes through the amending interventions of the rogue, woodland sprite Puck (no doubt mined from Celtic and Welsh myths), who answers to Oberon alone. Avas Karmacharya’s Puck did justice to the mischievous elf through stylized physicality and animally squeaks—features that embody our persisting fear of the extra-sensory and the extra-rational. The demonic potential of wild nature is tamed and served up in joyous festivity at the play’s end, mainly through the reunion of the lovers (the deleted Hippolyta’s wedding to Theseus and Titania’s return to Oberon serve the same on a royal scale) and expectedly reinstitutes our faith in festive fertility and social continuity. But that the Director gave such a special place to the play staged by the ‘mechanicals’ or craftsmen at the end is worthy of note. ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ echoes the story of ‘Romeo and Juliet’ that the playwright seemed to have written around the same time. This brings in an element of challenging self-reflexivity—the comedic resolution of the main action is counterpointed by the tragic end of Pyramus and Thisbe, while the high class position of the main characters are set off by the working class status of the craftsmen. Even the polished, lyrical language spoken by Lysander et al and Oberon’s troupe is boldly underscored by the gibberish that people “which never labour’d in their minds till now” speak as they try and produce a play to please the nobility. The laughter works at different levels too. While it obviously humiliates the mechanicals in front of the nobility, the nobility (the lovers) and royalty (Titania) are not spared either. In fact ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ parodies the lovers’ plight and insidiously punctures any sense of self righteous grandeur that they (and by extension, us, the refined theatre-going audience) might have enjoyed.    

The music and lights were ably handled by Subash Dahal, and makeup by Usha Shakya deserves a special mention. Subash Tamang’s set design was complementary. The New Shakespeare Wallah’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream might have had its loose moments that made it a little less cohesive than it could have been, but it was a success otherwise. It would stand us in good stead to take Puck’s advice, “Gentles, do not reprehend”, for it is no mean feat to have reproduced Shakespeare for a 21st century audience in an alien culture. That too through non-native speakers to boot!