A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Bard and the Royal Shakespeare Company fight the Swinging '60s to a respectable draw in this production, which does feature nearly all of the text of the play, splendidly _ if often frenetically _ delivered. Director Peter Hall couldn't quite come up with a film equivalent of his famous stage production, which featured modern dress, a stark white set, and imaginative use of trapezes. Instead he picked an approach heavily influenced by the French New Wave and its English imitators, notably Richard Lester. There's lots of jangly, abrupt editing _ which sometimes, as intended, captures the supernatural flitting of the fairies, and sometimes is just annoying. There's lots of talking to the camera, and a certain catch-as-catch-can attitude: shots don't match up, and, although the main action is supposed to take place at night, there's sometimes no effort to disguise the sunlight streaming through the trees. (Of course, perhaps some of this was the result not of artistic decisions, but merely of haste and a tiny budget.) It's somehow a very '60s Athens _ Hermia and Helena wear cute miniskirts, the four lovers get so twig-torn and mud-spattered that they look like refugees from Woodstock, and the fairies look like green-skinned members of a back-to-nature commune. For all the eccentricities, this festive but haunting play is done straight and done well, and the cast ranges from solid to splendid. The two standouts are Diana Rigg (Helena) and Judi Dench (Titania) _ and this is your one and only chance to see the former sucking her thumb and the latter wearing an outfit (consisting mainly of body paint and flecks of vegetation) that Blaze Starr might have found drafty.

There were little jumps and quirks in this production by the Royal Shakespeare Company - but in reality they merely added to the otherworldly and ethereal overall effect. I liked the art design very much and found it charming. The cast was superb - and for those who only know Judi Dench as dowdy or as Queen Elizabeth, in this film she plays the queen of the fairies, Titania, in a costume consisting only of three small leaves! She might have been the sexiest Titania ever.

Yes, there are flaws in editing, lighting and the like. These are probably the results of a relatively low production, and, perhaps of the fact that this was originally conceived as a TV film, and therefore as relatively ephemeral. The superb service given by director and cast to Shakespeare's language and characters far more than make up for any shortcomings. A better production of "Dream", for screen or stage, can hardly be imagined!

A fine, and sadly forgotten, version of Shakespeare's most amusing play. I suppose I am not the only male person who discovered a simultaneous love for the Bard and Diana Rigg in what was (then) a scandalously scantily clad television spectacular. This is, if nothing else, one of the many evidences that the Brits breed actors in a way we don't. The cast, which is by British standards only second-tier, outdoes anything that we could scrape together. Sheer fun; it's us, and not just Shakespeare, in love.

This movie looks like it was hastily committed to film by high school students. The lighting changes constantly so one is never sure whether the scene is intended to be at night or during the day. The fairies appear to be various shades of green at different times. The lovers get muddier and muddier as the story progresses, and the stains migrate around their clothes and faces. The sound is exactly the same wherever the action is. There is a frequent use of jerky stop action to move the scene from place to place and to show fairies moving at the speed of light. The dreadful music is earnestly trying to be avante-garde and succeeding in being cacophonous and out-of-place. The costumes were trendy then but look rather silly now.

The virtually uncut script, an advantage for students, has the disadvantage of occasionally slowing the action to a near stop.

It's a pity because these are great performances by an amazingly talented cast. Helen Mirren's Hermia, less strident than most, Ian Holm's doglike Puck and Judi Dench's near naked Titania are standouts certainly. Best of all for me was Derek Godfrey as Theseus. He brings a lot of dignity and urbanity to a part often played as a pompous bore or a chump. Theseus is given a lot of lines, sadly cut in many productions, which comment on literature and drama. "The best of this kind are but shadows, and the worst no worse, if imagination amend it." You need a fair bit of imagination to amend the shortfalls of this film, but the effort is well worth it.