A Midsummer Night's Dream

After it's been through hundreds of different settings and thousands of different interpretations, it's hard for directors to come up with original concepts for William Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream". As a result, we either get productions with highly original concepts that are terribly distasteful or we get a rather conventional interpretation that leaves us bored.

Adrian Noble has tried to transfer this masterpiece from the stage to the screen, and I'm afraid that he doesn't do a particularly good job. The concepts are original and quite intriguing, but the movie itself lacks the dynamism that this play has when performed on stage. The concept of adding The Boy is in my mind great, especially for the movie. Otherwise, I find the settings bland and monotonous.

The Royal Shakespeare Company does an excellent job in acting (of course they do - it's the RSC!) and I would love to see this performed on stage. As for the movie . . . not incredibly satisfying.

This is a fantastic play.With the exception of Daniel Evans, who's strong Welsh accent becomes grating when reciting Shakespeare, so were the players.Congrats to RSC on keeping the original idea of each actor playing two characters.They could've easily gone the easy route.However, you lose all that in the presentation.The bright colors and bizarre props( bubbles,bicycles,umbrellas etc)distract from the actors.The whole thing has a very sixties acid trip vibe. Thumbs up for Barry Lynch. He made an excellent Puck.And Philostrate. I recommend the version with Stanley Tucci over this one, however. now they're saying I need at least ten lines which I thought I had but o well, I'll try to fix it.

I would have liked to have seen this production on the stage without the introduction of a boy whose ambiguous presence is supposed to give the production its "dream-"like quality. I'm afraid, as the other reviewers here have noted, a well-intended and, for the most part, well acted version of one of the Bard's best known and most loved romps, alas, fall flat. The RSC is great but I found the presentation of Alex Jennings in the double role of Theseus and Oberon to be unconvincing. His facial expressions reminded me of one who's stepped out of the loo remarking about the lack of potty-paper. Lindsay Duncan, is lovely and fun in her double role as is the feckless Bottom given in fun by Desmond Barrit. Finbar Lynch's Puck has a darkness not often seen in other presentations but it works. My only quibble besides Mr. Jennings perpetual sneer and the wandering (as another reviewer here noted, a Macaulay Culkin look-alike) kid, is the flatness of the effects-- which I'm sure, worked wonderfully on the stage. Cross-overs into other media can be tough. All in all, an earnest albeit not wholly satisfying effort as earlier versions or the one two years later.

This film is based on a wonderful stage production that was staged by the RSC in 1994. On stage it was superb, and I think of it as one of the best times I've ever had in the theatre.

The film, however, is a complete mess. All the effects that were so magical in the theatre - the forest of lightbulbs, the flying umbrellas, the mysterious doors - look ridiculous when they're turned into bad computer graphics. And although some of the performances are good - especially Alex Jennings and Des Barritt - the pacing of the film seems poor. In particular, the mechanicals scenes are stilted and unfunny - and 'Pyramus and Thisbe' is mangled with poorly-timed slapstick and glooping sentimentality. And most annoyingly of all, Noble introduces a Macauley Culkin lookalike, who runs around being wide-eyed and imaginitive, infusing the film with unnecesary Hollywood schmaltz.

I regard this film as a brave, but poorly-executed attempt at translating faithfully a stage production to film. It doesn't really work, but at least Noble's vision is more imaginitive than the other films of the 'Dream'. And bad though the film is, it's still better than the ghastly Michelle Pfeiffer / Kevin Kline version, which should be avoided like the plague.

Though many praise this version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, I find it strange, creepy, and hilarious. Maybe I can't appreciate it because I'm only in high school, but after studying the play, the movie was not what I expected. Though it looks like it was produced in someone's basement while they were under the influence, most of the movie is just funny. Many of Shakespeare's dirty jokes are stressed, and that's the strange part. Also, the boy supposedly dreaming this enters whenever he pleases. Not only is he annoying, but he looks about 6 or 7. I hope my 6 year old never dreams about the content in A Midsummer Night's Dream, especially the way it's portrayed in this reproduction. Weird!!!