Theatre Royal, November 5
5/10
What a shame. Given that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was Shakespeare’s first masterwork, you’d think that even when bastardised into pop musical, it had half a chance of being better than this. At the very least you might expect it to improve upon Bell Shakespeare’s premiere production of The Lovers three years ago.
Wrong on both counts.
It’s not that Laura Murphy’s musical is without merit (including using Shakespeare’s dialogue), but this revamped Shake & Stir production dilutes those strengths. As I said three years ago, the decision to expunge Titania and Bottom leaves only Oberon and perhaps Puck of Dream’s most enthralling characters because three of the four lovers are surely among the play’s dullest, Helena being the exception.
Murphy, alas, has used the same cookie-cutter on Helena as the other three. Worse, there’s no delineation of character in the songs they sing, which are wretchedly samey, with their confection of pop choruses, heavy metal power chords, screeching climaxes and some rapping to show they’re hip.
While the diaphanous glories of Oberon’s verse lie in some gutter, Murphy still gives us an Oberon of interest, played by Stellar Perry, who stole the show in the same role for Bell Shakespeare. In director Nick Skubus version, she’s been reduced to a sexy cowgirl trope, but at least Perry gives Oberon presence and a voice.
The rest struggle to find definable characters. Jason Arrow must have come down to earth with a thump going from playing Hamilton to playing Murphy’s Demetrius. (To go from Hamilton to Shakespeare’s Demetrius would still be a let-down!) Natalie Abbott reprises her Bell Shakespeare role of Hellena, to no advantage, and Loren Hunter plays Hermia. They’re joined by Mat Verevis as Lysander and Jayme-Lee Hanekom as Puck, the latter’s characterisation having no discernible puckishness.
The sound-mix made the lyrics unintelligible whenever the band (under Heidi Maguire) stamped on the loud pedal, which was often. When you could hear them, the characters expressed their baldest feelings, with no trace of self-deception, irony or nuance. Even the Sex Pistols had a stab at irony.
Compounding the problem, there are 33 songs. Whatever happened to the days of musicals were rigorously workshopped? Surely someone could have pointed out that with these songs the story grinds to a halt each time anyone sings, and that a dozen might reasonably be cut, allowing the odd extra glimpse of Shakespeare’s glistening verse.
A well-performed Dream – which is too rare – is all lightness and air, as well as being hilarious. Murphy is reduced to relying on f-bombs for laughs. When Marcel Duchamp put a moustache on a reproduction of the Mona Lisa a century ago, there was wit in the vandalism. Skubij’s production wallows in a vulgarity of conception, music and design. Sometimes one wondered exactly what would be happening without the dry ice and the cascading glitter. Teens, perhaps, might lap it up.
Until November 16.
https://www.theatreroyalsydney.com/events/season-2025/the-lovers/