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The lawns of Booloominbah, UNE
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is Shakespeare’s most performed and arguably most popular play. It is a play rich in comic detail features and some of the Bard’s most well loved characters (Puck, Bottom, The Mechanicals). The play is set in Athens and the surrounding forest. The story revolves around the wedding feast of the Duke of Athens. At the wedding feast a troupe of aspiring actors plan to perform a play. But when they go into the forest to rehearse the play we are drawn into a dark and mysterious world ruled by the fairy king Oberon and his queen Titania. But wait there’s more! Into the forest come four young adventurers looking for love but finding mischief. Much of the humour in the play is evoked through mistaken identity and mismatched love which requires a bit of magic to sort out.
But this play also hides a dark heart. It flirts with issues around the rights and safety of women and children. It makes us question who really rules, who has control, how sure are we to plan our lives safe in the knowledge that we can make those plans happen?
With Booloominbah and town of Armidale as a backdrop to this production we hope to explore the mysterious worlds that live only a heartbeat away from our own. Imagine a world that lives under the floorboards of Booloominbah. What happens when we turn off the lights at night? What creatures creep out from within the walls and under the floor? What stories have they heard and what sense do they make of our lives?
Most performances are in the evening, but there are two daytime performances indoors in Lazenby Hall so that it is easier for more distant schools to travel to Armidale. The performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are preceded by introductory lectures for interested members of the audience, and there is the possibility of arranging for follow-up visits to interested schools by members of the cast, to conduct workshops and to talk about Shakespeare in performance and the staging of this production.
UNE Outdoor Shakespeare Festival |
A Midsummer Night’s Dream |
Othello |
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