FestBuzz

What: A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream, by the Bei­jing Film Acad­emy
Where: McE­wan Hall
When: 19:00, August 14 – 23; 14:30, August 16, 22 – 23
How Much: £10 – 12, £35 family

In 140 char­ac­ters or less: “Daz­zling the­atre spec­ta­cle fus­ing magic and tech­nol­ogy — a mod­ern and enchant­ing take on an old favourite.”

For a stan­dard, if well-loved, Shake­spearean play to stand out amidst the end­less options at the Fringe, it must cer­tainly offer some­thing spe­cial. The Bei­jing Film Acad­emy does just this by per­form­ing A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream as viewed through a games con­sole. At first glance this may seem merely a clever gim­mick, but the gam­ing motif is but one ele­ment of a richly daz­zling spec­ta­cle of theatre.

To begin, the royal fairies Tita­nia and Oberon, whose quar­rels spill over into the world of humans, are reimag­ined as gamers toy­ing with the lives and fates of Shakespeare’s hap­less human lovers, now char­ac­ters in a life­like vir­tual world. This proves an intrigu­ingly mod­ern take on the con­cept of fate and the forces that shape our lives. Do video games appeal because they allow us to play God in a world of our own cre­ation? And to what extent does tech­nol­ogy nowa­days con­trol our des­tiny? These are the ques­tions left float­ing as the actors stut­ter, jerk and bounce as though under the con­trol of an invis­i­ble thumb impa­tiently push­ing buttons.

But it is hard to focus too long on the intel­lec­tual impli­ca­tions. This Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream is also a sen­sory treat, with haunt­ing music (includ­ing a Chi­nese ren­di­tion of Scot­land the Brave) and cos­tumes that tread the line between tra­di­tional and futur­is­tic. Ele­gant dance and mar­tial arts are blended seam­lessly into the sto­ry­line and set against the already impres­sive back­drop of McE­wan Hall, which is fur­ther enhanced by ani­mated dig­i­tal imagery from the cre­ators of the open­ing cer­e­monies at the Bei­jing Olympics. This all serves to build a truly mag­i­cal atmos­phere around an oth­er­wise unadorned stage, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cap­ti­vat­ing final scene in which the building’s walls and murals them­selves come to life.

Still, it is the per­form­ers who are this show’s biggest asset. Despite sub­stan­tial sec­tions of the play being per­formed in Man­darin (and those seg­ments in Eng­lish being occa­sion­ally a lit­tle hard to under­stand), the actors all deliver such vibrant, emo­tive per­for­mances that any audi­ence mem­ber with even a pass­ing famil­iar­ity with Shakespeare’s play will be able to fol­low the gen­eral gist. Even when the com­pli­cated plot does become a lit­tle hard to fol­low, the emo­tional pathos of the lovers and enliven­ing scenes of robust phys­i­cal com­edy are still enough amply to engage the viewer. Indeed, the cast proved so com­pelling that my only regret was being unable to under­stand for the most part what they were say­ing, as their voices, expres­sions, and move­ments alone cap­ti­vated my attention.

All in all, the Bei­jing Film Acad­emy have proved with this fas­ci­nat­ing show that great the­atre tran­scends lan­guage bar­ri­ers, and that nowa­days tech­nol­ogy and art can go a long way toward replac­ing the magic miss­ing from our mod­ern world.

Fes­t­buzz Rating:

Words: Domenica Goduto