A Midsummer Night’s Dream
1968: Peter Hall
This production is really exceptionally odd. The text of the play is treated fairly conventionally, but the dialogue is occasionally rushed and difficult, less as a result of the way the lines are actually delivered than as a result of their cutting — generally regarded as jerky and poor.
Most striking, perhaps, is the very dated visual aesthetic of avant-garde late-1960s filmmaking — rapidfire changes of perspective, shallow-field shots with blurry backgrounds and an assortment of rather cheap-looking effects that don’t really seem to accomplish anything relevant to the story. The sets and costuming, too, bespeak the 1960s more than anything else. The nominal Athens of this play is clearly an English country house of the 18th or 19th century, and the fairies are all portrayed in stages of undress, and in various skin hues of a rather repellent silvery green more evocative of lizards than of the fair folk of English legend.
Nevertheless, the cast is quite noteworthy, and they deliver their lines quite well; the film is worth seeing if only to see the young Diana Rigg, Judy Dench, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, and David Warner, all of whom went on to achieve considerable prominence in other Shakespeare and non-Shakespeare productions in later years.
Bottom: Paul Rogers
Demetrius: Michael Jayston
Egeus: Nicholas Selby
Flute: John Normington
Helena: Diana Rigg
Hermia: Helen Mirren
Hippolyta: Barbara Jefford
Lysander: David Warner
Oberon: Ian Richardson
Philostrate: Hugh Sullivan
Puck: Ian Holm
Quince: Sebastian Shaw
Snout: Bill Travers
Snug: Clive Swift
Starveling: Donald Eccles
Theseus: Derek Godfrey
Titania: Judi Dench
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