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A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Northern Echo:
The setting and - on press night, at least - the weather were perfect for this promenade production of Shakespeare's magical play.
Sprite Productions, the company behind this outdoor staging, is a relatively new outfit, but has done wonders assembling the right ingredients in the right order for this spirited show.
If you're going to do outdoor Shakespeare, then the Dream is pretty much a dream of a show as four frustrated lovers are sent hither and thither through the forest as a result of the intervention of King of the Fairies Oberon, and his fleet-footed helper, Puck, as they play dirty tricks on Titania's Queen of the Fairies.
The action begins outside the Palm House and moves onto the lawns, before the audience is led into the woods to witness Titania's fairy queen falling for weaver Bottom making an ass of himself and two pairs of would-be lovers falling for the wrong partner after a sprinkling of a magic potion.
The audience finish up where they began as the rude mechanicals enact the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a suitably knockabout ending as the sun sets on an evening of theatrical magic.
The settings are spectacular but the mainly youthful cast, are by no means overshadowed. The thwarted lovers (Hester Evans, Tristan Beint, Joanna Croll and Glyn Williams) have real energy and passion, Peter Stephens' Bottom is a sight to behold and the final Pyramus and Thisbe comedy sketch gets the laughs.
Steve Pratt
Yorkshire Post:
There can be few better ways to spend Midsummer's Eve than watching a performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the grounds of Ripley Castle.
This production is mounted by the young and energetic Sprite Productions, founded last year by Hester Evans and Liam Evans-Ford.
The very idea of this production shows the ambition of youth – only someone who has the wide-eyed optimism of a young actor would be, some might say, naive enough to approach Sir Thomas Ingilby and ask him to hand over his grounds for this production.
Yet hand them over he did, and the hardy souls who tramped around his grounds following the promenade-style performance were rewarded with an enjoyable evening.
After the beginning which takes place in front of the greenhouse entrance to the woods we are led across a lawn by talented musical director Robin Starveling who thoroughly enjoys his job of marshalling the crowd around the grass and forests. We are then introduced to the crowd pleasing Rude Mechanicals. It is from this point that the play hits its straps. The Mechanicals are already written to endear the crowd and some clever directing and performances crank it right up to the point that it is obvious that this is the group that will steal the night.
From the Mechanicals we are led into the forest to see the meeting place of the four young leads in the play, Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia.
We also meet Oberon, King of the Fairies and Titania, Queen of the Fairies, played by Hagen and Goddard who brought us Theseus and Hippolyta. On their second meeting, it becomes obvious that the pair were deliberately low-key as their other characters because of the strength they would show as leaders of the fairy world.
Quickly all falls into place as we are taken, like the characters, deeper into the forest to watch the action between the human and the fairy worlds. The performances become wonderfully judged. In particular, the fights between the young men and young women are high comedy and a joy to behold, with "painted maypole" Helena played with exquisite understanding by Joanna Croll and Evans giving us an hilariously feisty Hermia.
Nick Ahad
Yorkshire Evening Press:
SUMMER Solstice today, Midsummer Day on Friday, this is peak season for A Midsummer Night's Dream, and Sprite Productions have found a magical place to play Shakespeare's greatest outdoor hit.
The young company has the inside track on Ripley Castle: cast member Hester Evans hails from the village.
It is not everyday that a theatre company can legitimately state "stage design by Capability Brown", but such is the status of Ripley Castle's gardens. Here sun-bathed jugglers and magicians make way for the Athenian Court of Theseus (Derek Hagen) and Hippolyta (Sarah Goddard) in the Walled Garden, where the early scenes of Stuart Harvey's briskly whisked production are set on terrace and lawns.
We meet the four thwarted young lovers and the hard-handed, rude mechanical theatrical troupe attired in late-Victorian clothes, director Harvey choosing the turn of the last century for his time zone on account of its heralding a "new era of uncertainty". The First World War was looming, he reasons, and Sigmund Freud's new book, Interpretation of Dreams, was top of the hardback charts.
Uncertainty and dreams, hopes and fears, love potions and high emotions, Freud and Puck, all come to the party as the play undergoes its transition from town to turf through the magic portal of the castle's Palm House. We emerge the other side in the torch-lit Ripley woods, the fairyland for Oberon (Hagen, with voice deepened and more richly fruited) and his bearded agent Puck (nimble Daniel Crossley) to have their sport with Queen Titania (Goddard the Goth).
Puck's mischievous misapplication of the love potion sets Hester Evans's Hermia and Joanna Croll's Helena into clothes-ripping physical combat, matched by the woodland scrapping of clean-cut suitors Lysander (Glyn Williams) and Demetrius (Tristan Beint). How tame Celebrity Love Island looks by comparison.
Not to be outdone, Peter Stephens's Nick Bottom does the donkey work with glee, making a joyous ass of himself in Titania's forest boudoir before the Walled Garden aptly plays host to the frolicsome final flourish.
Charles Hutchinson
Harrogate Advertiser:
Ripley Castle has a history steeped in drama and romance so it’s hard to imagine a more atmospheric setting for one of Shakespeare’s most imaginative plays.
This splendid house and gardens, which has been the family home of the Ingilby family for 700 years, is the perfect natural stage for a dreamy production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The evening begins in the picturesque walled garden and in the June evening sunshine, with a picnic laid before me, I was more than ready to be transported to a land of fairies and fantasy.
Director Stuart Harvey has chosen to set this promenade production at the turn of the last century, with the reign of Queen Victoria coming to an end and the First World War looming. The action begins in front of the hothouse with Duke Theseus’s shooting party.
The main characters are introduced briefly before members of the audience are invited to pick up their chairs and promenade to a corner of the walled gardens where they meet Knight Mantell as Peter Quince, the well-meaning theatrical leader for Bottom and his work mates. Peter Stephens makes an exuberant entrance as the working class wannabe Bottom who is laying himself wide open to the humiliation that is bound to come his way.
Then it’s through the hothouse and into the woods where fairyland awaits.
Derek Hagan plays a masterful Oberon, determined to regain control of Sarah Goddard’s high spirited and passionate Titania. He has her in this sights and knows he will have her in the end despite the blunders of a rather base, no frills Puck, played mischievously by Daniel Crossley.
The Ripley woods lend themselves to the scenes that follow and as the audience follows the actors thorough the trees, their way lit by lanterns, there is a real sense of being a guest at a private party.
The audience numbers are restricted for practical reasons, given the promenading nature of the production and also to increase the sense of intimacy.
With fairies hanging in the trees watching the humans below there is time to concentrate on the confusion developing between the bewitched lovers.
The audience is so close to the action that they cannot help but feel part of it. To watch Hermia scrambling through brances towards a mystified Helena cannot compare to any performance watched on a distant stage. To see Lysander and Demetrius rolling dirt just inches form the feet of the watching public is an unprecedented theatrical experience.
The four main human characters, Hermia, Helena, Demetrius and Lysander— played by Hester Evans, Joanna Croll, Tristan Beint and Glyn Williams respectively—all interpret their roles sympathetically and each gives an honest and endearing portrayal of a young lover in turmoil.
It is not until the picnic chairs are carried for one last time back into the open surroundings of the walled garden that the audience can truly appreciate the intensity of the dream.
This is Shakespeare at its best. No attempt has been made to contrive the play to convey a modern message but there has been great effort made to bring the humour and the passion to life within a wonderful natural setting.
Pack a picnic and some warm clothes and catch this dream while you can.Jenni Moulso
Jenni Moulson
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Photos from our 2005 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream
Not just a show - an event!
Bring your colleagues, family, and friends. Bring a picnic, chairs, rugs (warm clothing) and relax in the Castle’s beautiful gardens and grounds...
This beautiful Yorkshire Castle, home of the Ingilby family, has played a
significant part in English history since 1320. It tells a story of how
they have survived wars, political and civil unrest, plague, pestilence,
and religious persecution...
Designed by Capability Brown, home to the National Hyacinth Collection, experience the magic of the lake, woods, waterfall and fallow deer grazing under ancient oaks...
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