A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham

Shakespearean forests are out of favour this year. First the English Shakespeare Company reduced the Forest of Arden to three mobile metal towers. Now Oxford Stage Company have gone one further, with stage and backdrop bare of anything which might be even suggestively arboreal. All that is left is a blank floor boxed in with what appear to be plastic roofing panels. Yet the staging lacks the distinct statement of Peter Brook's white box. It is simply an empty stage, signifying nothing. Initially one feels that this may be a blank canvas on which all manner of delights will be drawn. But the overall ambience of John Retallack's final production for OSC is that of the workshop, of a voyage of exploration for the cast which they have not yet completed. For all the polished professionalism of the actors, the production itself feels like it is still in rehearsal.

There are some nice touches, such as Christopher Beck's Puck, a semi-simian homunculus tumbling across the stage, rubbing against Oberon's leg like a friendly cat. And Victoria Woodward - in addition to demonstrating that Hippolyta does not need to be a second-rank add-on as she is so often portrayed - delivers a towering, sensual Titania whose life force nearly blasts Simon Coury's shy and hesitant Fairy King off the stage. Ms Woodward - whose resemblance to Andie MacDowell does not (fortuitously) extend to the film star's complete lack of acting ability - is appearing in her first professional production. Her performance is either a testament to the teaching skills of Guildhall or the clearest indication that acting talent is born, not made.

However, Retallack's production excels primarily when it steers full tilt for the humorous side of Shakespeare's play. This is comedy played with a broad brush, with its feet firmly planted in the comic conventions of 90s television. The lovers are four snappy professionals - Crouch End types whose weekends revolve around cappuccino brunches and Ikea and who spend their evenings with a bottle of wine and a This Life video - thus transforming their scenes into a Shakespearean version of Dressing for Breakfast. Their argument in the forest builds into a display of comic wrestling and finely-tuned physical theatre with all the smooth interflow of a WWF tag team.

Meanwhile the mechanicals mine a more slapstick vein of caricature comedy reminiscent of the old sketch show Three of a Kind. Whilst the performance of Pyramus & Thisbe has the audience hooting with laughter, some of the edge is lost in the fact that the characters staging the production are drawn with almost as much exaggeration as the bucolic am-dram put before the duke. Nicholas Beveney in particular, as a towering Bottom, might be better advised to place some restraint on his Lenny Henry-esque cartooning. The magic forest is not the natural habitat of Theophilus P. Wildebeest.

There is nothing earth-shattering about this production. At just over two hours long with no interval, the demands it makes on its audience are mainly physical. It is as good a way of seeing Shakespeare's text staged as any, and the comedy as amusing as most of the offerings of the television schedulers. But I still miss the magic of the forest.

TOBY O'CONNOR MORSE