Tuesday, December 26, 2006
Insomnia Theater--Putting the Tit Back in Titania
I watched the old BBC/Royal Shakespeare Company version of A Midsummer's Night Dream from 1968 the other night at three AM and it was pretty good (but not as good as I remembered it). They only showed it on TV here in America, once. Alas, all of the lovely young ladies in it have grown very old and grey. I always recalled the extremely beautiful Diana Rigg as Helena because she looked nearly the same for many years and she did this after about 50 episodes as Emma Peel in The Avengers. Helen Mirren as Hermia, however, is almost unrecognizable in her extreme youth (she was 23); but the biggest shock watching it nearly 39 years later is who plays the Fairy Queen, Titania, and is painted green but is quite naked the entire time. Oh, there's some well placed ivy leaves here and there but the nakedness is unmistakable. Why it's Dame Judi Dench--almost a dish and certainly an architectural wonderment, if you know what I mean.
Ian Holm is the best Puck I've seen, and the two Athenian youths, Lysander and Demetrius are played well (if not a little flat) by David Warner and Michael Jayston. Oberon and Bottom are superb, as well.
I was not getting the miniskirts, though. They might have thought that through better. As flawed as it is in production values, nothing since has touched it for shear quality of acting--the Brits make it seem effortless. Realy quite a good show.
Ian Holm is the best Puck I've seen, and the two Athenian youths, Lysander and Demetrius are played well (if not a little flat) by David Warner and Michael Jayston. Oberon and Bottom are superb, as well.
I was not getting the miniskirts, though. They might have thought that through better. As flawed as it is in production values, nothing since has touched it for shear quality of acting--the Brits make it seem effortless. Realy quite a good show.
# posted by Roger Fraley @ 10:29 PM 
