BOOK TICKETS HERE
The weather was very kind to us during our three night run of “Dream” at The Inn on the Park and the feedback from all our audiences has been lovely! The Cast are clearly enjoying themselves and their hard work, with expert guidance from Director Sue Sachon, has clearly paid off.
Now, in a first for Breakaway, we move to the lovely outdoor space of the Chiswell Green United Reformed Church. Instead of swooping ducks and the usual fly pasts of Canada Geese, expect flocks of parakeets and low flying red kites calling to their recently fledged young, who nest in the nearby woods.
So pack a picnic, bring a rug or garden chairs plus your tipple of choice and we look forward to seeing you there. The weather promises to be just as good as it was at The Inn!
The First Review of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Here’s the review we received from Madeleine Burton, who came to see us on the Opening Night at The Inn on the Park.
There is no better Shakespeare play to watch on a warm July evening than A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Performed well, it has a timelessness that, even though it was written in Tudor England, makes it accessible to modern audiences for both its tale of unrequited love and its comic scenes.
St Albans drama company Breakaway brings out all its vibrancy in its current production of the play, first in the garden on the Inn on the Park in Verulamium Park last week followed by three more performances at the United Reformed Church in Chiswell Green this week.
Director Sue Sachon has chosen to set it in the Victorian era, a straitlaced period when women were answerable to men in most aspects of their lives. Certainly Shakespeare’s four lovers, Hermia (Melissa Carr), Lysander (Tarik Abbas), Helena (Rebekka Sandwell) and Demetrius (Nate Chatterley) start out that way.
But the enchantment of the woods changes everything thanks to the magic of Oberon and Titania and the former’s devoted Robin Goodfellow, aka Puck. And let us not forget the ‘mechanicals’ led by Bottom the weaver whose rehearsals of Pyramus and Thisbe, their play to mark the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta, bring them into the magic environment.
Breakaway use few props in many of their productions and this one is no exception. They utilise everything available in outdoor locations and that is all they need.
So Oberon, a strong performance by John Stone, watches events unfold from the canopy of a tree and the bed on which sleeps Titania, given just the right amount of fairy magic by Emma Brown, is basic but effective.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream comes alive with the introduction of the ‘mechanicals’. Anne Hollis as Peter Quince has just the right degree of frustration with the cast and Roy Bookham, complete with ass’s head as Bottom, Titania’s love interest, is priceless. From his braying as Titania offers him untold delights to his orders to her fairies, he steals the show every time he appears.
But on the comedy front, he is run close by the fight between Lysander and Demetrius and the rage of Hermia towards Helena as Puck’s magic causes all sorts of confusion in the woods.
Sally Ripley as Puck links the scenes and gives an excellent performance in such a key role.