The Adelaide Repertory Theatre. Arts Theatre. 17 Jul 2025

 

And thus does one brighten a winter’s week, solidly giggling at the folly that is Hollywood comically veiled in a Shakespearean movie caper. 

 

Ken Ludwig is an American playwright with a keen feel for zany comedy and an affectionate eye for old movies. Hence this capricious send up of Hollywood’s great 1935 flop, a daring Warner Brothers production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the exiled anti-Nazi Austrian director Max Reinhardt. It starred Olivia de Havilland and James Cagney with Mickey Rooney as Puck. It later became a cult movie and much later, under the satirical pen of Ludwig, who had been commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company, an award-winning take-off on stage.

 

Now, under the deft directorship of Jude Hines for the Rep, this zany play about a movie about play shines anew. 

 

And what a big night out it is. The cast is huge and so is the set, from Gary Anderson, its centrepiece a giant tree which stands as the magical forest of The Dream’s fairy characters. This is a comedy which depends on pace and lots of clever sound cues and lighting effects - all of which are effectively delivered. 

 

Overlaying the A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s original plot is the Ludwig plot which throws Oberon, King of the Fairies, and Puck his mischievous offsider, into preparations for the Hollywood movie version. By default, they are cast as themselves, hence bringing supernatural powers to play amid a lineup of vain old Hollywood greats. 

 

Merry mayhem ensues and, in true farce tradition, the tricks and cross-purposes escalate into over-the-top hilarity.

 

There are a number of notable performances. Emily Burns really lights up the stage as a lithe and bold little Puck, standing in for Rooney, while Stephen Bills, in fine Shakespearean voice, towers over her, all power and majesty. Another wonderful scene-stealer is Malcolm Walton as Joe E Brown playing Flute, the Joiner AKA Thisbee. Oh, such a bemused Mechanical in tutu. Leah Lowe is well voiced and simpatico as movie star Olivia and Jasmine Duggan wins hearts and laughs as the gauche aspiring starlet Lydia Lansing. Absolute dependables in the cast are Penni Hamilton-Smith as Louella Parsons and Ben Todd as Jack Warner with Sam Wiseman, very cleverly attired by costume designer Sandy Whitelaw, as the brilliant, exiled director Reinhard who brings with him his ghosts of Hitler’s Germany. Nice work. Adam Schultz thrives with a very funny scene of his own as horrible Will Hayes and everyone is well supported by Keiran Drost, Matthew Thompson, Tom Adams, Nicholas Eldborough and the three be-winged fairies. There are lots of fun costumes, thanks to Whitelaw, some forgettable wigs and a wonderful Bottom’s head. Eleven out of ten for Ian Barge’s lighting and whoever did the magic tinkling.

 

The night outside did not feel so cold after all that wholesome fun and games

 

Samela Harris

 

When: 17 to 26 Jul

Where: Arts Theatre

Bookings: adelaiderep.com