Director

Rehearsal Diary

Set design

Costume design

Interview with Michael Grandage on Wednesday 25 June 2003

Starting points - Design

"I think the design creates a beautiful environment for this play to take place in. The black colour gives us more options and also, most of the action takes place at night in the forest, over one evening. The evening is dominated by a giant moon that casts its light over the forest.

We wanted to start with an empty space so that I could have a relationship with actors and space. We're just continuing what we know we've done here best in terms of presenting something on bare boards as in As You Like It, Twelfth Night and The Tempest. Christopher Oram and I approach all our work wanting to create an environment where there is no piece of set that inhibits a piece of action. So we start with a bare space and then the next question is - what bare space is it best to start with? We think that the original performances were on bare planking so we thought about what our version of timber boards might be.

Christopher Oram's model box design

The timber will be a dark, with a slightly sheeny black finish that will allow us - when the proscenium wall is in - to create a very disciplined environment for the court. Hopefully when we add Hartley Kemp (the lighting designer) to the equation and the scene moves to the forest, the boards will take on a different story when they are combined with what is revealed at the back of the set. The combination of lighting, music, sound and performance should mean we are able to believe that we move to a much more organic environment. The wood will take on an organic feel in contrast to the more austere presentation of the court scene."

Casting and doubling

"So that's how we've decided present the two worlds of this play. We also wanted to echo the doubling of the set with the doubling of the characters. Many of the actors who play characters in the court world then go on to double as new characters in the forest world. We're doubling all of the people that go into the dream. So, Hippolyta becomes Titania, Theseus becomes Oberon, Philostrate becomes Puck. And there's a through line then in terms of the way that one scene leads into the other and the dream becomes their entire dream as different characters. The only 4 people who should never be seen to double are the lovers who are the same lovers in the forest as they are in the court.

In this production we hope to be able to make a virtue out of having the five mechanicals (i.e. not Bottom) doubling as fairies. Egeus probably won't double because he doesn't become anyone in the forest.

Costume Designs for Oberon & Theseus

Casting is happening now (June 2003). I was initially looking at having an older Titania and Oberon because I thought it would be rather beautiful for those two to inform the forest with real gravitas. I will still err on the side of old but it is likely to be 40+ now as opposed to 60+. The designer made a very good point about Titania and Oberon when he said 'if you can choose to be immortal, why would you choose to be immortal and old?' To which my retort is 'because with age you have wisdom and wouldn't it be nice to encase your immortality and your wisdom?' I can find a case for it either way!"

The Fairies


                    

                                   Fairy Costume Design

"We're not going to do them as pseudo punks with big hair, as I seem to see them in most productions. I think of them as a gentle presence of support within the forest, or a menacing backdrop to the action. I don't think they're fairies that twinkle and wink, it's not joyful tripping lightly across fairy dust. They are the people of the forest who support their king and their queen of fairies, Titania and Oberon.

It's very difficult to try and assess how to approach the word 'fairy' in a 21st century context. I want to be able to try and find an environment and a through line whereby they will be people of the forest in their legitimate home place, as opposed to the very specific home of all the other characters in the play. So Titania and Oberon and all of the fairies inhabit that night and that place, in front of that moon. I think this isn't the production to hijack with an array of extraordinarily baroque and beautiful looking fairies."

On directorial choices

"When you come to interpret a play you have to immediately make decisions and the one thing I learnt very early on was not to try to attempt a 'definitive production' - whatever that is! The moment you lumber yourself with the notion of wanting to give a definitive 'Dream' you end up then trying to do everything. Actually, once you liberate yourself from that notion, you're left with something where you can just say 'I am me. I do what I do. I have an instinct. My designer has an instinct. My lighting designer has an instinct. My composer has an instinct. We need to collectively pool our experiences and collaborate, led by a vision from the director - all be it a loose one in the initial stages.' Out of this will come a complete vision for presenting a production at any one point.

In coming to A Midsummer Night's Dream I read it and I see a simple and at times beautiful and very sexy story of love and unrequited love that needs to be given an environment of magic, which is the unusual element. Having just done The Tempest where magic features heavily, it's nice to come to another play where there is a 'dust' that can be 'poured' into the ear of a soul to make them change or something - all that kind of magical quality is something that one needs to celebrate, I think. I don't want to update to a point where even the magic dust needs to be something from the Welcome Foundation, so that everyone goes 'oh I see, it's a metaphor for something'… I think the deal is, celebrate, you're doing a play about magic, set on a midsummer evening and get on with it!"

Key elements

"I also want to celebrate the key elements which include sex and love. Also, one thing I keep seeing in the play is anger - I have to find an Oberon who agrees! There's some wonderful anger about the way the world is that comes from those central characters - both King & Queen are angry - and it's not something I see often.

I think that once one gets things right in a physical world that you believe in and you can present that world to your actors and then present it to your audience, then I think you'll have a cohesive piece that celebrates all the elements of the play. I don't seek, on this occasion, to do a very specific reading of the play that is one reading only. I'm still going through a process of discovery so that I'd just like to try and do the play. In a few years I feel I might develop into another person where I come to productions with a specific reading of the play."

The Mechanicals

The Mechanicals Costume Design

"We're putting on this production in Sheffield, so you could make a choice - but I'm not sure it would be a legitimate one - to choose that the Mechanicals represent the workers. So into the world of Received Pronunciation of the court, walk a load of dirty handed smock wearing northerners who go 'we are the earth, we are the mechanical workers, we are the northerners'. Personally, I see the Mechanicals as artisans. I see them as a group of craftsmen. In the text, Shakespeare gives them all specific jobs and they're all jobs that need great care - a bellows mender, for example. If you go and watch these people working now they're very fastidious, they take great pride in their work, they're creative people. They are artisans - it's something very precise. So I see the Mechanicals being about that rather than about something much more harsh and discordant. It's another area of refinement and people who believe in their craft. There's something particular and precise to be brought out."

Interviewed by Sophie Hunter, Education Projects Officer, Sheffield Theatres.

^ top of page