Mr Brook's hang-up
Sir: Somewhere in the mind of Mr Hurren, in the dustier groves of Academe and in the issued-yearly notes of English masters who neyer go to the theatre, there still exists the notion that there is a right, proper and conventional way of producing any of Shakespeare's plays and that any departure from this grey received truth is heresy. I normally read Mr Hurren's column for amusement and I have come to envisage his ideal theatre as a kind of after-dinner sleep, a torpid rehearsal of well-bred commonplaces performed by 'a company of frightfully decent chaps to an audience of nice gals and languid labradors before the next round of golf, tennis or discreet adultery. However, it would be impertinent of me to speculate about his " hang-ups " (frightfully with-it, old chap) in the way which he does about Peter Brook's. I would like to correct, though, one or two impressions about this production. Mr Hurren does not see fit to mention how much sense is made of this play by doubling up Theesus/Oberon and Hippolyta/ Titania: instead of the usual grandoise book-ends Theseus and Hippolyta become integral to the play's structure. The only question is why isn't this always done? Theseus and Hippolyta never appear on stage with Oberon or Titania: their respective entrances and exits are carefully contrived to allow any costume changes thought necessary; even in the crucial first scene of Act IV there is a carefully placed musical cue. Mr Hurren does not see fit to mention how the shadow worlds of the fairies and the theatre of the rude mechanicals (and by implication all theatre) are shown to complement each other. Mr Hurren does see fit to dismiss the gaiety of this production as a product of the director's " unseemly ideas " rather than a carefully considered development of the ideas and images of the text. Since he specifically mentions Titania in this context I assume he is referring to her excited reaction to a huge erection which is contrived for Bottom after his translation.
The relevant speech reads: Titania: Come, wait upon him; lead him to my bower.
The moon methinks looks with a watery eye.
And when she weeps, weeps every little flower. Lamenting some enforced chastity. These are extraordinary words in this context and here as elsewhere Brook has focused attention on them.
Of course, maybe Mr Hurren has never read the play and if he does he may well discover that this Shakespeare chappie is a bit of a bounder, and that, dammit, all he (Hurren, not Shakespeare) will do is "The Sporting Life " column in future.
Garry Sayer Bryanston School, Blandford, Dorset.
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