1 00:00:03,000 --> 00:00:06,000 (Penny Rixon) What do you think a fairy should look like? 2 00:00:06,000 --> 00:00:08,000 (Penny Rixon) It's this question perhaps more than any other, 3 00:00:09,000 --> 00:00:12,000 (Penny Rixon) which has to be answered by the production team staging this play. 4 00:00:18 00:00:20 The way they did it at Glyndebourne a few years back, 5 00:00:21,000 --> 00:00:23,000 when they were almost part of the trees, and then they appeared and…. 6 00:00:25,000 --> 00:00:28,000 I mean it's nice if they do look pretty, but then they've got to have a Mendelssohn… 7 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:33,000 ..and all that sort of jazz you know, people don't do it like that these days do they? 8 00:00:33,000 --> 00:00:35,000 Like the sugar plum fairy. 9 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:38,000 You see, you're talking to a man who actually sees different things like auras… 10 00:00:39,000 --> 00:00:47,000 ..and all of that, so I believe in looking at the world differently so for me - vibrant. 11 00:00:48,000 --> 00:00:50,000 They're little things with wings. 12 00:00:52,000 --> 00:00:55,000 (Penny Rixon) The Regents Park Theatre puts on the play regularly, 13 00:00:56,000 --> 00:00:57,000 (Penny Rixon) and many of its patrons may well have seen… 14 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:00,000 (Penny Rixon) ..three or four different versions over the years. 15 00:01:01,000 --> 00:01:04,000 (Penny Rixon) A Midsummer Night's Dream is a childhood favourite, so audiences have… 16 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:08,000 (Penny Rixon) ..strong ideas about what is fitting, and directors do as well. 17 00:01:11,000 --> 00:01:14,000 (Jonathan Miller) I wanted to get rid of the whole idea of these awful people… 18 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:18,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..with diamante make up at the corner of their eyes… 19 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:21,000 ..walking on the balls of their feet, flitting in with yards of… 20 00:01:21,000 --> 00:01:26,000 ..bejewelled chiffon behind them. And in the same way I wanted to get rid of all these… 21 00:01:26,000 --> 00:01:32,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..gauzy diaphanous entomological fairies which somehow are regarded as… 22 00:01:32,000 --> 00:01:34,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..de rigueur when people talk about the magic, 23 00:01:34,000 --> 00:01:36,000 (Jonathan Miller) "what are you going to do about the magic"? And they always say… 24 00:01:36,000 --> 00:01:41,000 .."well that's not a - they're not fairies", as if someone has got some privileged access… 25 00:01:41,000 --> 00:01:45,000 ..to fairies, and knows what fairies look like. 26 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:53,000 Titania: Sing me now asleep. Then to your offices, and let me rest. 27 00:01:58,000 --> 00:02:01,000 (Rachel Kavanaugh) I mean there's a problem again about if you give them wings... 28 00:02:01,000 --> 00:02:04,000 (Rachel Kavanaugh) ..then what happens if we don't see them fly? You think well, 29 00:02:04,000 --> 00:02:06,000 (Rachel Kavanaugh) there's these people with wings but they never fly. 30 00:02:06,000 --> 00:02:10,000 So I decided not to give them wings, cos obviously they can't fly in this theatre… 31 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:14,000 ..I mean you could do it on wires or whatever, but flying in the play has, 32 00:02:14,000 --> 00:02:19,000 you know it is a poetic thing flying for the fairies, it's a journey that they go on, 33 00:02:20,000 --> 00:02:24,000 and the play is a dream and in dreams flying means all sorts of different things. 34 00:02:25,000 --> 00:02:28,000 (Penny Rixon) So if directors can' t make their fairies really fly, 35 00:02:28,000 --> 00:02:32,000 (Penny Rixon) they have to come up with new ways of creating magic for the modern world. 36 00:02:33,000 --> 00:02:36,000 Well, all I have is this memory of fairies in black bin liners, 37 00:02:36,000 --> 00:02:39,000 so I'm sure that it's gonna be better than that tonight. 38 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:42,000 I mean Spielberg can do wonderful things with computers, 39 00:02:42,000 --> 00:02:45,000 but here it's people, it's sort of slightly more real, it's immediate. 40 00:02:46,000 --> 00:02:49,000 Do they have magic wands as well, they have magic wands as well. 41 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:51,000 And they're very light and elf like. 42 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:55,000 Tony Gash: We always have this stupid idea of something which is, 43 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:00,000 and every generation recreates it , of something which is traditional Shakespeare. 44 00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:07,000 You know which is doublet and hose and gauze wings and… in this play. 45 00:03:08,000 --> 00:03:11,000 And, in a funny way we keep on creeping back to it, through… 46 00:03:12,000 --> 00:03:16,000 ..rejecting those sorts of notions of the fact that it's an abstract space. 47 00:03:17,000 --> 00:03:20,000 I think people have to you know learn again and be told again and again, 48 00:03:20,000 --> 00:03:24,000 particularly in a televisual age, that theatre is an abstract place, 49 00:03:25,000 --> 00:03:30,000 it's a... you know, a square in a circle or something like that, it's an empty space. 50 00:03:31,000 --> 00:00:37,000 Lysander: Speak thou now. -Puck: Here, villain! 51 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:40,000 (Penny Rixon) In this section of the video, I want to introduce you to... 52 00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:42,000 (Penny Rixon) ..some notable productions of this century. 53 00:03:44,000 --> 00:03:45,000 Lysander: …straight! -Puck: (laughs) 54 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:50,000 (Penny Rixon) The first of these, Peter Brook's for the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1970, 55 00:03:50,000 --> 00:03:52,000 (Penny Rixon) has passed into theatrical legend. 56 00:03:53,000 --> 00:03:56,000 (Penny Rixon) Watch how Brook interprets magic in the 20th century, 57 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000 (Penny Rixon) and how he uses the physical resources of the theatre to conjure up… 58 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:03,000 (Penny Rixon) ..his own brand of stage magic. You'll also see… 59 00:04:03,000 --> 00:04:05,000 (Penny Rixon) ..how he has influenced subsequent directors. 60 00:04:07,000 --> 00:04:10,000 (Peter Brook) Every word has a meaning and words get debased. 61 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:17,000 Peter Brook: Magic has a meaning and has a reality. But that has nothing to do with… 62 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:26,000 ..conjuring tricks. We start with a brilliant white light, a white background and... 63 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:29,000 (Peter Brook) ..all the elements clearly seen. 64 00:04:32,000 --> 00:04:35,000 (Jonathan Miller) I think for most of us who worked in the theatre, 65 00:04:35,000 --> 00:04:38,000 (Jonathan Miller) there was something quite revolutionary about… 66 00:04:38,000 --> 00:04:41,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..the Dream that Peter Brook did. I mean, it didn't… 67 00:04:41,000 --> 00:04:44,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..change my mind about the setting of The Midsummer Night's Dream, 68 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:50,000 (Jonathan Miller) it changed all of our minds about the way things could be staged. 69 00:04:51,000 --> 00:04:54,000 (Jonathan Miller) The fact that the plays didn't have to literally represent… 70 00:04:54,000 --> 00:04:57,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..what seemed to be mentioned in them. And certainly that's what… 71 00:04:57,000 --> 00:05:03,000 ..Brook showed us, that the fact that fairy flight is mentioned in the play doesn't mean… 72 00:05:03,000 --> 00:05:07,000 ..that you have to use it in that way and what he did was to use metaphors... 73 00:05:08,000 --> 00:05:13,000 ..of swings and trapezes and spinning plates on the end of flexible poles and so forth, 74 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:18,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..to represent flowers and flight. And the fact that it didn't… 75 00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,000 (Jonathan Miller) ..have to take place in something which literally represented a forest, 76 00:05:21,000 --> 00:05:25,000 (Jonathan Miller) it liberated us all from literal representation. 77 00:05:26,000 --> 00:05:29,000 (Penny Rixon) What Brook was doing was rejecting a tradition of those… 78 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:33,000 (Penny Rixon) ..little things with wings that had dominated productions for decades. 79 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:39,000 Oberon: What thou see'st when thou dost wake, do it for thy true-love take, 80 00:05:40,000 --> 00:05:45,000 love and languish for his sake: be it ounce or cat or bear, 81 00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:50,000 pard, or boar with bristled hair, in thy eye that shall appear. 82 00:05:51,000 --> 00:06:03,000 When thou wakest, it is thy dear. Wake, when some vile thing is near. 83 00:06:05,000 --> 00:06:12,000 (Peter Brook) I had a very strong feeling that behind the play as we know it… 84 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:17,000 (Peter Brook) ..was something much richer and fuller, and I felt that this could… 85 00:06:18,000 --> 00:06:21,000 (Peter Brook) ..come to life in a theatre through using… 86 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:24,000 (Peter Brook) ..a very wide range of theatrical techniques. 87 00:06:25,000 --> 00:06:32,000 Hermia: Lysander! What? Out of hearing? 88 00:06:33,000 --> 00:06:37,000 (Peter Brook) So that in rehearsals we'd arrived at this white box, 89 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:42,000 (Peter Brook) and a lot of possibilities. Galleries and trapezes and a lot of… 90 00:06:43,000 --> 00:06:48,000 (Peter Brook) ..brilliant colours in movement. The excitement of rehearsal is… 91 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:51,000 (Peter Brook) ..coming with open possibilities that then grow and… 92 00:06:51,000 --> 00:06:55,000 (Peter Brook) ..developed through the collaboration with the actors.