A_FB_MND_2008_61  AFTER student

Transcript

CA = Catherine Allen (Interviewer)
T = Undergraduate student audience member

CA: After seeing the play then, coming out, what were your first reactions?

T :It was the best Midsummer Night's Dream I've ever seen. Cause you know how everyone's always trying to be clever with it, and they do it in pinstripe suits with selotape and things like that [CA laughs]. And your just like 'I want to see it all pretty!'. But it wasn't just pretty, it was so like... I loved the way the fairies were all knarled like old trees and things. And I loved the way they were like chickens, like [CA laughs] cockerels fighting eachother. Erm, I loved the tent and, [pause] oh and the masks, I thought they were fantastic. 

CA: How do you... sorry [T laughs], how do you think the masks contributed exactly to... say if it was done exactly as it was but without the masks, how do you think the masks changed things? 

T: Erm.. I thought it gave the faries a sort of, mm, I'm in search of the right word. It made them more of a part of nature. I think its really diffucult when faries have faces because you can't really see them as... well you kind of see them as people pretending to be faries. Like I loved the way Puck was sort of part of a treeand the woody noises he was making the the instuments were kind of like the same as his face. And he was like yeah sort of like an animal tree type thing. 

CA: Yeah and quite a lot of characters had sort of animalistic qualities like the lovers, how do you think that added to it?

T: I thought it made it more of a comedy of the rivalry between the two men. Because they were cockerels with their boons on their heads and everything. I like the way when you first saw them they had all the feathers round their necks as well, and it kind of, I dont know it sort of, the idea of lovers and the way they are always professing how they, are like nymph goddess, perfect divine, that sort of thing. Its all about show and how the [CA laughs]And also the fight in between them is a little bit petty and birdy and kind of birdy and kind of [makes bird noise]. [Both CA and T laugh]. 

CA: And you say you've seen other productions of A Midsummer Night's Dream before, were there any sort of themes or messages that this one brought out that others perhaps didn't touch on so much? 

T: Oh erm, I thought Helena was really interesting in this one because I have a real problem with the character of Helena, because I hate the way that because she's in love with him and being rejected, I hate the way that's a comedy! And whereas if it was a man in that role, he would be like the courtly lover or something.

CA: Yeah! 

T: I was... but this one I thought it made it, it was less offensive to me because she was so sort of, she did these little smiles, like, 'I am being sad but I know I am being sad'. [Laughing] And I love the way she interacted with the audience. She wasn't completly pathetic, and when she was being pathetic she made a joke out of it. 

CA: Yeah, yeah that sort of self awareness

T: Yeah

CA: That when people are being pathetic they are often aware of it. I didn't think of that actually. So say in a year's time when you look back at tonight, how do you think it will.... what will most stand out for you? 

T: [Pause] Oh, the mechanicals. Definatly like Quince... not Quince... the one who was Thisbee... [Pause} Flute! The one who was flute. His ears sticking out! And oh, he actually reminded me of that, you know in Pan's Labyrinth the erm... urrrggg you know the disgusting eye monster?. The oh well, you know who the disgusting eye monster is... yeah! [All around laugh]. It did remind me of that but I love the way he just kept sticking his tounge out!