Theseus is a booming, disembodied voice that emanates from behind a wooden board. Hermia is a piece of wood covered in William Morris wallpaper; her suitors Lysander and Demetrius have geometric shapes. They do Shakespeare very differently in Lithuania, from where this production by Oskaras Korsunovas comes, and, although you wouldn't necessarily say the performances are wooden, there are plenty of times during this two-hour performance (no interval) when you feel that you can't see the trees for the wood.
The premise for this production is simple. Every actor carries a thin wooden board, roughly the height and width of a human being, which is used throughout the performance as costume, prop, scenery. It is certainly ingenious, sometimes fun, and comes into its own when the ranks of actors use the boards to create the forest outside Athens, a sinister, eerie, maze-like place where fairies eavesdrop on the silly, squabbling mortals.
Too often, though, the piece feels as if it never made it past the workshop stage, and, although the wooden boards are a tool for invention, they are also cumbersome and get in the way. There is very little real acting here and lots of hyperactive mugging. Too much is going on. After a while, you want to lie down quietly in a darkened room.
There are lots of oddities, too: why would Lysander bite the nose of the potential father-in-law whom he is trying to win over to his cause? It just doesn't add up. On the whole, the production is illustrative rather than exploratory; it doesn't tell you anything new about A Midsummer Night's Dream.
If this was a Lithuanian classic of which I had no knowledge, I probably wouldn't mind at all, and would be applauding the inventiveness of the stagecraft. But although I have no problem with directors who want to liberate Shakespeare, I find myself minding very much indeed about this production. This because it imposes, because it is flashy and not very thoughtful, and last but not least, because all that misplaced energy on stage is completely exhausting to watch.
· Ends tonight. Box office: 01273 685861. Then touring.
