Cast Revealed For A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at Opera Holland Park

Performances run Thursday 29 June – Saturday 1 July 2023.

By: Jun. 02, 2023
Cast Revealed For A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM at Opera Holland Park

This summer, acclaimed historical performance ensemble Figure return to London’s Opera Holland Park after the success of their fantastically detailed (The Guardian) 2022 performance of Handel’s Serse with a fresh staging of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Unbridled desire meets magic as Figure stages Shakespeare’s celebrated comedy, accompanied by Mendelssohn’s enchanting orchestral score. 

Mischief-maker Puck will be played by T. S. Eliot Prize-winning poet and performer Joelle Taylor (BLUE NOW, Tate; UK Slam poetry champion), and Bottom will be played by Jay Mailer (Boiling Point, BBC; Emmerdale, ITV). Playing the role of fairy queen of the forest Titania is comedian and actress Anna Leong Brophy (Shadow and Bone, Netflix; Last Tango in Halifax, BBC; Henry VI Part 1, RSC), and her king Oberon will be played by acclaimed British TV and movie actor Ray Fearon (Fleabag, BBC Three; Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts, Warner Bros; Beauty and the Beast, Walt Disney Studios; Macbeth, National Theatre Live), who is an Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Figure’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream will star Eleanor Sutton (Wuthering Heights, Wise Children UK/US Tour; Amadeus, National Theatre) as Helena, Hannah Rose Caton (The Da Vinci Code, UK Tour; Last Knights, Lionsgate) as Hermia, Johan Munir (Into the Woods, Theatre Royal Bath; Saving Grace, Riverside Studios) as Demetrius, and Emmanuel Olusanya (Phaedra, National Theatre) completes the set of lovers as Lysander. 

The marvellous Mechanicals will be played by the following: Gail Sixsmith (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, RSC; The Winter’s Tale, RSC) as Quince, Jordan Laviniere (Wuthering Heights, Wise Children; Everyone’s Talking About Jamie, Apollo Theatre) as Flute, Susie Coutts (Running Wild, Chichester Festival Theatre) as Snout, William Edden (Oliver, UK Tour; Les Misérables, Queens Theatre) as Snug, and Joyce Henderson (The Street of Crocodiles, Complicité; The Magic Flute, Complicité) rounding off the cast as Starveling. 


Director Samuel Rayner comments, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is arguably Shakespeare’s most loved comedy but – like a fairy tale from The Brothers Grimm – the aspects of the play that seem sweet and gentle conceal the diabolical perversity at its heart. Beneath the japes, Dream explores patriarchal power and violence, restrictions on sexual freedom, and frequently questions our perception of reality.

The Athenian court is a world of rigidity but, in the woods, characters are liberated from the court’s rule; it is a space where desire reigns, where conscious and unconscious experience is probed and laid bare, and where the imagination (and the mechanicals’ creativity) – which is so closely aligned with magic and love – abounds.

Our production’s fairy-tale aesthetic seeks to pose questions about our perception of reality.
By using an interactive and malleable set design, where we repeatedly create and reimagine the space, we allow the surreal and the real to move side by side. The design also incorporates a 19th-century aesthetic, in sympathy with Felix Mendelssohn’s Romantic incidental music, which both accompanies and drives the drama in this production as we reunite this towering music with Shakespeare’s much-loved play.




RELATED STORIES - UK / West End

1
New British Musical MAISON MAC Releases World Premiere Recording Photo
New British Musical MAISON MAC Releases World Premiere Recording

The world premiere recording of the new British musical MAISON MAC, with music and lyrics by Sam Woof, is now available on all streaming platforms.

2
Review: TROMPE LOEIL, The Other Palace Photo
Review: TROMPE L'OEIL, The Other Palace

Trompe L’Oeil is a French phrase meaning trick of the eye, or optical illusion. Coincidentally, when said out loud it sounds rather a lot like ‘Trump loyal’. Most people who notice this similarity would likely shrug it off and move on with their day. Henry Parkman Biggs, however, decided it would be the perfect title for a musical bewilderingly combining a satire of Trump’s presidency with visuals of Surrealist art, and also, according to the show description, a queer love story. 

3
Photos: First Look At Carly Mercedes Dyer And More In THE DRIFTERS GIRL Photo
Photos: First Look At Carly Mercedes Dyer And More In THE DRIFTERS GIRL

Michael Harrison and David Ian have announced casting for the first-ever UK and Ireland tour of The Drifters Girl, the acclaimed new West End musical which tells the remarkable story of one of the world's greatest vocal groups and the woman who made them.

4
Review: FRANKIE THOMPSON & LIV ELLO: BODY SHOW, Soho Theatre Photo
Review: FRANKIE THOMPSON & LIV ELLO: BODY SHOW, Soho Theatre

Body Show is an apocalyptic, gender-bending, drag-infused spectacular tackling dysphoria and eating disorders head-on. Fresh from their hit Fringe run, individual performance artists Frankie Thompson (Catts) and Liv Ello (Swarm) bring their collaborative show to London, presenting something both thought-provoking and a whole lot of fun.

More Hot Stories For You

Videos


TICKET CENTRAL

Recommended For You