Shakespeare at the Brattle Theatre

Abstract

HE Brattle Theatre of Cambridge, Massachusetts, which has presented an impressive series of Shakespearian productions ( *MS during the past few years, performed A Midsummer's Night's Dream and Macbeth during its I95I-1952 season. Re? cently this repertory company has attempted novel approaches ~ =in its productions. A year ago Love's Labor's Lost was presented in a pompous late Victorian setting, which, because of its emphasis upon ridiculing the mannerisms and accoutrements of that era, distracted the audience's attention from Shakespeare's clever satire. For A Midsummer's Night's Dream, the director utilized a highly ornate, neoclassical eighteenth-century setting. Titania and Oberon, lavishly garbed in costumes in which blue and black predominated, entered in elaborate chariots from a super-sophisticated fairy world. Puck became an eighteenth-century Mercury, with winged sandals and neo-classic dress; the only trace of the conventional Puck was the peaked ears. The royal party-the princesses with parasols and high heels, in yellow and white attire-went through their peregrinations and amorous complications in a forest setting which had neoclassic doorways on either side and a spectacularly elaborate chandelier in the center of the stage. The rustics, in their red costumes, strove desperately to be hilarious-but at the expense of the play. Bottom, chewing on a long cigar like one of the Marx brothers, was carted on stage in a wheelbarrow. As one might imagine, too much emphasis was placed upon the elaborate decor, which overwhelmed the action and the poetry of the comedy. (The same criticism was justly made of the Olivia de Haviland Romeo and Juliet.) The ethereal quality of the fairy scenes disappeared, and one saw a Hollywood-like production, brilliant perhaps in its spectacle and glamor but hardly stimulating to the imagination. The pseudo-simplicity in the handling of the rustic scenes also destroyed the naive peasant humor. Indeed, in productions more amateurish than this one, but redeemed by a child-like participation in the illusions demanded by the play, the comedy has been vastly more amusing. The moral seems to be: directors should trust in Shakespeare's superb theatricality; and simplicity, both in staging and in acting, is generally preferable to ostentation and precious artificiality. The production of Macbeth, which had in the performance of William Devlin, who played Lear brilliantly several seasons ago, as fine a Macbeth as I have ever seen, was also marred by the director's insertion of novel stage business. For example, the witches, who resembled charwomen more than spirits,