Merrigong Theatre Company presented A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Wollongong’s Botanic Gardens
Merrigong Theatre Company was thrilled to present Wollongong’s first Shakespeare in the Garden – A Midsummer Night’s Dream; an enthralling open-air performance in the Wollongong Botanic Garden that went from the 9th to 26th November.
Directed by Merrigong Theatre Company’s Artistic Development Manager, Leland Kean (As Luck Would Have It, Lost Boys), the brand-new production brought together some of the country’s finest actors and designers with a stellar cast of musicians and artists from across the Illawarra to create a unique, joy-filled, and enchanting theatrical experience.
Leland Kean said, “It’s so exciting to bring A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved and beautiful plays, to the stunning setting of Wollongong’s Botanical Gardens. We have brought together a wonderful cast of performers and creatives who all call the Illawarra home, including the sublime musical talent that is Kay Proudlove, to create a magical night in this unique setting for all to enjoy.”
And so, it was – a magical night. Set in the Turpentine Lawn of the Wollongong Botanical Gardens, the audience, including myself, got to witness the wonderous and other-worldly background of our beautiful Mount Keira accompanied by the second show of the night – the sunset.
The beautifully interpreted performance of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream incorporated skillfully selected modern elements including the replacement of the craftsmen with park rangers as well as the natural setting that served as a stage to the three acts of the play and towers on either side of the audience.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Leland Kean on his adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is what I found out.
SERENA: What inspired you to bring the performance to the Botanic Gardens?
LELAND: So, the conversation started back in COVID, where COVID was really around us all. And Merrigong thought of ways to sort of expand our audience and their experience outside of what we were doing in the venues. So, we came up with a number of productions that were outside the venue, that were in iconic spaces around the Illawarra. One of them was A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Botanic Gardens. We had a few delays with COVID but we’re finally here, which is fantastic. It is really about that idea of giving the audiences and the community of the Illawarra a beautiful space to come see our production. And it is such a beautiful space.
SERENA: Do the Botanic Gardens interact with the performance at all?
LELAND: It’s all out in the open. There’s sort of this natural stage for us and the audience will be on picnic blankets on the hill where they’ll sit. And down below there are beautiful gum trees and directly behind there’s the iconic Mount Keira. So, the sun is sort of setting as we’re performing and it turns into night. Yeah, it’s a pretty special location to put the show on.
SERENA: I noticed the cover photo features eccentric makeup, costumes and tattoos. Could this be a modern twist to the old tale?
LELAND: It’s definitely a modern twist. The design itself is inspired by the Australian landscape. You know, the fairy world is very much based around Australian plants and native plants. Danielle King, who plays Puck, has adapted the play with me, so it’s a new adaptation of the play. We really looked at approaching relationships and the relationships between the lovers and taking a more modern context on what relationships are and the journey of those relationships. It was an incredibly fun play that had a lot of light in it, but it also had a lot of darkness and violence and a lot of ideas around consent and what consent is.
LELAND: So, it’s the first time I’m directing in my 30 plus year career. And it’s the first time I’ve directed a Shakespeare, my whole career I’ve been focused on Australian work. And the process I’ve taken with this play is the same as I would take with the Australian work. I’ve literally gone “Right. It’s a new play. What’s my take on that?” I obviously don’t have the writer in the room with me, so I can be a bit more creative with the directorial decisions I’m making. And it’s been an exciting process to approach the work in this way.
SERENA: What have you included in the play that wasn’t there originally and how do you think the audience will react to it?
LELAND: Well, one of the biggest things is that we’ve got local singer/song-writer Kay Proudlove and Kay has written songs that she plays live throughout the show. She’s also written a series of songs that act as commentary on the play. So, as you’re watching the Shakespearean play and afterwards you kind of get comments on the play, the journey, what’s happening with the characters, the relationship between Hermia and her father. And it just gives you this completely different twist and it’s probably the most significant shift. Some of the characters are quite different and I guess the one we had most fun with was Bottom and the way that we framed Bottom. Bottom as a character is often displayed as being stupid and not very intelligent. But John Michael Narres who plays Bottom – to me, it’s one of the best Bottoms I’ve ever seen.
SERENA: What was your artistic process when adapting and directing the play? Did you have any techniques that you used?
LELAND: Yeah, so I’ve been working with Merrigong for the past 10 years and I grew up in the city as an artist – and what I’ve found since moving to a rural environment is that my artistic process has changed. My mentor and I over the last few years have been working together on something called landscape-oriented practice. The idea that when you’re working in metro environments, you’re basically seeing everything in portrait – you know, you can’t see the horizon, the people are staring at you, the buildings. When you move to a regional space, suddenly you’re viewing in landscape – you can see the horizon, your viewpoint shifts, you’re taking in much more of what the world is. And so that’s the approach I use with my work. The actors working outside and in the natural and physical world, it just brings a whole different element in terms of their performance and what they do physically and vocally.
SERENA: So, have you been practicing outside as well?
LELAND: Yeah, so it’s part of my process. A few years ago, I did ‘Lost Boys’ and we rehearsed on the beach and it’s the challenging aspect of being in the physical world and the acoustics that the rehearsal room would have, isn’t there anymore. That’s a key thing in all the performances I now do with Merrigong.
SERENA: What effect does this have on your actors?
LELAND: Yeah, definitely. We did a rehearsal the other day in the gardens and our actors went home and slept a solid nine hours, they were so tired. Yeah, well, I’ve got them running through the gardens in the different pathways rather than behind a stage so it’s definitely a different experience.
SERENA: Have you introduced any new themes?
LELAND: It’s difficult to say whether I’ve introduced new ones. You know, there’s so much in the play that talks about the environment, and I guess that’s one thing that we tried to bring out more. That the world in the play is like ours a little bit. Where it feels like the spheres a sort of out of whack, that the beings and humanity are sort of out of control and that the gods are sort of playing with humanity in a way. But also, I guess the idea of violence and what consent is and how that works particularly with the women in the play and what the conversation we’re having there is. But, you know, Shakespeare gives you this immense power and there’s not much you can do to sort of jump in. There are many great themes in the play already, but I guess those two were the ones that were brought to the forefront.
SERENA: So, would you say that you bring out the themes that are more so in the background?
LELAND: Yeah, and we reinterpreted them with a modern eye. You know, the play is over 500 years old, and the world was a very different place when it was written. The way that we see relationships with gender and equality is very different. But also, there are some common themes in the play that are talked about, the floods and fires and plagues, which are all things we’ve experienced in recent years.
Photo: provided