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August 2007
A Midsummer Night's Dream follows the story of four groups of people.
Firstly there is Theseus, the Duke of all Athens who has won
Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons, in Battle and they are to be wedded.
Next is a rather confusing love plot concerning the four lovers.
Hermia loves Lysander and in return Lysander loves Hermia, but
Demetrius also loves Hermia, and to make matters worse Helena loves Demetrius.
The third group is that of the Mechanicals, rough workmen who are
trying to win a pension from the Duke by performing a play at his
wedding day. Unfortunately they are not very good.
And finally we have the Fairyland. Oberon, King of the Fairies, is in
bitter dispute over a pageboy with Titania, Queen of the Fairies.
Puck, Oberon's ever faithful yet mischievous servant, gets a bit
carried away and soon the whole of the woods has fallen into farce.
Some time in Autumn 2006 a conversation happened that ran along the
lines of "Calum, how do you fancy doing a small, one act play as
a bit of a fundraiser?" But in the true tradition of a PUKKA
production things escalated and grew to a colossal undertaking. One
year later PUKKA Plays was performing William Shakespeare's 'A
Midsummer Night's Dream'.
Oh and we performed it outside, just for good measure!
The setting was to be the idyllic surroundings of the Amelia Trust
Farm's Amphitheatre. By pure luck, we managed to pick the one week of
sunshine out of the truly awful summer of 2007. And so from Thursday
23rd to Saturday 25th of August 2007 audiences witnessed a truly
magical performance of one of Shakespeare's finest comedies, and PUKKA
Plays was born.
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