A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Shakespeare
2008 Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center
Midsummer Night’s Dream (2008, 2016) Dramatic Arts Center, Shanghai. I was invited to do this production partly because of my long work on directing Shakespeare, but also partly because the company at the Shanghai Theatre wanted to learn some of the vocal techniques for speaking Shakespearian English that are trained into Western actors. What actually happened was that I used collaborative directing techniques to completely shake up what the actors thought directing/dramaturgy could do, and they began to realize stagings that were completely different to my own cultural imagination – especially in the areas of folklore and sexuality that permeate the play. The production worked exceptionally well (sold out overnight) and in part because the actors co-created it through the collaboration so it made sense to the Shanghai audiences. One of the interesting things here was an interaction with the audience’s cellphones as the performances played out each night.
