Staatsballett Berlin: Edward Clug’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Deutsche Oper, Berlin
March 10, 2025

Whimsical, intricate and playful, that’s Edward Clug’s ballet interpretation of Shakespeare’s famous A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Ein Sommernachtstraum), the comedy written in 1595-96. It’s an evening of intertwining storylines where dream and reality merge, and where the boundaries between love and deception blur.

The action takes place in Athens, first on a beach where the audience find Queen of the Amazons, Hippolyta/Titania (Weronika Frodyma), lying on a gigantic rock. New music by composer Milko Lazar, Clug having decided to let go of the familiar Mendelssohn, accompanies her dynamic danced courtship with the Duke of Athens, Theseus/Oberon (Cohen Aitchinson-Dugas), who is very masculine and moves portentously. Engaged to be married, they flirt elegantly as the corps de ballet dances graciously around them to celebrate the event.

A peculiar element is a ‘surf on wheels’ on which he and then she moves as part of their teasingly playful. The rock in the middle of the stage (set designs by Marko Japelj) is movable and becomes the tool to unlock access the forest. At the extremity of the rock a door opens in the backing wall, revealing a secretive and attractive green world. In the forest is the mischievous fairy Puck, the central character of the ballet, who is playing with the other characters, changing their infatuations towards each other. He has a leotard with a heart on his chest and on back, symbolising his power to change the love of the people he targets.

Those other protagonists are Hermia (Riho Sakamoto) and Lysander (Loïck Pireaux) who are determined to be together despite the wishes of Hermia’s father, Egeus (Alexei Orlenco), who wants her to marry Demetrius (Matthew Knight). On the other side, Helena (Michelle Willems), Hermia’s close friend, jealous of their love and willing to win Demetrius’s heart, decides to betray the friend’s intention to flee Athens.

Clug makes a little more of the Mechanicals than do many ballets. Nick Bottom (Ross Martinson) Peter Quince (Erick Swolkin), Francis Flute (Dominik White Slavkovsky), Tom Snout ( Achille De Groeve) and Snug (Wolf Hoeyberghs) are found somewhere in Athens as they gather to prepare a play for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. Foolish and at times funny in their preparation, they decide to rehearse in the forest to avoid spectators.

At the same time, in the forest, Puck, Titania and fairies await Oberon, King of the Fairies, who enters with his elves. Leo Kulaš’ costumes for the fairies and elves are spectacular, Clug’s group dances showing them off to their best. The ensemble move in unison in various formations, in a circle in which the dancers look like the multiple petals of a flower opening and closing, and a procession in which their leotards are dressed with wonderful leaves, with more huge leaves on their hands. The way they moved as one reminded me of nihon buyō, the traditional Japanese dance with the fans, and the figures found on Egyptian archeological rests.

But the highlight of the show is Leroy Mokgatle’s Puck. As he plays Cupid between the three main couples and changes the head of one of Bottom into that of an ass, he was extraordinary throughout in his agility, precision and all-round execution. Playing the fantastical, prankish character, suits him perfectly. Puck’s tricks to make fall in love with people originally in love with someone else is at the core of the play, and it is this, together with the set, costumes and music, that keeps the audience engaged, even if it does all get quite confusing at times.

Finally, order prevails, the story ending well with the weddings of all the three original pairs announced by swinging buckets in the hands of the fairies accompanied by the sound of church bells. It’s yet another photogenic moment from Clug in which the whole ensemble moves beautifully and yet with a hint of austerity that somehow seems at least partially appropriate.

Clug’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is great entertainment, even if his juxtaposition of sternness and playfulness, of gravity and silliness, of solemnity and humour, while interesting, does make it difficult to clearly identify the intentions behind certain choreographic choices. But he, and his creative collaborators, have certainly revisited Shakespeare’s play in a fresh, humorous way, with unexpected surprises, lots of fine dance and a good dose of delicate irony.