A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare Page A

circle, and that audiences were looking forward to the next radical and imaginative rethink of this complex play. They found it with Tim Supple’s extraordinary multilingual Indian production for Dash Arts in 2006, at once an homage to Brook and a brilliant reinvention of the play for a multicultural, globalized world.
THE DIRECTOR’S CUT: INTERVIEWS WITH MICHAEL BOYD, GREGORY DORAN, AND TIM SUPPLE
    Michael Boyd , born in 1955, trained as a director at the Malaya Bronnaya Theatre in Moscow. He then worked at the Belgrade Theatre in Coventry and the Sheffield Crucible before founding his own company, the Tron in Glasgow. He became an Associate Director of the RSC in 1996, coming to prominence with his millennial staging of the three parts of
Henry VI
and
Richard III
in the company’s “This England” cycle of history plays, which won him an Olivier award for Best Director. In 2003, he took over as Artistic Director, achieving a notable success in 2006–07 with his ambitious Complete Works Festival, whereby all Shakespeare’s plays were staged in Stratford-upon-Avon over the course of a year, some by the RSC and others by visiting companies. His controversial
Midsummer Night’s Dream
, with Josette Simon as Hippolyta/Titania and Daniel Ryan as Bottom, was staged in 1999.
    Gregory Doran , born in 1958, studied at Bristol University and the Bristol Old Vic theater school. He began his career as an actor, beforebecoming Associate Director at the Nottingham Playhouse. He played some minor roles in the RSC ensemble before directing for the company, first as a freelance, then as Associate and subsequently Chief Associate Director. His productions, several of which have starred his partner Antony Sher, are characterized by extreme intelligence and lucidity. He has made a particular mark with several of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays and the revival of works by his Elizabethan and Jacobean contemporaries. His 2005
Midsummer Night’s Dream
for the RSC featured Amanda Harris as Titania, Joe Dixon as Oberon, Jonathan Slinger as the Puck, and Malcolm Storry as Bottom.
    Tim Supple , born in 1963, studied at Cambridge University. As director of the Young Vic, he pioneered a style of theatrical narrative, often in the form of dramatizations of classic stories (such as Kipling’s
Jungle Book
and a selection of tales from Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
in the versions of Ted Hughes), that was simple and direct but also full of improvisation and innovative stage effect. He directed an RSC production of
The Comedy of Errors
on tour in India, which introduced him to Indian styles of theater, storytelling, and popular entertainment. This gave him the idea of recruiting an Indian company to play
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
. The resulting production for his own company, Dash Arts (funded by the British Council), in a mixture of many Indian tongues as well as English, was a global triumph and a high point of the visiting work featured in the RSC 2006–07 Complete Works Festival.
    A wood outside Athens where some very English artisans rehearse their amateur play. Theseus and Hippolyta jumping out of Greek mythology one moment and the English folklore figure of Robin Goodfellow the next. A production history that runs from the bare thrust stage of Shakespeare to elaborate Victorian scenography complete with trees and even live rabbits to Peter Brook’s white cube with circus trapeze. How did you and your designer set about imagining and realizing the world of
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
?
    Boyd: Tom Piper and I wanted to move from a cold oppressive world (with bad weather) to a much happier and more colorful place, viathe comic and disturbing challenge of the wood. We were also very keen to thrust the action as far as possible into the same room as the audience while staying within the sightlines of the old Royal Shakespeare Theatre. What emerged was a smooth raised egg shape rising over the front