Peter Brook’s
A Midsummer
Night’s Dream
(1970)
Cast & Crew

Alan Howard as Theseus/Oberon  Glynne Edwards as Francis Flute

Sara Kestelman as
Hippolyta/Titania

Patrick Stewart as Snout the
tinker

John Kane as Philostrate/Puck


Philip Locke as Egeus/Quince
Terrence Hardiman as Starveling
the tailor

Christopher Gable as Lysander

Barry Stanton as Snug the joiner

Ben Kingsley as Demetrius

Mary Rutherford as Hermia

Director – Peter Brook

Frances de la Tour as Helena

David Waller as Nick Bottom
Set

Brook's aim was to reject the 19th-century traditions of realism and
illusionism in the theatre. He also wanted to liberate the play from "bad
tradition" so that the actors could feel that they were encountering the
text for the first time.

He avoided any realist scenery or props. Instead, the set was a simple
white box, with no ceiling and two doors. On tour, Brook decided leave
stagehands and lighting technicians visible.

The purpose of this was to return the stage to the simplicity of the
Elizabethan theatre, in which there was little scenery and the sense of
location was generated by the poet's words. It was blended with
modern elements: the trees of the forest were represented by giant
slinky toys, and Titania's bower was a huge red feather.

From the galleries the actors when they were not ‘on-stage’ could look
down and observe the action of the play
Fairies

The fairy magic was
represented by circus
tricks. The fairies
entered on trapeze
bars, and the love
potion that Puck
fetches was a spinning
plate on a rod, which
Puck handed to
Theseus from a trapeze
fifteen feet above the
stage. When Bottom
turned into an ass, he
acquired not the
traditional ass's head,
but a clown's red nose
 The
production emphasized, to a level never before
seen, the supposed sexual undercurrents of the story of
Titania's infatuation with Bottom after he turns into an
ass.
 Brook
was influenced by Jan Kott's study of the play in
Shakespeare Our Contemporary, in which Kott notes
the phallic properties of the donkey, and argues that
Oberon deliberately degrades Titania by exposing her
to this monstrous sexuality. In Brook's staging, Bottom
entered Titania's bower carried by the fairies, one of
whom thrust his upraised arm between Bottom's legs to
represent a phallus.
Act V Scene I

The fairies bless the court and the marriages. The actors the moved into
the auditorium, shaking hands with the audience as a literal
interpretation of Puck's words, 'Give me your hands'.
Critical Reception

“The sort of thing one only sees once in a lifetime, and then only from a man of
genius“ The Sunday Times

“The naked harshness of this environment is used by Mr Brook as a means to expose
the actors' words and emotions”. John Barber, The Telegraph

“The lovers were as exposed and as distraught as modern adolescents” Barber

“The ingenious, theatrical construction had to be taken – or rejected – as a
transformation of life” John Russell Brown

“From the friction between the actor’s creativity and the spectator’s imagination, a
clear flame is kindled” Meyerhold

“Once in a while, once in a very rare while, a theatrical production arrives that is
going to be talked about as long as there is a theatre, a production that, for good or
ill, is going to exert a major influence on the contemporary stage” Clive Barnes

“We need desperately to experience magic” Brook