Kathmandu, November 20, 2016: For those who are great fans of William Shakespeare, the English poet and playwright, you will enjoy watching A Midsummer Night’s Dream, one of Shakespeare’s comical plays, being staged at The British School, Sanepa. Adapted and directed by Greta Rana and presented by the Nepal-Britain Society’s New Shakespearewallahs commemorating 200 years of friendship and 400th death anniversary of Shakespeare, the play makes one laugh at the follies the characters make on stage. Besides their humorous acting, the fights between the characters and their stupidity are fun to watch.
The play starts with a conversation between Lysander (Divya Dev) and Hermia (Akanchha Karki), making plans to elope as their affair isn’t accepted by Hermia’s father. Oberon, King of Fairies (Manoj Basnet) and his Queen Titania (Saguna Shah) have come to the forest.
There is an argument between this husband and wife as Titania refuses to give changeling boy (Navashri Rana) to Oberon to use as his knight. Oberon wants to punish her.
Puck (Avas Karmacharya) is then ordered to put the magical juice derived from a flower into Titania’s eyes. In the forest Oberon finds that Helena (Gunjan Dixit) is rejected by Demetrius (Utpal Jha) as he loves Hermia.
Oberon then orders Puck to put the magical juice into Demetrius’ eyes too. The play takes a different turn when Puck mistakenly puts the magical juice in the eyes of Lysander.
The characters have justified their roles. Karmacharya makes the audience laugh with his stupidity and mischief. Shah and Basnet are brilliant in their roles. One finds originality in their acting as husband and wife in their arguments and yes, in the love they express for one another.
The fight between Dixit and Karki is worth watching. Dev and Jha fit their roles as lovers. Aashant Sharma as Pyramus and an Ass steals the show with his comic antics, his roar and his character. Saroj Aryal as Thisbe makes the audience laugh with his feminine looks.
The dialogue delivery is fluent making one feel ample rehearsals have been done. A few scenes from the original play have been cut but are narrated. They don’t make a difference in watching the comical play.
The play is on stage till November 20 at 5:30 pm, The British School.
