Ein Sommernachtstraum
Theatre

A Funny Tragedy

The wedding of the royal couple of Athens is the occasion for this summer night spectacle. Before that, however, there are three nights, all of which lead to an enchanting forest. Here Titania and Oberon and the goblin Puck reign. Magic potions and identities flow and partners:inside change. The night in the forest suspends the laws of the day and everyone reveals their very own dreams. A space full of new possibilities emerges, staged by Antú Romero Nunes. Together with the Basler Compagnie, he follows the basic principle of theatre - the use of the imagination.

The production 'Ein Sommernachtsraum' is invited to the Berliner Theatertreffen! The play directed by Antú Romero Nunes is the only production from Switzerland to take part in the 60th edition of the Theatertreffen in May. More

Antú Romero Nunes has his top Basel ensemble play a group of teachers who perform the classic in a school auditorium. A theatre festival! (...) If the feuilletons recently lamented that theatre had lost its audience and its effectiveness after the pandemic - in Basel they show what theatre's very own power is and what it can do.

A celebration of playing, a great ode to the imagination! And thus also to theatre. (...) An evening that makes you happy, that celebrates theatre and is carried by a wonderful ensemble.

Shakespeare wanted to entertain. He had to lure the audience to his Globe Theatre in order to be successful. And this Basel production succeeds in doing just that: it entertains. It is able to enchant. How the barren school auditorium becomes an enchanted forest with an enchanted tree: magnificent. Do theatre like this? Absolutely!

For a full two hours, one enjoys watching the great ensemble as they mime the amateur crowd with high motivation and obviously great fun. (...) What do you take away from such a theatre evening? Above all, good humour.

A real theatre festival, completely in the sense of Shakespeare, who radically focused on entertainment in this play. The ensemble shows all its joy of playing, its changeability and its imagination.

In these two and a half hours non-stop without an intermission, there are countless scenes with gags, slapstick, slapstick, laughs and vocal interludes in which the burlesque fantasy explodes, in which the four lovers chase each other with comic verve on their way into the nocturnal dream forest. In the fairy-tale scenes, Nunes uses ironic and enchanting poetic stylistic devices very pointedly, right up to a revue number with Titania and the braying donkey, who spend what is probably the most beautiful night of love of their lives on a huge cushion of air. A laughing theatre with a lot of fun and playfulness, just the right thing against the winter blues and to bring the audience back to the theatre.

The Basel 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is an ode to the imagination and a declaration of love for amateur theatre. The teachers, initially drawn as awkward caricatures, become protagonists of a touching theatre scene at the end of the two and a half hour evening. A wonderful ensemble can be experienced on stage, bursting with playfulness.