Delve into the sub­lime, sur­real and a little bit sexy this Hal­loween with the Roy­al New Zea­l­and Bal­let’s rebirth of their icon­ic bal­let A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream.

A co-pro­duc­tion with the Queens­land Bal­let and first per­formed in 2015, this stun­ning per­form­ance com­bines the late Liam Scar­lett’s cho­reo­graphy with Felix Mendels­sohn’s A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream score to cre­ate some­thing truly magic­al.

The Shakespearean A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream is prob­ably fairly well-known to most of you but if it’s not, here’s a pré­cis. Power­ful fair­ies in a forest take an interest in human love affairs, there’s some caper­ing and cases of mis­taken iden­tity, a man gets turned into a don­key, and all works out well in the end.

It’s a won­der­ful play, though nar­rat­ively com­plex. The RNZB’s iter­a­tion takes this icon­ic story and stream­lines it, set­ting it entirely with­in the forest and cut­ting some of the smal­ler char­ac­ters, to its abso­lute bene­fit. You don’t need to be bogged down in the affairs of a human queen and king when you’ve got a fairy queen and king to worry about – for example.

When my bal­let-going com­pan­ion and I enter the St James, we’re imme­di­ately wowed by the set – surely one of the RNZB’s best. A mul­ti­leveled set, with pieces that can fly and incre­ment­al light­ing states, build a pic­ture of a forest – it’s stun­ning and clev­er in its ver­sat­il­ity. (Tracy Grant Lord).

Photo cred­it: Steph­en A’Court.

We step into the story with a fight between fairy Queen and King Titania (Ana Gal­lardo Lob­aina) and Ober­on (Joshua Guille­mot-Rodger­son). They’re fight­ing over a changling child, who is played ador­ably by a child dan­cer, Anja Carr, dressed in a purple onesie. The fight turns sour and the pair fall apart, with Ober­on swear­ing revenge.

A group of explorers and hikers find them­selves in the forest the same night. Part of this group are our four lov­ers, Her­mia (Mayu Tani­gaito), Lysander (Kihiro Kusukami), Hes­tia (Kirby Selchow) and Demet­ri­us (Zachar­ie Dun). They are in a chal­len­ging romantic quad­rangle, which gets even more ridicu­lous when the fair­ies decide to inter­vene.

Ober­on and his mis­chiev­ous com­pan­ion Puck (Shaun James Kelly), use a magic­al flower to make Titania fall in love with Bot­tom (Calum Gray) one of the explorers, who is trans­formed into a don­key. They also inter­vene with­in the above love quad­rangle, to dis­astrous and hil­ari­ous res­ults.

Photo cred­it: Steph­en A’Court.

Look, it’s a fab­ulous bal­let. That’s a giv­en with the RNZB; but what I espe­cially appre­ci­ated about this one is the multi-layered and intric­ate diversity of the dance with­in, which steps far bey­ond bal­let you’re used to.

The four lov­ers have a deli­ri­ously funny dance fight, the male ensemble (styled very much like char­ac­ters from Wes Ander­son’s oeurve) a bold and very silly group num­ber, Ober­on and Titania dance a beau­ti­ful (and a little spicy) pas de deux, and then there’s also a vari­ety of more subtle and sweet romantic num­bers.

I espe­cially love how the RNZB, and Liam Scar­lett’s cho­reo­graphy, has­n’t been afraid to lean into the sexy and sur­real. The story is a strange one, and at times very flir­ta­tious, which bal­let can some­times shy from, but this sta­ging is bold, often­times blos­som­ing with ridicu­lous­ness (Calum Gray’s don­key per­form­ance is won­der­ful) much to its bene­fit.

Puck, who has always been my favour­ite ever since I first knew the play, floats high above the stage (quite lit­er­ally at one point), flit­ting between dance moments and caus­ing chaos. Shaun James Kelly has mastered this role – a truly fant­ast­ic iter­a­tion of a char­ac­ter people know well – and is a won­der to watch through­out the bal­let.

Such can be said for all the per­formers, though. A Mid­sum­mer Night’s Dream is almost entirely note-per­fect, a deeply wel­come adapt­a­tion, and so much of that is down to the strength of the dan­cers, the incred­ible world they’ve built and the orches­tral accom­pani­ment. It’s a truly magic­al work, and a beau­ti­ful taster if you’re new to the world of Shakespeare, or even the world of bal­let itself. You don’t want to miss this.