Deadpan Shakespeare, Russian-style, makes for an evening of divine mayhem and madness.

His Majesty’s Theatre, Perth

February 14, 2014

On arrival, the seats at His Majesty’s are covered in dustsheets, while the wooden stage is clad in plastic. The chandelier is still in its wrappings. We’re here to see the Dmitry Krymov Laboratory from Moscow but it looks suspiciously like the decorators are in. All of a sudden, the side doors of the theatre burst open and a dozen yelling and shouting workmen start attempting to manhandle a huge tree-cum-stage-prop up and over the audience – it’s like your biggest dodgy Polish removalists nightmare come to life. They’ve even brought the dog!

A fountain follows, dripping water that needs to be caught in buckets, a fair amount of which spills over the audience (ushers bustle about with towels to help the unfortunate). This is a singularly Russian-eye view of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and these are Shakespeare’s mechanicals. A bunch of extravagantly clad toffs are next on the scene, clambering over the chairs to become a makeshift audience and engaging in all the annoying things that a badly behaved crowd of first-nighters get up too with mobile phones and the like....