THE DREAMING Director/Choreographer: SueBonnett
The Exmouth Pavilion: M.D. Jeremy Rawlings.
This was an enchanting show, excellently performed by the members of Centre Stage.
"The Dreaming" is based on Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" with music by Howard
Goodall and lyrics by Charles Hart. The set was very effective, magically lit with a design by Ian
Whilden which formed the right background to the earthy colours of the costumes.
This is by no
means an easy show to perform, with its Shakespearean dialogue and extremely challenging
music, the cast must have worked extremely hard to reach such an exceptional standard of
performance. It was very well cast with superb performances by all, including the very animated
chorus of woodlanders. The cast was ably led by Duncan Taylor playing the part of Jack. He
was lithe and energetic and fitted this part perfectly. Emma Bateman was Sylvia, Queen of the Woodlanders and Perry Meadowcroft was Angel, The King.
They sparked off each other and both sang well, particularly, Emma whose strong singing has
a lot of potential. The Villagers, led by Gareth Phare as a confident Rev. Herbert Plum provided
some excellent comedy. They threw themselves into the parts, they had good comic timing and
gained obvious enjoyment from their performance. Other strong performances came from. Ami Gibson(Jennifer), Charlotte(Grace McNeil) and Hennrietta(Hannah Caygill) all sang extremely
well.
They were very ably supported by Sean Mabin(Julian), Alexander(Chalie Leigh) and
David (Sean Mulkerinn) all of whom played convincing characters. This was a show I had not
seen before and I would like to congratulate Centre Stage for tackling something a different.
It is a great pity they did not get the support it deserved, because they put on a tremendous
production, I for one appreciated it greatly and went back for a second performance. Well done
to all involved.
