There is a moment at the very end of Corcadorca's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream when the fairies walk on the water of the ornamental pond, the trees glow red and blue, moths fling themselves against the lights and all the essence of a dream, seems realised in a little city park as the cast assembles on a stage of stilts. Such seduction has to be resisted with the query - is the place more important than the play? It can't be, but this inspired conjunction of drama and delphiniums achieves a special harmony.
The text is treated with respect and, perhaps more importantly, with command. The hectic wooing of Helena and Demetrius, of Lysander and Hermia, even of the players' version of Thisbe and Pyramus, may be set within the riverside alleys and bandstand of the park but the words are clear, the playing full of energy and confidence.
These frolicsome misunderstandings and spells do not hide the darker elements of the play, although the commentary on play-making itself offered by Bottom and his team is perhaps the most important critical element in the approach taken by director Pat Kiernan.
The entire cast is in fine voice, projection untroubled by the distances covered. The audience follows the voices, and the action, led here by a clarinet, there by a tuba. Titania slumbers in the branches of a yew and her fairies emanate from the shadows of beeches and limes, with Oberon declaiming his orders to Puck from a stepped modern sculpture labelled "no climbing". A cast too large to congratulate individually is assisted by community singers and dancers, but among this list Jennifer Barry, Yvonne O'Hara, Mike Carberry, Elizabeth Bracken and Gerald Walsh are pre-eminent. Mel Mercier's music, Cliff Dolliver's design and Paul Denby's lighting enable this idea of processional Shakespeare in a splendid circle of completion, from the pool, with distracted ducklings among the water-lilies, through the park and the play itself to the still, reflective waters at the moment of midnight solstice.
Continues at FitzGerald's Park until Saturday, June 30th (except Sunday 24th) at 9.30 p.m. and then at Fota Arboretum from July 2nd to 7th. (Booking at 0214270022)