Why I thought Midsummer Night's Dream could be a PEACE play.

My 2019 Midsummer Night's Dream was EU PEACE IV funded, which meant that our funder had an agenda that was not primarily artistic, although Ards and North Down Borough Council completely bought into the idea that a powerful artistic experience could bring about profound change, something for which I will be eternally grateful.  Terra Nova can satisfy enquiries into how our artistic practice brings about emotional and intellectual change, and anyone interested shouldn't hesitate to get in touch.  What I want to talk about here are catalyst moments within the script that made me think 'this will work.  It won't be forced.  This production can be about peace.'.  

As I came to think about the play, the war between Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the Fairies, gave me the first moment.  It was my first doorway into the production.  At the start, Oberon and Titania have been fighting for a while, and Titania pleads for them to resolve their differences, describing the ruin of the world that is caused by their discord, saying: 'this comes from our debate, from our dissension; we are their parents and originals'.  This felt like a great starting metaphor to look at the effect of orange-green dissension in Northern Ireland.  Especially for those of us who identify with neither tribe, the effect of the disension is wearying: endless.  Nothing seems to flourish as it could.

The second moment that convinced me that this was a play to use to explore racism in Northern Ireland is when Lysander pleads to the Court for the right to marry Hermia, a high born girl whom loves him.  Her father has promised her to someone else, but she loves Lysander.  I realised that by making Lysander a successful visible minority immigrant, someone who comes to court but didn't necesarily grow up there, his plea to the Queen concerning his own worth: 'I am your grace as well derived as he, as well possess'd; my love is more than his; my fortunes every way as fairly rank'd as Demetrius' would allow us to explore inequality.  Why shouldn't the immigrant be equal to the indigenous person? Why is it that success and skill never actually purchase belonging?  This Lysander speaks to my own feelings as an immigrant that our society masquerades as a meritocracy, but that beneith that disguise other rules are at play.  Lysander gave us the opportunity to unpack exclusion and racism across the province.

The final moment worth mentioning is Queen Thesea's decision at the end of the play to overrule what she has previously described as 'the ancient rule of Athens, which by no means we may extenuate'.  By the end she simply says 'I will overbear your will' to Hermia's father and permits the young lovers to marry freely.  We are reminded that rules are just human constructs, dictating who we must hate and who we are allowed to love.  The moment when Thesia decides to overrule the old order spoke powerfully to me about our ability to let the old rules go, in Northern Ireland, if we are willing.

Add my gender changes to this, my determination to cast three black actors, my decision to put a Queen rather than a King at the centre of the play, and the fun we had with WI ladies instead of male mechanicals and I had a play that could carry the PEACE 4 themes naturally.  Writing a Peace vs Love masque and adding to the celebration at the wedding rather than cutting that bit (as is more usual) gave me more context to showcase a range of local talent.  The key thing was that we all (craft, dancers, choir, musicians and drama performers) explored these themes together, as did the Front of House and tech team as they came on Board, meaning that the importance of these themes was carried forward by everyone involved in the production.