review for A Midsummer Night's Dream on AllMovie

In the late '70s and early '80s, the British Broadcasting Corporation completed video adaptations of 37 Shakespeare plays. This 1981 version of A Midsummer Night's Dream was part of that effort. Like other productions in the BBC series, it presents the plays without special effects or elaborate scenery. It is basic Shakespeare, but it is good Shakespeare. Almost all of the 17,200 words in the play are recited by accomplished British performers, including Nigel Davenport as Theseus, Peter McEnery as Oberon, Helen Mirren as Titania, Pippa Guard as Hermia, Robert Lindsay as Lysander, and Brian Glover as Bottom. Generally, the performances are engaging and suitably mischievous. Director Elijah Moshinsky, as well known for directing operas as for directing plays and films, manipulates the characters skillfully. But he eschews a 20th century feminist convention to magnify the importance of Hippolyta. While other productions have kept her on the stage as a queenly presence after she has spoken her mind, Moshinsky poofs her offstage. Nor does Moshinsky exploit the erotic possibilities of bumbling yokel Bottom's encounter with sultry Titania after magical flower juice makes her fall in love with him. Such traditionalism makes the presentation of the play more Elizabethan than modern and more acceptable to audiences who prefer the look and feel of the play as seen in Shakespeare's time. Critics who prefer revisionist versions call this production risk-free Shakespeare -- that is, generic and uninspired. Shakespeare might say to them, as Helena does in A Midsummer Night's Dream, "Fie, fie! you counterfeit...!"