STET presents A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Illyria

In the open air at Raadhuis De Paauw in Wassenaar on 8th – 10th September 2022

Five couples – three human, one fairy, and one mythical – find their relationships sorely tested, intimately probed and indecently exposed when a troupe of amateur theatricals bumble into the forest to rehearse a play. 

Shakespeare’s timeless comic masterpiece explores every colour in the spectrum of love, from arranged marriage to elopement, from infatuation to hatred, from chivalric devotion to raw sex. Add a heady brew of confusion, magic and mischief to this bawdy mix, and you have the most perfectly frothy comedy for a moonlit summer evening. 

Illyria’s productions are slick, physical and imaginative in execution. They are played with characteristic briskness – Shakespeare was, after all, unequivocal about how long his plays take to perform.

Each play is inspired by performance techniques of Elizabethan touring troupes, such as live music and song, inclusion of the audience in the proceedings, contemporary references and robustness of style.