The Midsummer Night’s Dream: Four young Athenians – Hermia, Lysander, Helena and Demetrius, are in romantic turmoil. Hermia loves Lysander but her father insists that she must marry Demetrius. Demetrius has had a change of heart from Helena to Hermia; Hermia is fixated on Lysander and Helena is distraught at Demetrius rejection. Hernia and Lysander ran away into the forest and Demetrius ran after Hernia and Helena ran after Demetrius in an exciting chase through the forest.
In the same forest outside Athens, Oberon, King of the Fairies, and his Queen, Titania, have quarrelled. Oberon, seeking to punish Titania’s defiance, sends his servant – the mischievous fairy Puck, to find a flower called “love-in-idleness”. The juice from this flower, if squeezed on a sleeping person’s eyelids, makes the victim fall in love with the first living thing seen on awakening. Oberon intends to humiliate Titania by making her fall in love with some monster of the forest. Into the forest come a group of workers, the “rustics”. One of them, Nick Bottom, is isolated from his colleagues, and Puck casts a spell on him to give him the head of a donkey. Under the flower’s spell, Titania wakes up and sees the donkey and falls madly in love with him.
Puck’s mischievous use of the flower juice causes the Athenian lovers confusing and dramatic complications.
Can there ever be a happy end in such a convoluted situation…?
The London Ballet Theatre’s new show is a sleek collection of three ballets (an entire ballet and two excerpts), creating an impressive performance for a fundraising evening for humanitarian aid in Ukraine.
Suitable for ages 10+