Theatre review: Dreaming Under The Southern Bough
This fusion of Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream and Tang Xianzu's opera A Dream Under The Southern Bough marks the 400-year anniversary of both authors' deaths.
Star rating: **
Venue: TheSpace on Niddry Street
Produced in collaboration by the University of Leeds with China’s University of International Business and Economics, it understandably leans more heavily on Tang’s lesser known (in the West) tale of a soldier’s dream about a journey through a kingdom of ants whose society mirrors our own. While the modern framing device is soon forgotten, scenes of political intrigue do little other than give a talented young cast the opportunity to mouth swathes of exposition without ever providing an engaging narrative.