The Southsea Shakespeare Actors present their steampunk-inspired production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in the historic Treadgold's Warehouse.
The Southsea Shakespeare Actors are bringing A Midsummer Night's Dream to Treadgold's Warehouse in Portsea, with the run opening on Tuesday 14 July and continuing through to Saturday 18 July. It's a familiar play, but this version takes it in a direction you might not expect.
Directed by Paula Bartlett, the production draws on an older, darker folkloric vision of the fairies—unsettling, powerful, and unpredictable beings of the wood—rather than the gentler version that often takes centre stage. That mood carries through into the look of the show, which is set in a steampunk aesthetic. It's a different way of approaching the story, trading the usual whimsical forest for something a bit more jagged.
The Southsea Shakespeare Actors themselves are a Portsmouth institution. They've been performing the plays of the Bard and other writers across the city and the wider area for almost 80 years, picking up awards along the way. This production is the latest in that long run.
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The venue is as much a part of the experience as the play. Treadgold's Warehouse is one of the earliest surviving buildings in Portsea, dating back 300 years to the early 1700s. It's also one of the most authentic surviving Victorian shopfronts in Portsmouth, with the front unchanged since around 1870, when it served as an iron and steel merchants and general ironmonger's shop. Seeing a steampunk production of A Midsummer Night's Dream inside a building with that kind of history feels right. The run goes from Tuesday 14 July to Saturday 18 July at Treadgolds, 1 Bishop Street, Portsea, PO1 3DA.
