From the palace floor, a nubile girl calls on her father and their king to release her from ancient marriage laws; in the gardens, sprites and fairies delight in causing havoc for humankind.
These scenes from Shakespeare's whimsical play, A Midsummer Night's Dream, tell of the universality of forbidden love, social mores and illusion, elements very much alive today in Balinese culture, according to Tiffany Strawson.
Founders of The New Earth Works theater company, assistant director and actor Strawson and director Rhianna Abrahams will present A Midsummer Night's Dream at Arma Museum in Ubud, during the Ubud Writers and Readers Festival in early October.
"The play is about the fusion between the magical unseen world and the materialistic human world," Strawson says, adding that the Elizabethan classic is relevant to a tropical island with a similarly long history of myth, legend and magic.
"In Bali, there is a relationship between the seen and the unseen and the niskala - the seen and the unseen. In the play there are lots of fairies so we are taking these as *the Balinese* gamang or river spirits."
However, it is not just the magical and young love that has taken on a Balinese identity. Much of the costuming, says Strawson, is derived from a traditional Indonesian sensibility.
"We are reappropriating Balinese costumes and because this is an inter-cultural production we are drawing on differing influences, so we are using the kebaya," she explains.
"We have also been given fabric from a local textile artist who uses natural cottons and dyes. We are also using traditional fabrics given a new look."
One of the actors, Rucina Ballinger, who plays Egea, suggests Shakespeare purists might be concerned to learn that some of the great playwright's medieval English has been given a shake down and translated into High and Medium Balinese and Indonesian.
The aim of using three languages in the production is to ensure its message reaches its audience, which will be made up of people from diverse cultural backgrounds.
"We are cutting some of the words and translating from the old English into local languages so people can understand what is happening. Because I am no hard-nosed Shakespearean purist, this does not bother me. If we were talking about classical Balinese theatre, I'd be far more hard-nosed," says Ballinger, author of Balinese Dance, Drama and Music and a skilled performer of Balinese visual arts and speaks fluent Balinese.
She adds that as children make up much of the production's cast and potentially its audience, "in this context we can take poetic license to reach the audience. Many of them will be children, so *with the three languages* they can understand the play."
Having the audience understand one of Shakespeare's best-known works is vital to the success of the performance, says Strawson.
"We decided to make the production trilingual for access: access for the performers and the audience. We want people to understand the story, while having greatest respect for the text - not the specific words in that," she adds.
The cast and crew of 45 have been drawn from across Bali's growing multicultural society, with Indonesians, expatriates and children working both in the spotlight and behind the scenes.
"The play features teenagers. Its stars are teenagers as they were in Shakespeare's day when people married very young. As we are striving for professional excellence, some of the cast are also highly experienced and professional actors. But we are also working with people who have long wanted to perform, but never had the opportunity to do so," Strawson says.
This is part of the aim of the community theater group, which embraces people of differing cultures, languages, ages and nationalities simply "for the joy of it all".
"We find the professionals are very generous and supportive with the less experienced members of the cast and crew," Strawson adds.
- Trisha Sertori
