Dream lost in translation

We have possibly spent too many nights in dramatic Dream-land of late and require a restorative dose of daytime normality. First there was Tim Supple's magnificent India-set version at Stratford, then arrived an enjoyable Edwardian England account at the Open Air Theatre.

Now comes Korea's turn, courtesy of the Yohangza Company. It's the Athenian wood, Puck, but not as we know it.

It's actually not Puck as we know him either, as adaptor-director Jung-Ung Yang has superimposed the folklore of his homeland onto Shakespeare's framework of mixed-up young lovers. Thus Oberon and Titania have their roles reversed and become Gabi and Dot and the rest of fairyland the sprite-like Dokkebi.

Unfortunately, what Yang omitted to lift from the original is any real sense of magic, peril or poetry.

I must confess that my fellow audience members whooped and cheered, but to me this tiresomely over-eager production resembled a Christmas panto that has somehow time-travelled to June.

Yang's pared-down text alternately whizzes over and lingers excessively on all the wrong parts of the story, and takes an unwise and lengthy detour into lavatorial humour. If Shakespeare had an estate, it would be muttering darkly about brand image.

The actors also dance and play percussion, and some of the ritual movement, especially from the eye-wateringly bendy-kneed young bucks, is indeed impressive. The stripped-pine set, seemingly assembled from an Ikea flat-pack, is much less so. Still, the appealing Ji-Young Kim makes her petite Byeok-Hermia so ferocious that she amusingly threatens, Crouching Tiger-style, to become airborne at any minute.

The Dokkebi appear to have infiltrated the surtitles, as they stop and start and irritatingly fail to translate all of the singing. Not, then, the kind of Dream you want to tell everyone about the next morning.

A Midsummer Night's Dream
Shakespeare's Globe Theatre
New Globe Walk, SE1 9DT