Review: Ruined Theatre's A Midsummer Night's Dream ★★★★☆

The whole point about Shakespeare is that you can set the play on an intergalactic space station or an American high school and keep virtually the rest unchanged. What happens when you transpose Dream from a proscenium arch to a living wood? As the sun sets over the trees, what sprites will come out to entertain us? Ruined Theatre brings a brilliant cast of seasoned West End performers to strut their hour among the ruins of Abbey Wood. Hey, gentrification has its benefits, OK? I don't know how many times I've seen "Dream", but I know I've never seen it performed in an actual wood during summer. Booking the tickets a few weeks ago during England's heatwave, it sounded perfect. A warm, dusky evening, accompanied by færies and asses. The British weather, of course, had other ideas. The Show Must Go On The storm clouds were, as the bard wrote, heavy, black and, pendulous. Outside it may be raining, their makeup may be flaking, but everyone knows that Shakespeare is best played when…