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Set model for Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream

Theatre Design
2000 (made)
Artist/Maker
Place of origin

Peter Brook’s 1970 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company had a profound effect on a whole generation of theatre artists and audience members. It is regarded as one of the most influential Shakespearean productions of the 20th century. Sally Jacobs’s white-box set was key to its success.

Brook’s original aim was to make the play’s magic believable by mixing actors with Chinese acrobats, having been inspired by the Peking Circus on its first visit to Europe. This proved unworkable, so Brook used an RSC cast (including Frances de la Tour, Alan Howard and Ben Kingsley), who began a period of intensive, unconventional rehearsal that included gymnastics, circus tricks, and singing and dancing.

Brook and Sally Jacobs developed the standard white-box set (widely used at Stratford at the time) into a fantastical gymnasium/circus space. Steel ladders ran from the ground to a gallery where the musicians were stationed and where the actors waited when they were ‘off-stage’, gazing down on the action, or providing sound effects and rough music. Trapezes were suspended from the ceiling and wire springs dangled down to form the Athenian wood in which the lovers and ‘mechanicals’ are ensnared. Puck walked on stilts, actors dangled from trapezes, and Titania’s bed became a giant feather suspended on wires. The actors wore loose clothes (kaftans and bell bottoms) in white, or bright, jewel-like colours that allowed them to contrast with, or blend into, the set.

Sally Jacobs re-made this model for the V&A to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the production, reusing some of the original model parts. The scene she created shows Puck (in luminous yellow) on stilts, Demetrius and Helena entangled in a wire thicket, and Oberon (in purple) on trapeze, while Titania rests on her feather bed attended by floating fairies.


Object details

Categories
Object type
TitleSet model for Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream (generic title)
Materials and techniques
Cardboard, polyboard and paper model, with photocopied and painted figures and attached wires and feather
Brief description
Set model by Sally Jacobs for Peter Brook's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Royal Shakespeare Company, 1970-73
Physical description
A black box model with a white box, within, set with a gallery running round the top and a door in the rear wall. The set contains two-dimensional figures representing recognisable figures from the production. At stage level to the left a figure in yellow (Puck) on stilts, to the right a man and woman (Demetrius and Helena), the woman entangled in coils of wire which hang from the right hand gallery. At gallery level to left two male figures and to right a male figure (the fairies). Hanging from wires centre a red feather 'bed' containing a figure in a green gown (Titania) and from wires to right a figure in purple on a trapeze (Oberon). At rear four figures suspended on wires (the fairies).
Dimensions
  • Height: 48cm
  • Width: 74cm
  • Depth: 44cm
Object history
Sally Jacobs created the original set model for the Royal Shakespeare Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream in 1970. She re-made the model for the V&A in 2000, using parts of the original model and some new material.

A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Peter Brook, opened at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, on 27 August 1970. It was then taken to New York and on to Chicago, Boston, Toronto and Philadelphia, and joined the RSC's London season at the Aldwych Theatre on 10 June 1971. The production began a world tour in September 1972, first visiting Europe, then returning for a Christmas season at the Aldwych before playing for a week at Stratford. This was followed by a year-long tour to America, Japan and Australia.

Historical significance: One of the most celebrated and discussed of 20th-century Shakespeare productions, Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream used a bare white box set in which the play's magic was created through circus tricks: the fairies wore simple, brightly coloured, costumes suggested by those of Chinese acrobats and swung in on trapezes; Puck confounded the lovers while balanced on stilts amd juggled a spinning plate to represent the magic flower. Brook swept away the theatrical traditions and much of the 'prettiness' that had become associated with the play and, in redefining A Midsummer Night's Dream for the 1970s, exerted an enormous influence on subsequent productions.
Association
Literary referenceA Midsummer Night's Dream
Summary
Peter Brook’s 1970 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream for the Royal Shakespeare Company had a profound effect on a whole generation of theatre artists and audience members. It is regarded as one of the most influential Shakespearean productions of the 20th century. Sally Jacobs’s white-box set was key to its success.

Brook’s original aim was to make the play’s magic believable by mixing actors with Chinese acrobats, having been inspired by the Peking Circus on its first visit to Europe. This proved unworkable, so Brook used an RSC cast (including Frances de la Tour, Alan Howard and Ben Kingsley), who began a period of intensive, unconventional rehearsal that included gymnastics, circus tricks, and singing and dancing.

Brook and Sally Jacobs developed the standard white-box set (widely used at Stratford at the time) into a fantastical gymnasium/circus space. Steel ladders ran from the ground to a gallery where the musicians were stationed and where the actors waited when they were ‘off-stage’, gazing down on the action, or providing sound effects and rough music. Trapezes were suspended from the ceiling and wire springs dangled down to form the Athenian wood in which the lovers and ‘mechanicals’ are ensnared. Puck walked on stilts, actors dangled from trapezes, and Titania’s bed became a giant feather suspended on wires. The actors wore loose clothes (kaftans and bell bottoms) in white, or bright, jewel-like colours that allowed them to contrast with, or blend into, the set.

Sally Jacobs re-made this model for the V&A to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the production, reusing some of the original model parts. The scene she created shows Puck (in luminous yellow) on stilts, Demetrius and Helena entangled in a wire thicket, and Oberon (in purple) on trapeze, while Titania rests on her feather bed attended by floating fairies.
Other number
THM/428
Collection
Accession number
S.706-2001

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Record createdNovember 7, 2001
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