A summer night's (night)dream. Loosely based on Shakespeare. Directed and written by Arina Horre.
Let yourself be "enchanted" by A Midsummer Night's (Night) Dream at St. John's Church in Lahnstein!

When lovers chase each other on the banks of the Rhine and elves are up to mischief, the oldest open-air plays in Rhineland-Palatinate present themselves for the first time under the new name "Freilichtspiele Mittelrhein" in the enchanting ambience of the Johanniskirche.
"A Midsummer Night's (Night)Dream. Freely adapted from Shakespeare", written and directed by Arina Horre, is a modern version of the popular play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" by William Shakespeare and will celebrate its premiere on Thursday, 06.07.23 at 20:00h, at the Johanniskirche.

William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was first performed between 1595 and 1598 and is one of Shakespeare's most popular and most performed plays ever. The comedy takes a poetic, critical and comical look at all kinds of love and marital connections. Starting with the wedding preparations of the ruler Theseus, four plot lines are interwoven around love, jealousy, intoxication, magic and passion.

The plot takes place both in the world of humans and in the world of the elves. In the forest, which belongs to the realm of the elves and is full of magic, mischief and confusion, the two worlds and different protagonists meet. Disputes, jealousy and passions of the protagonists of one world have consequences for the other world and confusion and confusion abound. At the end of the chaos and the passionate quarrels, there is a happy ending for all the lovers; except for the defeated and imprisoned Hippolyta, who as a prisoner of war probably has no choice but to agree to marry the ruler Theseus.
In "A Midsummer Night's (Night) Dream", director Arina Horre takes up the basic elements of this confusing dream play by Shakespeare, alternating between contemporary language and Shakespearean verse and transposing the action to her native Lahnstein. Love, romance and passion remain the central motifs in Horre's version. The cheeky goblin Puck, a wanderer between worlds, who defies the binary classification of man and woman and for whom all the rules do not seem to apply, also causes quite a chaos of feelings and confusion in this version and thus shows the audience the power and the dangers of love.

In Shakespeare, the quarrel of the king and queen of the elves throws the human lovers into chaos, and also has a chaos-inducing effect on the climate. Horre takes up this theme of interrelationships between worlds and consequences of actions for the environment further: the human way of life also has an effect on the destruction of the climate and on the world of the elves. Where the elves in Shakespeare pick flowers for their queen, in Horre they collect rubbish. Both the parts of the text adapted in contemporary language and, in particular, the set and décor, which are created in collaboration with the Koblenz artist Anna Tiedemann, mainly from recycled materials, bear witness to the skilful adaptation of the original to contemporary themes.

Look forward to enchanting hours in which the question may arise again and again: "What is play and what is reality?"
Friends of musical theatre will not miss out in this production either: guest star Bruno Grassini will contribute a solo to the play at the finale and delight with his voice.

Premiere: 06.07.23, 8:00 pm
Performance dates:
Thu. 06.07, Fri. 07.07, Sat. 08.07, Sun. 09.07,
Fri 14 Jul, Sat 15 Jul, Sun 16 Jul,
Fri 21 Jul, Sat 22 Jul, Sun 23 Jul,
Fri 28 Jul, Sat 29 Jul, Sun 30 Jul,
Fri. 04.08., Sat. 05.08., Sun. 06.08.23
Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 6 p.m.