Ein Sommernachtstraum
Theatre

A hilarious tragedy

The wedding of the royal couple of Athens is the occasion for this summer night's play. Before that, however, there are three nights that all lead to a magical forest. Titania and Oberon and the goblin Puck reign here. Magic potions and identities flow and partners change. The night in the forest suspends the laws of the day and everyone reveals their very own dreams. A space full of new possibilities is created, staged by Antú Romero Nunes. Together with the Basler Compagnie, he pursues the very essence of theatre - the use of the imagination.

The production 'Ein Sommernachtsraum' has been invited to the Berlin Theatertreffen! The play, directed by Antú Romero Nunes, was the only production from Switzerland to be included in the 60th edition of the Theatertreffen in May 2023. More

Digital book table

Together with the dramaturgy department, the Basel Kulturhaus Bider & Tanner has been curating the book table for our plays for many years. Now this selection of books, CDs, DVDs, catalogues and sheet music is available at any time in the online shop. It's worth browsing regularly.

Book table

Antú Romero Nunes has his top Basel ensemble play a group of teachers who perform the classic in a school auditorium. A theatre festival! (...) If the feuilletons have recently been lamenting that theatre has lost its audience and its effectiveness after the pandemic - in Theater Basel they show what the theatre's very own power is and what it can do.

A celebration of play, a great ode to the imagination! And thus also to the theatre. (...) An evening that makes you happy, that celebrates the theatre and is carried by a wonderful ensemble.

Shakespeare wanted to entertain. He had to lure the audience into his Globe Theatre in order to be successful. And this realisation in Basel succeeds in doing just that: it entertains. It is able to enchant. How the barren school auditorium is transformed into an enchanted forest with a magic tree: marvellous. Do theatre like this? Absolutely!

For a full two hours, it's a pleasure to watch the fantastic ensemble mimic the group of amateurs with great motivation and obviously enormous fun. (...) What do you take away from such an evening of theatre? Above all, a good mood.

A real theatre festival, entirely in the spirit of Shakespeare, who radically focussed on entertainment in this play. The ensemble shows all its joy of acting, its versatility and its imagination.

In these two and a half non-stop hours without an interval, there are countless scenes with gags, slapstick, slapstick, laughs and vocal interludes in which the burlesque fantasy explodes, in which the four lovers chase each other with comic verve on their way into the nocturnal forest of dreams. Nunes uses ironic and enchanting poetic stylistic devices to great effect in the fairytale scenes, including a revue number with Titania and the braying donkey, who spend the most beautiful night of love of their lives on a giant air cushion. A laughter theatre with lots of fun and wit, just the right thing against the winter blues and to bring the audience back to the theatre.

Basel's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is an ode to the imagination and a declaration of love to amateur theatre. The teachers, initially portrayed as awkward caricatures, become the protagonists of a touching theatre scene by the end of the two-and-a-half-hour evening. A wonderful ensemble can be seen on stage, bursting with playfulness.

With seven such witty players, most of whom have three or four cross-gender roles, and the fabulous musician and "sound producer" Luzius Schuler, you sometimes feel you are in an atmosphere that is as poetically musical and humorous as it is whimsically melancholy.

Tagesspiegel

Romero Nunes also expects us to enjoy the more unwieldy, often deleted parts of the work. Despite all the comedy, this results in depths that one would hardly have thought possible in this often-performed work. (...) Just as the Basel ensemble is good for kneeling down!

Berliner Morgenpost