News Puck goes punk May 3 2002 South London Press(posted 8021 days ago)DOMINIC Cooper's debut role with the Royal Shakespeare Company has plunged him in at the deep end.
The Lewisham-based actor, 23, takes the key part of Puck in the current production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which has been at the centre of a critical onslaught on the RSC. But Dominic says: "Kids' reactions to the show have been great - they have really gone for it.
"The people who have seen the play a lot of times and seen one production that they love are the ones who seem to be a bit stuffy.
"I am painted with this black paint and the fairies have jet blue hair and dark clothes. It's quite punky - everyone does look like a lot of rock stars with long hair and a bit of stubble."
The production is directed by Richard Jones, the award-winning KENNINGTON-based director whose drastic updating of opera - which includes scratch 'n' sniff cards for the audience and even a cookery demonstration - has outraged traditionalists.
Dominic says: "Visually it's wonderful - there is so much going on.
"But it's a very dark production which I think A Midsummer Night's Dream is.
"I always saw Puck as like a sprite - jumping and being lively like a naughty child. But Richard Jones wanted him to be dark and grounded - Puck is quite evil in a lot of the things he does like causing all the mix-up in love."
Dominic says he wishes there had been more shows around like the RSC production when he was a schoolkid, 'unbelievably bored' with some of the stage offerings he was forced to sit through.
But he gives top marks to his old school Thomas Tallis in Kidbrooke for encouraging his yen for acting.
He trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art and landed numerous small parts in TV and film before getting his first stage- break at the National Theatre.
Performances of A Midsummer Night's Dream run at the Barbican Theatre until May 11 as part of a national tour. The RSC has been strongly criticised for its decision to quit the Barbican as its regular London base - Waterloo's Old Vic has been mentioned as a possible replacement - while the company's boss Adrian Noble has now announced his resignation following an outcry over his radical plans to redevelop the Stratford-on-Avon theatre site as a 'Shakespeare village'.
But as in A Midsummer Night's Dream itself, things may be better than they seem - after all, when Dominic heard a remark accidentally broadcast over the theatre public address system that his Puck was `a bit scary', he knew he could take it as a compliment.
****** Tickets for A Midsummer Night's Dream cost £8-£32. Box office 020-7638 8891.