In the Thick of the Woods: Contemporary Obscurity in the RSC’s 2021 Virtual Dream

Abstract: This essay discusses the Royal Shakespeare Company’s virtual Dream that was streamed in March 2021, reaching over 53,000 people from more than seventy countries. Led by publicity to expect a dazzling virtual spectacle, many spectators found the experience underwhelming, feeling baffled by a Puck avatar who groped around an artificial looking nighttime wood, whipped about by a storm. This article suggests that, instead of dismissing this project too easily, it can be read as a truly contemporary rendering of the play in Giorgio Agamben’s sense. Shakespeare becomes contemporary through a dramatic exploration of obscurity, showing how characters are compelled to act, to make decisions, and to abandon themselves to a potentially dangerous environment that they do not fully understand or control. Like Shakespeare’s mechanicals, tripped up in their rehearsal process by the strange workings in the woods near Athens, the RSC’s Dream cast were groping towards an expression of their present predicament, sending out a flickering message from their COVID-19 lockdown. The production captured contemporary obscurity and anxiety caused by the challenges of climate change, the pandemic, and digital transformation.