These familiar lines sound just that bit funnier in the hands of the unforgettably distinctive actress Julie Forsyth, who takes on the role for Bell Shakespeare’s “The Dream”, premiering at the Canberra Playhouse shortly.

Forsyth tells “CityNews” that it’s not unusual to have women playing the role of Puck and how recently in London one production had him as a big bumbling old man, a far cry from the 1935 Mickey Rooney child-star version.

“I haven’t even thought of this character as anything but coming from myself… I am seeing fairyland as kind of non-gendered,” Forsyth says.

The text has been “somewhat reduced”, she says, to give focus to the three levels – the lovers, the Athenian mechanicals and the nighttime shadow world of the fairies. But as she explains, the fairies themselves have human traits such as jealousy, and there is an element of childishness in fairy king Oberon who sulks and wants revenge against his wife.

“As Puck, I’m the mischievous trickster, the person who weaves the magic, especially the love potion in the purple flower,” she says, noting however that it’s not all mischief. Oberon notices the plight of the human lovers and uses the magic for both good and evil – to humiliate Titania, but to make something good for the spurned girl Helen.

A sense of magic dominates the play and creates the comedy but also for Titania, she says, it creates something horrific.

“The fairies have a connection with nature and the sense of balance that is disturbed when they are at odds,” she says.

This is Forsyth’s second production with Bell and with director Peter Evans. She played the role of the nurse Oenone in Racine’s “Phèdre” and her last Shakespeare role was the nurse in “Romeo and Juliet” for the Sydney Theatre Company.

One of the pleasures of playing Puck, Forsyth says, is “the beautiful joy of a happy ending,” over which he/she presides with the words:

If we shadows have offended

Think but this, and all is mended

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear.

Yet it tickles her that the fairies themselves can’t control what happens. “This play is so much about theatre, love and magic,” Forsyth says. “We see actors playing actors… we see the play within a play… the audience is acknowledged… it’s very magical, quite a joy.”

“The Dream”, The Playhouse, August 30-September 13, previews August 28-29, bookings to canberratheatrecentre.com.au or 6275 2700.