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Analysis of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on July 26, 2020 • ( 0 )

Nothing by Shakespeare before A Midsummer Night’s Dream is its equal and in some respects nothing by him afterwards surpasses it. It is his first undoubted masterpiece, with-out flaws, and one of his dozen or so plays of overwhelming originality and power.

—Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is William Shakespeare’s first comic masterpiece and remains one his most beloved and performed plays. It seems reasonable to claim that on any fine night during the summer at an outdoor theater somewhere in the world an audience is being treated to the magic of the play. It is easy, however, to overlook through familiarity what a radically original and experimental play this is. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the triumph of Shakespeare’s early play-writing career, a drama of such marked inventiveness and visionary reach that its first audiences must have only marveled at what could possibly come next from this extraordinary playwright. In it Shakespeare changed the paradigm of stage comedy that he had inherited from the Greeks and the Romans by dizzyingly multiplying his plot lines and by bringing the irrational and absurd illusions of romantic love center stage. He established human passion and gender relations as comedy’s prime subject, transforming such fundamental concepts as love, courtship, and marriage that have persisted in our culture ever since. If that is not enough A Midsummer Night’s Dream makes use of its romantic intrigue, supernatural setting, and rustic foolery to pose essential questions about the relationship between art and life, appearance and reality, truth and illusion, dreams and the waking world that anticipate the self-referential agenda of such avant-garde, metadramatists as Luigi Pirandello, Bertolt Brecht, and Tom Stoppard. A Midsummer Night’s Dream represents a kind of declaration of liberation for the stage, in which, after its example, nothing seems either off limits or impossible. In the play Theseus, the duke of Athens, after hearing the lovers’ strange story of what happened to them in the forest famously interprets their incredible account by linking the lovers with the lunatic and the poet:

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold, That is the madman: the lover, all as frantic, Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt: The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name. Such tricks hath strong imagination, That if it would but apprehend some joy, It comprehends some bringer of that joy: Or, in the night, imagining some fear, How easy is a bush suppos’d a bear!

A Midsummer Night’s Dream similarly gives a “local habitation and a name” on stage for what madness, love, and the poet’s imagination can conjure.

Shakespeare first made his theatrical reputation in the early 1590s with his Henry VI plays, with the historical chronicle genre that he pioneered. His early tragedies— Titus Andronicus and Romeo and Juliet —and comedies— The Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, and Love’s Labour’s Lost —all show the playwright working within the dramatic conventions that he inherited from classical, medieval, and English folk sources. With A Midsummer Night’s Dream Shakespeare goes beyond imitation to discover a distinctive voice and manner that would add a new dramatic species. After A Midsummer Night’s Dream there was Old Comedy, New Comedy, and now Shakespearean comedy, a synthesis of both. To explain the origin and manner of A Midsummer Night’s Dream scholars have long relied on a speculative story so apt and evocative that it must be believed, even though there is no hard evidence to support it. Thought to have been written in the winter of 1593–94 to be performed at an aristocratic wedding attended by Queen Elizabeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream therefore resembles the Renaissance masque, a fanciful mixture of allegorical and mythological enactments, music, dance, elegant costumes, and elaborate theatrical effects to entertain at banquets celebrating betrothals, weddings, and seasonal festivals such as May Day and Twelfth Night. In the words of Theseus at his own nuptial fete, the masque served “To wear away this long age of three hours / Between our after-supper and bed-time.” We do know from the title page of its initial publication in the First Quarto of 1600 that the play “hath been sundry times publikely acted” by Shakespeare’s company, but the notion that it had served as a wedding entertainment establishes the delightful fun-house mirroring of an actual wed-ding party first watching a play that included a wedding party watching a play. Such an appropriate scrambling of reality and illusion reflects the source of the humor and wonder of A Midsummer Night’s Dream .

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of just three plays out of Shakespeare’s 39 (the other two are Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Tempest ) for which the play-wright did not rely on a central primary source. Instead Shakespeare assembled elements from classical sources, romantic narratives, and English folk materials, along with details of ordinary Elizabethan life to juggle and juxtapose four different imaginative realms, each with its own distinctive social and literary conventions and language. Each is linked by analogy to the theme of love and its obstacles. The first is the classically derived court world of Theseus, duke of Athens, who has first conquered Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, then won her heart, and now eagerly (and impatiently) anticipates their wedding. Their impending nuptials prompt the arrival of emissaries from the natural world, the king and queen of the fairies—Oberon and Titania—to bless their union, as well as a collection of “rude mechanicals”—Bottom, Quince, Flute, Starveling, Snout, and Snug—to devise a theatrical performance as entertainment at the Duke’s wedding celebration. To the world of the Athenian court, the alternate supernatural court world of the fairies, and the realistic sphere of the Athenian artisans, Shakespeare overlaps a fourth center of interest in the young lovers Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius. Shakespeare mixes the dignified blank verse of Theseus and Hippolyta with the rhymed iambic speeches of the lovers, the rhymed tetrameter of the fairies, and the wonder-fully earthy prose of the rustics into a virtuoso’s performance of polyphonic verbal effects, the greatest Shakespeare, or any other dramatist, had yet sup-plied for the stage.

The complications commence when Hermia’s father, Egeus, objects to his daughter’s unsanctioned preference for Lysander over Demetrius, whom Egeus has selected for her. Egeus invokes Athenian law mandating death or celibacy for a maid’s refusal to abide by parental authority in the choice of a mate. Parental objection to the choice of young lovers was a standard plot device of Greek New Comedy and the Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence that Shakespeare inherited. To the obstacles placed in the lovers’ paths Shakespeare adds his own variation of the earlier Aristophanic Old Comedy’s break with the normalcy of everyday life by having his lovers escape into the forest. Critic Northrup Frye has called this symbolic setting of magical regeneration and vitality the “green world.” Here the lovers are tested and allowed the freedom and new possibilities to gain fulfillment and harmony denied them in the civilized world, in which duty dominates desire and obligation to parental authority and the law overrules self-interest and the heart’s promptings. Critic C. L. Barber has identified in such a departure from the norm a “Saturnalian Pattern” in Shakespearean comedy in which the lovers’ exile from the civilized to the primitive supplies the festive release that characterized the earliest forms of comic drama. Barber argues:

Once Shakespeare finds his own distinctive voice, he is more Aristophanic than any other great English dramatist, despite the fact that the accepted educated models and theories when he started to write were Terentian and Plautine. The Old Comedy cast of his work results from his participation in native saturnalian traditions of the popular theater and the popular holidays. . . . He used the resources of a sophisticated theater to express, in his idyllic comedies and in his clowns’ ironic misrule, the experience of moving to humorous understanding through saturnalian release.

Named for the summer solstice festival, when it was said that a maid could glimpse the man she would marry, A Midsummer Night’s Dream celebrates access to the uncanny and the breakup of all normal rules and social barriers to display human nature in the grips of elemental passions and the subconscious. The lovers in their moonlit, natural setting, at the mercy of the fairies, act out their deepest desires and hostilities in a full display of the power and absurdity of love both to change reality and to redeem it.

Hermia elopes with Lysander, pursued by Demetrius, who in turn is followed by Helena, whom he spurns. They enter a supernatural realm also beset by marital discord, jealousy, and rivalry. Oberon commands his servant Puck to place the juice of a flower once hit by Cupid’s dart in the eyes of the sleeping Titania to cause her to fall in love with the first creature she sees on awakening to help gain for Oberon the changeling boy Titania has refused to yield to him. Oberon, pitying Helena her rejection by Demetrius, also orders Puck to place some of the drops in Demetrius’s eyes so that he will be charmed into love with the woman who dotes on him. Instead Puck comes upon Lysander and Hermia as they sleep, mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, and pours the charm into the wrong eyes so that Lysander falls in love with Helena when she wakes him. Meanwhile Bottom and his companions have retreated to the woods to rehearse a dramatization of the mythological story of Pyramus and Thisbe, another set of star-crossed lovers. Puck gives the exuberant Bottom the head of an ass, and he becomes the first thing the charmed Titania sees on waking. Through the agency of the change of location from court to forest and from daylight to moonlight, with its attendant capacity for magical transformation, the play mounts a witty and uproarious display of the irrationality of love and its victims who see the world through the distorting lens of desire, in which certainty of affection is fleeting and a lover with the head of an ass can cause a queen to forgo her senses and her dignity. As Bottom aptly observes, “reason and love keep little company together now-a-days.” From the perspectives of the fairies the lovers’ absolute claims and earnest rationalizations of such a will-of-the-wisp as love makes them absurd. The tangled mixture of passion, jealousy, rancor, and violence that beset the young lovers after Puck imperfectly corrects his mistake, causing both Lysander and Demetrius to pursue the once spurned Helena, more than justifies Puck’s observation, “Lord, what fools these mortals be!”

By act 4 day returns, and the disorder of the night proves as fleeting and as insubstantial as a dream. After the four lovers are awakened by Theseus, Hippolyta, and Egeus, who are hunting in the woods, Lysander again loves Hermia, and Demetrius, still under the power of the potion, gives up his claim to her in favor of Helena. Theseus overrules Egeus’s objections and his own former strict adherence to Athenian law and gives both couples permission to marry that day, along with himself and Hippolyta. Having gained the change-ling boy from Titania, Oberon releases her from her spell. Puck removes the donkey’s head from Bottom, who awakes to wonder at his strange dream:

I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about to expound this dream. . . . I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream. It shall be call’d “Bottom’s Dream,” because it hath no bottom.

The only mortal allowed to see the fairies, Bottom is also the only character not threatened or diminished by the alternative fantasy realm he passes through. He freely accepts what he does not understand, considering it more suitable for the delight of art in a future ballad than to be analyzed or reduced by reason. Bottom coexists easily and honestly in the dual world of reality and illusion, maintaining his core identity and integrity even through his trans-formation, from man to ass, to fairy queen’s paramour, to ordinary man again. Called by Harold Bloom “Shakespeare’s most engaging character before Falstaff,” Bottom is the play’s human anchor and affirmation of the joyful acceptance of all the contradictions that the play has sent his way.

With the reconciliation of Oberon and Titania, Bottom’s reunion with his colleagues, and three Athenian weddings, the plot complications are all happily resolved, and act 5 shifts the emphasis from the potentially destructive vagaries of love to a celebration of marriage to crown and contain human desire. Shakespeare’s final sleight of hand and delightful invention, however, is the play within the play, the “tedious and brief” and “very tragical mirth” of the performance of Pyramus and Thisbe by Bottom and his players. In a drama fueled by the complications between appearance and reality this hilariously incompetent burlesque by the play’s rustic clowns impersonating tragic lovers appropriately comments on the play that has preceded it. The drama of Pyramus and Thisbe involves another set of lovers who face parental objections and similarly seek relief in nature, but their adventure goes tragically awry. However, just as Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius avoid through the stage-managing of the fairies a potentially tragic fate from their ordeal in the wood, so is the tragic fate of Pyramus and Thisbe transformed to comedy by the ineptitude of Bottom’s company. The play within the play becomes a pointed microcosm for A Midsummer Night’s Dream as a whole in its conversion of potential tragedy to curative comedy. The newlyweds, who mock the absurdity of Pyramus and Thisbe , fail to make the connection with their own absurd encounter with love and their chance rescue from its anguish, but the actual audience should not. In Shakespeare’s comprehensive comic vision we both laugh at the ridiculousness of others while recognizing ourselves in their dilemmas. Shakespeare’s final point about the inseparability of reality and illusion is scored by having the fairy world coexist with the Athenian court at the play’s conclusion, decreasing the gap between fact and fancy and invading actuality itself by giving the final words to Puck, who addresses the audience directly:

If we shadows have offended, Think but this, and all is mended, That you have but slumb’red here While these visions did appear. And this weak and idle theme, No more yielding but a dream.

Like the newlyweds who view a drama that calls attention to its illusion and its “tragical mirth,” the audience is here reminded of the similar blending of reality and dream, the comic and the tragic in the world beyond the stage. Puck serves as Shakespeare’s magician’s assistant, demonstrating that substance and shadow on stage replicate both the illusion of the dramatist’s art and the essence of human life in our own continual interplay of reality, dreams, and desire.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Oxford Lecture by Prof. Emma Smith

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Ebook PDF (5 MB)

Harold Bloom, Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human PDF (7 MB)

Analysis of William Shakespeare’s Plays

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A midsummer night’s dream.

Rotimi Agbabiaka (Oberon), Jacob Ming-Trent (Bottom), and Sabrina Lynne Sawyer (Fairy) in  A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Folger Theatre, 2022. Photo: Brittany Diliberto.

Introduction to the play

In A Midsummer Night’s Dream , Shakespeare stages the workings of love. Theseus and Hippolyta, about to marry, are figures from mythology. In the woods outside Theseus’s Athens, two young men and two young women sort themselves out into couples—but not before they form first one love triangle, and then another.

Also in the woods, the king and queen of fairyland, Oberon and Titania, battle over custody of an orphan boy; Oberon uses magic to make Titania fall in love with a weaver named Bottom, whose head is temporarily transformed into that of a donkey by a hobgoblin or “puck,” Robin Goodfellow. Finally, Bottom and his companions ineptly stage the tragedy of “Pyramus and Thisbe.”

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Essays and resources from The Folger Shakespeare

A midsummer night’s dream.

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About Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream An introduction to the plot, themes, and characters in the play

Quotes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Reading Shakespeare’s Language A guide for understanding Shakespeare’s words, sentences, and wordplay

An Introduction to This Text A description of the publishing history of the play and our editors’ approach to this edition

Textual Notes A record of the variants in the early printings of this text

A Modern Perspective An essay by Catherine Belsey

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Shakespeare’s Life An essay about Shakespeare and the time in which he lived

Shakespeare’s Theater An essay about what theaters were like during Shakespeare’s career

The Publication of Shakespeare’s Plays An essay about how Shakespeare’s plays were published

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream was first printed in 1600 as a quarto (Q1). In 1619, a new quarto of the play was published (Q2) based on Q1 but with some additional stage directions and some small corretions to the text. That text, in turn, was the basis for the 1623 First Folio (F1) with, again, some minor changes, including the substitution of Egeus for Philostrate in the final scene of the play. Most modern editions, like the Folger editions, are based on the Q1 text. See more primary sources related to A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Shakespeare Documented

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Midsummer Night's Dream literature essays are academic essays for citation. These papers were written primarily by students and provide critical analysis of Midsummer Night's Dream.

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essays

The necessity of emotional intelligence and imagination in the world of a midsummer night's dream anonymous college, a midsummer night's dream.

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Character Analysis of Puck Ambre Smith

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A Hel-en-a Woman Kelli Purcell-O'Brien

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Explore the ways in which Shakespeare uses metatheatre in his plays Anonymous

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Essays on A Midsummer Night's Dream

William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream is a timeless comedy that has been the subject of study and analysis for centuries. As a student, choosing the right essay topic is crucial to crafting a compelling and well-researched paper. In this guide, we will discuss the importance of choosing the right topic and provide a detailed list of recommended essay topics, divided by category.

Choosing the right essay topic is crucial for several reasons. First, it allows you to explore themes, characters, and literary devices in the play. Second, a well-chosen topic can make your essay more engaging for both you and your audience. Finally, it allows you to showcase your analytical and critical thinking skills.

Advice on Choosing a Topic

When choosing a topic for your A Midsummer Night's Dream essay, consider your interests and the aspects of the play that resonate with you. Think about the themes, characters, and literary elements that you find most compelling. Additionally, consider the scope of your assignment and choose a topic that allows for in-depth analysis within the given parameters.

Recommended Essay Topics

• The role of love and its different manifestations in the play
• The theme of magic and its significance in the plot
• The contrast between reality and illusion in the play
• The theme of order and disorder in the play
• The portrayal of gender dynamics and power in the play
• The theme of dreams and their implications in the play
• An analysis of the character of Puck and his role in the play
• The transformation of Bottom and its significance in the play
• An exploration of the complexities of the relationship between Hermia and Helena
• The portrayal of Theseus and Hippolyta as rulers and lovers
• The character of Oberon and his influence on the events of the play
• Discuss the character of Puck and his role in the play
• Analyze the character of Titania and her relationship with Oberon
• Compare and contrast the different lovers in the play
• Explore the motivations and actions of the characters in the play
• Examine the role of the mechanicals in the play

Literary Elements

• An analysis of the use of imagery and symbolism in the play
• The role of the supernatural in driving the plot forward
• An exploration of the use of language and wordplay in the play
• The significance of the play within a play structure in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• An examination of the use of comedy and its impact on the audience

Comparative Topics

• Comparing the theme of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream with another Shakespearean play
• An analysis of the portrayal of women in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another work of literature
• Comparing the use of supernatural elements in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another play or novel
• An exploration of the role of the fool or comedic character in A Midsummer Night's Dream and another play
• Comparing the themes of reality and illusion in A Midsummer Night's Dream with another work of literature

Love and Relationships

• Discuss the theme of love in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Compare and contrast the different relationships in the play
• Explore the concept of unrequited love in the play
• Analyze the role of magic in influencing the characters' love lives
• Examine the portrayal of gender roles and relationships in the play

Magic and Fantasy

• Discuss the significance of the fairy world in the play
• Analyze the role of magic in shaping the events of the play
• Compare and contrast the use of magic by different characters
• Explore the theme of illusion and reality in the play
• Examine the portrayal of supernatural elements in the play

Conflict and Resolution

• Discuss the conflicts that arise in the play and how they are resolved
• Analyze the role of misunderstandings and mistaken identities in the play
• Compare and contrast the different types of conflicts in the play
• Explore the theme of reconciliation in A Midsummer Night's Dream
• Examine the role of comedy in resolving conflicts in the play

Social and Historical Context

• Discuss the portrayal of class and social hierarchy in the play
• Analyze the influence of Greek mythology on the play
• Compare and contrast the societal norms of the time with the events of the play
• Explore the role of the supernatural in Elizabethan England
• Examine the portrayal of love and marriage in the play

A Midsummer Night's Dream - Analysis of Themes and Characters

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The Theme of Vision and Sight in a Midsummer Night's Dream

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The Balance of Law and Love in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

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c. 1595 or 1596, by William Shakespeare

The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue.

The main themes and motifs of the play are: lovers' bliss, carnivalesque, love, problem with time, loss of individual identity, ambiguous sexuality, and feminism.

Theseus, Puck, Oberon, Titania, Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, Helena, Egeus, Philostrate, Peter Quince, Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Tom Snout, Snug

Though it is not a translation or adaptation of an earlier work, various sources such as Ovid's Metamorphoses and Chaucer's "The Knight's Tale" served as inspiration. Aristophanes' classical Greek comedy The Birds (also set in the countryside near Athens) has been proposed as a source due to the fact that both Procne and Titania are awakened by male characters (Hoopoe and Bottom the Weaver) who have animal heads and who sing two-stanza songs about birds.

One of the “great” or “middle” comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, with its multilayered examination of love and its vagaries, has long been one of the most popular of Shakespeare’s plays.

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” “Though she be but little, she is fierce!” “The course of true love never did run smooth.” “And yet,to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays.”

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream Essay

Introduction, oppressive laws, women’s position, works cited.

William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a comedy of Athenian origin. The entire set up consisting of a captivating atmosphere makes the tale to be a remarkable one. This set up is suitable for romantic adventures as it provides the right atmosphere as well as favorable scenes for love escapades. Nonetheless, Shakespeare’s works are never to be judged from their face value. For instance, in the case of this romantic tale, he hypothesizes a very contemptuous understanding about love.

The book, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” ends up being an interpretation of the secrets of adoration. It further reveals how the lovers are ashamed because of their actions, particularly in the incidences that involve the youthful characters. In this tale, a lover is brought out as an indecisive individual who constantly alters his or her decisions (Shakespeare 34).

It also highlights love as a sensation that never lasts forever. Consequently, the tale proposes that love is not a deep and compassionate feeling but rather a harsh sentiment that brings pain to those who get into it. This notion is highlighted throughout the tale and in the long run, the conception of real affection is stained with uncertainty. It is seen as something that can change from its intended course. Generally, love is brought out as a terrifying and harsh sentiment.

According to the laws set in Athens, a woman is not entitled to posses anything, including her body. However, she was expected to listen, and adhere to whatever their male counterparts directed them to do. With regard to Athenian laws, a father was given the mandate to choose a husband for his daughter. Consequently, a girl was expected to marry the selected man without questioning. In case she declined his father’s choice, the consequences were very severe as death was part of it.

In this society, a woman could not contribute to anything that affected the society. Furthermore, they could not even decide anything for themselves. Men dominated the society while women were used as objects of love and procreation. Even though the women married the men their father’s chose for them, their situation never improved in any way.

The women were hopeless as they could not even make choices that would improve their lives. The lack of voice among the women made their men to be fully in charge of everything, including their lives. Athenian regulations empowered a father to sentence his child to death in case she refused to adhere to whatever he directed her to do.

The daughter of Theseus, Herima, declines to marry Demterius, his father’s choice as her groom. As a reaction to her decision, Herima’s father threatens to exterminate her if she did not accept his choice. This whole idea is ridiculous since it is out of this world that a father would kill his daughter for refusing to marry a man he had chosen for her (Shakespeare 67). This episode substantiates how these Athenian laws oppressed women in this society.

The women in this tale play ‘second-fiddle’ roles. For instance, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen respectively, were thought to be wielding similar powers. Nonetheless, Oberon manages to accomplish his desires and emerges as the ultimate ruler of the Kingdom. There existed no equal treatment of the sexes in this tale.

In addition, women were never given leadership roles. In fact, women were manipulated into marriages. For instance, Puck puts a love concoction in Demetreuis’ as well as Lysander’s eyes in order to compel them to fall in love with each other. He does this with full knowledge about Helena’s intentions. Helena loved Demetrious but he did not care about her.

Helena puts a lot of effort to make him think about her love for him. She utilizes convincing words and constantly praises him. However, Demetrius is not bothered by this and he persistently drives her away. This is shown in the manner in which he addresses her. He advices her, “Tempt not too much the hatred of my spirit; for I am sick when I do look on thee” (Shakespeare 82). This statement emphasizes on the women’s inability to choose their own husbands.

From the tale, it is evident that Hermia and Lysander, as a couple, are much better and smarter as compared to the union of Demetrius and Helena as a couple. I believe that Hermia is more conservative and has a conformist character as compared to Helena. This is because Helena is not presented in a similar way as Hermia. At various instances, Helena was totally out of control. This brings out her masculinity character that makes her to stand out from the rest of the women in this tale, particularly Hermia.

The author has evidently managed to express the themes of oppression and inequality in this tale. As much as the tale is thought to a comic one, the events that place in this tale are not funny. The manner in which women are treated is not amusing at all. The existing laws were intended to oppress the women and the less fortunate in this tale. Generally, the tale addresses the injustices that existed in this society.

Shakespeare, William. A Midsummer Night’s Dream . New York, NY: Norton & Company, 2002. Print.

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IvyPanda. (2023, October 31). A Midsummer Night’s Dream. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-midsummer-nights-dream/

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream." IvyPanda , 31 Oct. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/a-midsummer-nights-dream/.

IvyPanda . (2023) 'A Midsummer Night’s Dream'. 31 October.

IvyPanda . 2023. "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-midsummer-nights-dream/.

1. IvyPanda . "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-midsummer-nights-dream/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "A Midsummer Night’s Dream." October 31, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/a-midsummer-nights-dream/.

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A Midsummer Night's Dream

William shakespeare, everything you need for every book you read., theseus quotes in a midsummer night's dream.

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A zany good ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ at American Shakespeare Center

It’s a pleasure to see the company at its comedic best; their creativity and devil-may-care attitude are on full display.

If you’re looking for an uproarious good time, there’s no other place on the planet where you can wear yourself out with belly laughs, even at the oldest and cheapest gags, than the American Shakespeare Center’s current production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream . It’s always a pleasure to see the company at its comedic best, and this production is no exception; their creativity and devil-may-care attitude are on full display here, and in the intimate confines of the Blackfriars Playhouse, there’s hardly a seat where you don’t find yourself immersed in the mayhem.

For the uninitiated, Midsummer is a classic romantic comedy that is purported to have a plot — something to do with weddings, mismatched young lovers, mischievous sprites, not to mention a gang of working stiffs who, without a thimble-full of talent between them, still insist on putting on a show.

The action begins with the upcoming marriage between King Theseus of Athens and his war booty bride, and real Amazon, Hippolyta (Summer England, decked here in an appropriately badass “Game of Thrones”–style white wig). This is clearly not a marriage made in heaven. To complicate things further there are star-crossed lovers, a young woman who loves one Athenian but who is set to marry another (dad’s rules, natch). A plot is hatched to help the true-love couple elope to the woods outside of town.

And it is in said woods, of course, that all hell breaks loose, with the aid of the fairies. A tiff between the Fairy King Oberon and his Queen Titania, like our other royals clearly not the best match, leads to a sequence of spells being cast and miscast, with hilarious results.

Among the fairies’ many victims is an especially thick-headed laborer, Bottom the Weaver, who thinks he’s the next Brad Pitt; his fate must be seen to be believed — and believe it you will. Bottom’s rehearsal schedule gets seriously disrupted by his transformation into a donkey, thanks to the efforts of a certain trouble-making sprite, Puck. And, once donkey-fied, he finds that Titania is really, really hot for him. Happens every day, right?

As Bottom, Annabelle Rollison gives us a masterclass in comic delivery, with hardly a single line left untouched. Her gift for physical comedy matches her vocal chops too; at the play’s climax, when Bottom stars in the ill-begotten show “Pyramus and Thisbe,” Rollison also gives us some truly risqué slapstick that puts the Rude back in Rude Mechanical — definitely in the spirit of the original.

As Oberon’s aide and trickster-in-chief, Puck, Joe Mucciolo gives us a slacker fairy who is frankly a bit sloppy when it comes to following instructions. His star turn as Puck is made even more hilarious when he transforms himself into Philostrate, the crotchety old servant to King Theseus.

The royal couples are delightfully double-cast here; as Theseus/Oberon, Aidan O’Reilly truly relishes the power, both military and magical, that he has over his opposite, here played by Summer England, whose initial iciness (as Hippolyta) is offset by her comic turn as Titania, and her strange fixation with that walking, talking donkey.

As always, the cast regales us with pop numbers apropos the action — the Stephen Stills–cum–Isley Brothers classic “Love the One You’re With” gets a good workout here, as does Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put a Spell On You” (I mean, really, you’re going to do Midsummer without that one?). Meanwhile, Aidan O’Reilly turns in his own original, bluesy “Bright Leaves on the Ground,” while Annabelle Rollison comes up with a hilarious rewrite of Trey Z’s “Bottoms Up.” Older folks (myself included, ahem) can go online and learn a thing or two about what people are listening to these days, which is a lot of fun in itself.

The cast, having already established their chops with the other two shows in this spring’s repertory — Julius Caesar and Pride and Prejudice — is now in full control of the material, the stage, and the Blackfriars Playhouse space. Their impeccable sense of comic timing here guarantees that even when some of the speeches go on a bit long, the tempo of the action hardly slackens.

The word “zany” was meant for these masters of comedy, who mine Shakespeare’s language for every double-entendre, every absurd rhyme, and every ridiculously hard consonant. It’s one thing to say that Shakespeare was a great writer; I mean, yeah, we all know that. It’s another thing to treat him like he is a pathetic hack who can’t write his way out of a wet paper bag, and have you laugh at the Bard’s ridiculous language. This cannot be missed!

The ASC’s repertory is now in full bloom, like our cherry blossoms and magnolias; it only needs you to make the joy and the mirth complete.

Running Time: Two and a half hours, including one intermission.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream plays through June 9, 2024, in repertory with Pride and Prejudice (through June 8) and Julius Caesar (through June 8) presented by American Shakespeare Center at the Blackfriars Playhouse, 10 South Market Street, Staunton, VA. For tickets ($34–$73), call the box office at (540) 851-3400, or purchase them online.

Cast and artistic team credits for A Midsummer Night’s Dream  are online here (scroll down).

COVID Safety:  American Shakespeare Center strongly encourages patrons to mask when possible. ASC’s complete COVID-19 Safety Visitor’s Guide is  here .

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Don’t wake up from SF Ballet’s ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ too soon

Costumes by Christian LaCroix and excellent dancing quickly put viewers under Balanchine and Shakespeare's spell.

A funny thing happened during SF Ballet’s opening night of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (through March 23 at the War Memorial Opera House): quite a few people thought the intermission was the ending. In fact, I’m pretty sure a few folks didn’t return from the intermission. After all, the first-half had the cast take their bows after 70 lovely minutes of Balanchine-choreographed beauty, so one would be forgiven for thinking it’s time to go home.

Not only that, but the ballet, set to the classic score by Felix Mendelssohn, is plot-heavy in the front, not the back. Anyone familiar with the Shakespearean rom-com (which is currently getting a traditional-ish production via Shotgun Players ) will instantly recognize all the characters and plot points: the fairy king and queen, the mischievous imp, the loving young couple, the other couple in pursuit of the first, the flowers, the mix-ups, the donkey head, the hijinks, the resolution. All of this happens in the first-half.

The only things that aren’t in the first half are the wedding (which starts off Act Two with Mendelssohn’s now-standard “Wedding March”) and the reception performance by Bottom and his fellow players (which is excised altogether). When so many people know the same story, they tend take their cues from the scripts in their heads.

Of course, familiarity with Midsummer is no reason to dismiss it. As with all revived classics, one of the most important questions is what can be added to it, if need be, or how can one put their personal stamp on it. For this production, that answer first comes in the form of costume work by world-renowned designer Christian Lacroix. The 5 th Avenue superstar clearly had fun crafting threads that both catch the eye and help advance the story.

He puts young couple Hermia and Lysander (Katherine Barkman and Myles Thatcher, respectively) in soft blues, whilst their counterparts Helena and Demetrius (Elizabeth Mateer and Steven Morse) are both adorned in deep reds. Oberon (Esteban Hernández) is decked out in gold, befitting his high opinion of himself, while Titania (Sasha de Sola) is adorned in cotton candy-pink. Lacroix also designed the sets, which have a layered feeling that makes them seem like pages of a child’s pop-up book. All of them lovely to look at.

Then, of course, there are the dancers themselves. Much like fellow Ballet member Ricardo Bustamante, Esteban Hernández has a habit of stealing scenes through a pure electric energy that’s palpable even from the audience seats. He’s well-matched with Sasha de Sola’s Titania (a role one could imagine the recently-retired Sarah van Patten taking on). Through a number of gravity-defying pirouettes, de Sola’s Titania is less concerned with matching egos with her husband so much as being the affectionate Earth-mother to the many fairies and wood sprites played by the Ballet’s youngest members. Through flexibility and grace, she commands every scene she’s in—which says a lot when your most notable co-star is a man with a donkey’s head.

(And no, I haven’t overlooked Alexis Francisco Valdes as Bottom. Under Sandra Jennings’ direction, Valdes gets some of the best visual sight gags: turning to the audience as he tries to wrap his now-donkey-head around Titania’s affections; and later when she leads him in on what can only be called a “flowery BDSM leash.”)

Also comforting is the feeling of safety one has, even when they’re one-of-the-few masked patrons in attendance. Surrounded as I was by bare faces (one of the reasons I always sit on the aisle), I continue to be amazed by the effectiveness of the War Memorial’s HVAC system—both the century-old “mushroom” vents under the seats (installed after the 1918 Influenza pandemic ) and the state-of-the-art system they now have. Over the course of the two-hour show, my Aranet4’s CO² readings never got any higher than 633ppm, and that was with a packed house, minus the few who disappeared during intermission.

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As is typical at an SF Ballet performance, the mid-lobby table was decorated to be a photo-op on-theme with the production. This time saw a colorful wood-like set up, with a few ushers selling Spanish-made flower crowns. Before the show, there were a few parents taking photos of kids in complicated ballet poses in front of the set up. I asked one of parents if the kids were part of the Ballet’s youth corps; they told me that they weren’t, simply that the kids are ballet students from a different school.

That’s why a frequent story like Midsummer continues to be performed: Centuries after its first production, it never gets old. The kids who watched it that night probably imagine themselves one day gracing the War Memorial stage in similarly-decadent costumes (I imagine Lacroix’s designs would be expensive to license). Shakespeare wrote his piece to be an escapist fantasy. At just over two hours, SF Ballet’s lavish production flies by as nimbly its dancers leap across the stage. With Spring now upon us, there are few better ways to ring in the sunny season.

Just remember to stay for both acts.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM runs through March 23 at the War Memorial Opera House, SF. Tickets and further info here .

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