A Midsummers Nights Dream

A. What’s the story?

Girl meets boy. Girl falls in love with boy. Girl loses boy when mischievous fairy sprinkles love "juice" on boy's eyelids, making him fall for another girl. Girl wins boy back (with the help of a little fairy magic). No, it's not the latest romantic comedy to hit theaters near you; it's a play that was dreamed up by William Shakespeare toward the end of the 16th century. Like the modern-day romantic comedy genre it's helped to shape and influence, A Midsummer Night's Dream features young lovers who fall comically in and out of love in a ridiculously brief period of time (over the course of a single, enchanted midsummer night)

A Midsummer Night's Dream (c.1595) was written around the same time Shakespeare whipped up his famous play about two "star-cross'd" lovers, Romeo and Juliet.

B. Why Should I Care about A Dream?

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a classic example of Shakespearean comedy. Here’s a checklist that details all the typical conventions and features of the genre so you can see for yourself:

Light, humorous tone:  Check. The play features fairy magic, silly pranks, and the botched performance of a play-within-the-play by a bunch of wannabe actors.

Clever dialogue and witty banter:  Check. Shakespeare is a huge fan of punning and snappy word play, so naturally, his characters know how to get their witty repartee on. Shakespeare reserves some of the best dialogue for his warring lovers.

A Midsummers Nights Dream

Deception and disguise:  Let's see…two of the main characters try to sneak away from Athens to elope. Also, nobody has any idea that they've been drugged by Oberon and his magic love juice. So, check.

Mistaken identity: Check. Sort of…..In most of Shakespeare's other comedies, someone usually runs around in a disguise to mask his or her identity. This isn't necessarily the case in A Midsummer Night's Dream, unless we count the fact that the love juice causes a character to fall head over heels in love with an "ass." The same can be said of the other lovers who are dosed with Oberon's magic love potion.

Multiple plots with twists and turns:  Check. There are several lines of action Dream and Shakespeare invites us to sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride. The first plot involves an upcoming wedding. The second plot line involves the young lovers who run around the wood in confusion. The third plot follows an argument between a couple. As a fourth plot line, Shakespeare works in a bunch of craftsmen, who plan to perform a play at the big fancy wedding.

C. The Plot

made plans for his daughter, Hermia, to marry Demetrius, but this other guy named

At his palace in Athens, Duke Theseus is hanging out with his bride-to-be, Hippolyta. He is VERY excited about getting hitched and spending his wedding night with her. Egeus, an Athenian citizen, arrives at the palace with a crisis. He's

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Lysander has managed to steal his daughter's heart. Now she refuses to marry

Demetrius. Egeus is outraged and wants Theseus to give Hermia the death sentence for her disobedience.

Duke Theseus wants to be reasonable, so he advises Hermia to be a good girl and listen to her father. Hermia flat-out refuses, so Theseus gives her two alternatives: 1) accept the death penalty as punishment for disobedience, or 2) become a nun forever. She has four days to decide her fate. (Yep, that's Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding day.)

Demetrius and Lysander bicker over who should get to marry the lovely Hermia. Turns out, Demetrius has way too much baggage – he used to go steady with Hermia's

Nun

friend Helena, who is still in love with Demetrius. Secretly, Hermia and Lysander make plans to meet in the nearby wood. Once there, they'll run off to Lysander's aunt's house and get married. Just as the couple decides to elope, Hermia's friend Helena trips in. Helena is a mess because she still loves Demetrius – she's crushed that he wants to marry Hermia. The young lovers assure Helena that she has nothing to worry about because they're planning to elope, which means that Demetrius will be single.

After the happy couple leaves, Helena decides to squeal to Demetrius about the young lover's plan to run away. With that, we have the makings of a romantic chase.

Meanwhile, a group of Athenian craftsmen (called "the Mechanicals") are preparing to perform a play for Theseus's upcoming wedding. The play will be the tragic tale of two young lovers; Pyramus and Thisbe (think Romeo and Juliet storyline). However, it's clear the Mechanicals are horrible actors and are clueless about how to stage a play. The group decides to practice the play in the wood.

A Midsummers Nights Dream

Cut to the woods, where we meet Puck, a mischievous sprite known for the tricks he likes to play. This charismatic sprite serves Oberon, King of the Fairies. Titania, the Queen of the Fairies and Oberon also show up; they're in a fight, which has turned the entire natural world upside down. (We're talking seriously bad weather that's caused flooding and famine) Oberon

makes plans to enchant Titania that evening with a magic love "juice" that will make her fall in love with the first creature she sees. Oberon hopes that when Titania wakes up, she'll see a monstrous beast and fall in love. Hopefully, Titania will be so crazy in love (Beyonce anyone?) that she'll lose interest in the arguement.

That evening, Helena and Demetrius wander into the woods. Demetrius tries desperately to get rid of Helena. The problem is that Helena won't leave him alone because she wants to be his one true love. Watching Helena's pathetic display, Oberon declares that, before the pair leaves the forest, their roles will be reversed. Oberon leaves to enchant Titania with the love potion. He also instructs Puck to find this young man in Athenian clothes (traveling with a girl) and enchant him. Little does Puck know that there is more than one young Athenian man in the woods tonight.

Elsewhere in the forest, Lysander and Hermia are lost. It's about time they went to bed, and Lysander suggests that they share a bed on the forest floor. Hermia isn't having it, and tells Lysander to lie a good distance from her. The two fall asleep. Puck runs into the sleeping pair and, seeing that Lysander is a young man dressed in Athenian clothes, Puck dumps the love juice in his eyes. (Whoops.) Then Helena shows up and accidentally trips over the sleeping Lysander while pursuing Demetrius. Lysander wakes up, immediately declares his love for Helena, and follows her further into the woods. Meanwhile, Hermia has slept through the love-juice dumping, the tripping and falling, and the

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declaring of love. When she wakes up and realizes Lysander is gone, she heads off into the woods in search of him, clueless that her boyfriend has fallen in love with her friend Helena.

As the four young lovers chase each other around the forest, the Athenian craftsmen (the Mechanicals) practice their play nearby. It's immediately clear that our crew of amateur actors is pretty incompetent, which amuses Puck, the mischievous sprite who

is watching the rehearsal from the sidelines. Puck decides to play a joke on Bottom, one of the worst actors, by transforming the guy's head into that of a donkey. The Mechanicals are terrified of Bottom's donkey head and run away in horror. Bottom, who is oblivious to his transformation, declares that his friends are just trying " to make an ass" of him. The commotion awakens Titania, who's been sleeping nearby and has been dosed with the magic love juice. She takes one look at Bottom and instantly falls in love!

A Midsummers Nights Dream

When Oberon finds out that Titania has fallen in love with an ass, he's thrilled. Then Demetrius and Hermia show up, though, and Oberon soon figures out that Puck sprinkled the love juice in the wrong Athenian's eyes. Puck returns, leading Helena, who is followed by the lovesick Lysander. Demetrius wakes up and immediately declares Helena to be his goddess. Just in time, Hermia wanders in, lured by the sound of Lysander's voice. Now that the four are together, Lysander declares that he too is in love with Helena. (Poor Hermia! Before the four entered the woods, both men were in love with her and now the boys are

hot for Helena.) Helena thinks it's just a prank and begins to argue with Hermia. Then the boys fight some more over Helena and challenge each other to a game of fisticuffs. Helena decides to take off before Hermia gets violent and scratches her eyes out or something. Hermia chases after her.

Puck and Oberon have been watching all of this. Oberon instructs Puck to cast a shadow over the night, so the feuding boys can't find each other. Once the boys are asleep, Puck is to apply the remedy for the love potion on Lysander's eyes, so that he

will fall back in love with Hermia. The hope is that lovers wake up in happy pairs. Puck follows all of these instructions.

Meanwhile, Titania is still having fits of love over Bottom, who is happily being tended to by fairies and the Fairy Queen. He sees Titania as pitiful, and reasons that it’s time to bring her back to her senses. He asks Puck to transform Bottom to his natural self as well. Oberon un-enchants Titania, and she awakens as if from a dream. The next morning, Theseus shows up in the woods and discovers the four Athenian youths sleeping on the ground in the woods. Egeus demands that the death sentence be carried out, but Theseus overrides him, declaring that the youths will all be married alongside him and Hippolyta this evening.

After the older folks leave, the foursome talks about the previous night, admitting it was dreamlike. Bottom wakes up as the young lovers exit and speaks of the strange dream he had. He then hurries back to Athens, where he pleasantly surprises all the Mechanicals with his presence. By this time, the Duke and other couples have all been married, and

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it's about time for them to seek their celebratory entertainment. The Mechanicals get ready to perform their play.

D. To dream or not to dream?

1. List the checklist for a Shakespearean comedy

2. Who does Hermia’s father want her to marry?

3. Where do Lysander and Hermia plan to marry?

4. Which of the young Athenians was the first to be affected by the love potion?

5. What prank does Puck play on Bottom?

6. Who does Titania fall in love with and why?

7. Who are The Mechanicals?

8. Who tells Demetrius that Lysander and Hermia plan to elope?

A Midsummers Nights Dream

9. Did you know?

Before Shakespeare and his contemporaries portrayed fairies as harmless sparkly flying creatures, fairies were associated with the devil. (It's a good thing Shakespeare came along and wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream – otherwise, we might not have characters like Tinker Bell.)

In his now famous diary, 17th-century Parliament Member, Samuel Pepys, wrote the following: "we saw "Midsummer's Night's Dream," which I had never seen before, nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life".

Based on Shakespeare's play, the 2002 film A Midsummer Night's Rave features a bunch of teenagers who go to a rave and sample an ecstasy-like potion, compliments of a drug dealer named "Puck." This concept echoes what happens in Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, where Mercutio swallows some drugs before delivering the famous "Queen Mab" speech.

You know that famous song they play at weddings, after the marriage ceremony? The "Wedding March." That was written by Felix Mendelssohn in around 1842. Mendelssohn actually wrote it as incidental music for A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was a revision of the overture he originally wrote for the play in 1826, when he was 17 years old.

On August 10-12 of every year, Killorglin, Ireland, population 1359, hosts the annual Puck Fair. Festivities include longer pub hours, a customary trip to the mountains to catch a wild goat, and a dubbing of the goat as "King Puck." The fair's origins are not entirely certain, but some speculate the affair is tied to a much older pagan ritual, the Celtic festival of Lughnasadh, which celebrated the coming of the spring and the pending harvest.

In the 1989 movie Dead Poets Society, one of the film's central characters lands the role of Puck in a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The play within the film adds layers of meaning to many of the themes from both works, including obedience to parents, poetry, the pastoral, and more.