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A Midsummer Night's Dream illuminations A guide to the 2020 plays A Midsummer Night’s Dream Illuminations | 1 Hippolyta: An Amazonian warrior queen who has been bested by Theseus in war. The two are set to be married four days from the start of the play. Philostrate: The master of ceremonies for Theseus’s court. Egeus: Hermia’s father, who is stuck in his ways. He wants Hermia to marry Demetrius rather than Lysander and gives her the options of death, a convent or marrying Demetrius. Hermia: Hermia devises a plan to run away with Lysander to a relative’s house beyond the woods of Athens where they can be together. Lysander: He is hopelessly in love with Hermia. Once in the woods, Lysander is mistaken for Demetrius and magically falls in love with Helena. Demetrius: Demetrius ended his previous relationship with Helena in order to pur- sue Hermia instead. Demetrius is favored by Hermia’s father. Helena: Hermia’s best friend. Helena still loves Demetrius. Mechanicals Nick Bottom: A weaver, Bottom believes in his ability to act and perform any part. The other mechanicals look to him for guidance. Peter Quince: A carpenter by trade who serves as the director, stage manager and dramaturg for the mechanicals. Snug: A joiner who plays the lion in Pyramus and Thisbe. A Midsummer Tom Snout: A tinker (a metalworker, especially on household utensils) who plays Night’s Dream the wall. Francis Flute: A bellows-mender who plays Thisbe. William Shakespeare Who’s Who Directed by Joseph Haj Robin Starveling: A tailor who plays Athenians Moonshine. Notes by Isabel Smith-Bernstein Theseus: The Duke of Athens. He has recently returned from war with a woman he intends to marry. 2 | A Midsummer Night’s Dream Fairies All three groups cross paths in the woods. twisting path of love and interpersonal The juice of the flower affects everyone: relationships. Titania: The queen of the fairies. Titania is Titania falls in love with Bottom (who as old as the woods and has great magical has been turned into an ass by Puck), The metaphor of the maze is used abilities. She seeks to raise a changeling and Lysander and Demetrius both love throughout literature and mythology. By child borne by one of her human ladies- Helena rather than Hermia. Chaos ensues, journeying through a labyrinth, one can in-waiting. She has a relationship with but Puck rights his mistakes and order often find oneself; the confusion is neces- Oberon that spans millennia. is restored. Theseus marries Hippolyta, sary in the creation of clarity. Consider your Hermia Lysander, and Helena Demetrius. At bookshelf falling, displacing its contents Oberon: The king of the fairies. Oberon the triple wedding, the mechanicals put in a jumbled mess on the floor. As you also seeks the changeling boy. Oberon on their play and we are reminded of the pick up the books, each must be carefully had been a lover of Hippolyta, but always tragedy that A Midsummer Night’s Dream examined to be re-shelved. The action of comes back to Titania. Finding the magic could have been. The humans go to bed, sorting through the tomes reminds you love flower is Oberon’s idea, and it is and the fairies come out to end the play. what books were there in the first place. Oberon who takes pity on Helena’s Perhaps you devise a new way of arranging unrequited love. your collection that better suits you than An Amazing Palindrome what you used before. Either way, when Puck: Oberon’s servant who does his bid- am amazed and know not what the books are put back in order, they will ding, including fetching the magic flower. to say.” So Hermia ends the never be exactly as they were before they Puck creates the mix-up between the “I famous lover’s quarrel in the fell—they are changed forever. Similarly, Athenian lovers in the woods. woods. When Shakespeare uses “amaze- disruption and disorder in life provides an ment,” his meaning goes beyond a mod- opportunity to reexamine what was, what The Story ern feeling of wonder. To be “amazed” is, and what could be, leading to realiza- is to be inside of a maze—to be hope- tions. Shakespeare uses this confusion- lessly lost and confused. In A Midsummer to-clarity theme throughout his canon; In Athens, Duke Theseus prepares for his Night’s Dream, Shakespeare creates a dual think of any play with mistaken identities wedding to Hippolyta, an Amazonian labyrinth: the literal forest maze outside and mixed-up lovers. He also commonly woman he conquered in war. In front of Athens, where Hermia is wandering as writes characters who leave the known to Theseus, Hermia pleads her case to marry she utters this line, and the metaphorical venture into the unknown in order to gain the man she loves, Lysander. Hermia’s father wants her to marry Demetrius, whom he thinks is a better match. Hermia is given an ultimatum, so she and Lysander plan to run away. Hermia tells the plan to her childhood best friend, Helena. Helena is in love with Demetrius, and she tells him of Hermia’s plan, hoping to regain his affection. Meanwhile, the mechanicals, a group of artisans skilled in crafts such as weaving and carpentry, prepare to perform a play for Theseus’s wedding day. They settle on a theatrical version of Ovid’s story of two star-crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe. The mechanicals decide to rehearse in the woods, lest their play be stolen by rival thespians. The woods are the domain of the King and Queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania. The pair argue over the changeling child of one of Titania’s ladies-in-waiting. In order to win the argument and the child, Oberon devises a plot with his servant Puck to humiliate Titania by putting the juice of a flower that causes lovesickness on Titania’s eyes and making her fall for a monster. Last seen together onstage in 2019’s How to Catch Creation, Kimberly Monks and William Thomas Hodgson return as Hermia and Demetrius. Photo by Jenny Graham. Illuminations | 3 A Wedding Gift a deeper understanding of their circum- The play begins with Duke Theseus and stances. As You Like It is a prime example Hippolyta in Athens, a world of civiliza- There is a legend that A Midsummer of this pattern, as is Midsummer. tion and order. It would have been a Night’s Dream was written as a wedding comfortable beginning for Elizabethan gift for two members of Queen Elizabeth’s While the uncertainty of the maze is at audiences. The mythology associated with court. The identity of the newlyweds has the heart of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus was familiar to Shakespeare’s never been determined, but some pos- Shakespeare tempers it with recognizable audiences; he is a figure from Plutarch sibilities include The Earl of Southampton touchpoints. This is a play in which the and one who dominates many books of and Elizabeth Vernon, William Stanley very nature of love is explored through Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of the most and Elizabeth Vere, and Elizabeth Carey interwoven stories and mythologies. prominent sources for literature at the and the Lord of Berkeley. While these Shakespeare combines what would have time. Appropriately, Theseus is perhaps theories remain unconfirmed, the idea been commonly recognized elements of most famous for besting the minotaur in of Midsummer as a wedding present is part Greek mythology and English folklore as a the labyrinth to win the hand of a prin- of the romantic tradition of the play. secondary guide through the woods. The cess by using string gifted to him by his unfamiliar incites confusion in the audi- beloved, so that he may always see where There is something beautiful about the idea ence, which mimics the lovers’ experience. he had been and not get lost. By journey- of the play being a gift. Like any good gift, The familiar provides comfort, an assur- ing through the maze and out again, it is crafted with a great deal of care. Says ance that the play will end as expected. Theseus learned much about himself and director Joe Haj about the wedding gift gained clarity on his new relationship. In story, “through that lens the play gets really This is a play in Midsummer, Theseus has won Hippolyta very interesting. Because everything in the in war and is determined to both marry play correlates to this idea of an entertain- which the very her and inspire love out of nothing. In this ment, a lesson, a parable for this to-be- orderly world of Athens, marriage logically married couple. Now the themes of love nature of love is leads to love, and so Theseus is deter- and marriage are unified across the script mined to make this happen. in a way that isn’t true in most Shakespeare explored through plays.” Gifting a play for a wedding is gift- From the high court of Athens we go ing human connection—perhaps what any interwoven stories to the rude society of mechanicals, wedding is all about. a world of common people and and mythologies. common things. These charac- The gift idea has shaped how we think of ters are the group of artisans Midsummer if we consider it for a wedding, who aspire to put on a play especially since the mechanicals present an Yet it is the structure of Midsummer that for Theseus’s upcoming adaptation of Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe as most clearly eases the audience in and out wedding.
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