1 The Fairy Queen Resource Pack 2 Contents Page 3-4 Plot Summary 5 Characters: The Faeries 6 Characters: The Lovers 7 Characters: The Mechanicals 8-9 Henry Purcell & The Fairy Queen 10 Creative Writing Exercise: Mischievous Puck 11 Drama Exercise: You Spotted Snakes 12-13 Design and make a Fairy Crown 14 Magical Muddle character game 15 A Midsummer Night’s Dream Word Search 3 “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare Plot Summary Duke Theseus and Queen Hippolyta are preparing for their wedding. Egeus, a nobleman, brings his daughter Hermia to Theseus, as he wants her to marry Demetrius but she is in love with another man, Lysander. The Duke, Theseus, commands Hermia to obey her father and either marry Demetrius or, according to Athenian Law, she must be put to death or enter a convent. Hermia and Lysander decide to runaway together that night to get married in secret. Hermia tells her best friend Helena of her plans. Helena is in love with Demetrius (even though he hates her and loves Hermia), so she tells him about Hermia and Lysander’s plans, hoping that she might win his love. All the four lovers run away into the woods that night - Demetrius following Hermia & Lysander and Helena following after Demetrius. Meanwhile, there are a group of tradespeople called the Mechanicals who are rehearsing a play in the same woods. They include Bottom the weaver, Quince the taylor and Flute the bellows mender, among others. The play they are rehearsing is ‘The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe’ and it is to be performed for the Duke and Queen at their wedding. Also in the woods are Oberon and Titania - the King and Queen of the fairies who rule the forest. They are arguing over the care of an orphan boy, as Oberon is jealous that the boy is currently living with and being looked after by Titania. Their argument has caused disruptions in nature including making summer like winter. Titania leaves and Oberon calls his fairy servant Puck. He tells Puck to look for a magical flower called ‘love-in-idleness’ - when the juice of this flower is squeezed onto someone’s sleeping eyes, they will fall madly in love with the first person they see when they wake. Puck brings the flower and Oberon uses its juice on Titania, who wakes to fall in love with Bottom - who has just been magically turned into an ass (donkey) by Puck. While Titania is distracted by her love for Bottom, Oberon takes the orphan boy to be his henchman, very pleased that he now has what he always wanted. 4 Plot Summary cont. While this is going on, Oberon sees Demetrius and Helena arguing. Thinking he can help, he asks Puck to put some of the flower juice on Demetrius’ eyes while he’s sleeping, so that he will fall in love with Helena when he wakes. Puck makes a mistake and puts the juice on Lysander’s eyes, who wakes to see Helena and falls immediately in love with her. Puck tries to fix his mistake and puts juice on Demetrius’ eyes who wakes to see Helena and also falls in love with her. Both men now madly in love with Helena, fight over her. Hermia is very upset when she sees this and she and Helena also have an argument. To solve the mess, Oberon tells Puck to cast a fog over the woods, so that the lovers become lost and tired and fall asleep. Then Puck puts a remedy flower juice on Lysander’s eyes so that he will go back to loving Hermia when he wakes. At the same time, Oberon puts the remedy juice on Titania’s eyes so that she will go back to loving him and not Bottom. Puck also takes the donkey’s head off Bottom, returning him to normal. The next day the lovers meet Duke Theseus and Hermia’s father Egeus. Demetrius confesses that he now loves Helena and the Duke decides, therefore that they should marry and Egeus should allow Hermia to marry Lysander. They have a triple wedding and the Mechanicals perform their very funny play! The End! 5 The Faeries Oberon King of the Faeries, Oberon has fallen out with his wife, Titania. Oberon wants Titania to give him a young child who is in her care, but Titania refuses. Oberon’s plans for revenge lead him to send Puck off to fetch the love-spell flower which goes on to cause so much trouble. Oberon also instructs Puck to use the flower on Demetrius, but Puck doesn’t get things quite right... Titania Queen of the Faeries, Titania is arguing with her husband, Oberon. She refuses to give up a young child to Oberon, and as a result Oberon enchants her with the love-spell flower. This leads to Titania falling in love with Bottom, a craftsman lost in the wood who has magically been given a donkey’s head by naughty Puck. Puck Also known as Robin Goodfellow, Puck is a cheeky, mischievous fairy who serves the King of the Faeries, Oberon. He causes a lot of confusion when he uses the love-spell flower on the wrong person, enchanting Lysander instead of Demetrius. Puck also magically changes Bottom’s head into a donkey’s head, just for fun! There are several other faeries mentioned in the play, including Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Cobweb and Mote, who serve Titania. They are not seen on stage in our version of the story. 6 The Lovers Hermia A young woman from Athens. Hermia’s dad, Egeus, wants her to marry a man called Demetrius, but Hermia doesn’t want to, because she is in love with Lysander. Hermia arranges to sneak away into the woods with Lysander, and she tells her best friend, Helena, about the secret plan. Once in the woods though, events take an unexpected turn! Lysander Lysander is a young Athenian man, who is in love with Hermia. Unfortunately, Hermia’s father doesn’t like Lysander, and wants his daughter to marry Demetrius instead. Lysander and Hermia make a plan to sneak away into the woods and travel to Lysander’s aunt’s house, where they could safely get married. However, cheeky Puck mistakenly uses the love-spell flower on Lysander, causing him to change his mind... Helena A young woman from Athens, Helena is in love with Demetrius. Sadly, Demetrius doesn’t feel the same way, and wants to marry Helena’s best friend, Hermia. When Helena hears that Hermia is planning to run off into the woods, she tells Demetrius, hoping this will make him like her. However, Demetrius goes into the woods after Hermia, and Helena follows him, still trying to gain his affection. When she later finds both men declaring their love for her, she doesn’t believe they mean it! Demetrius A young Athenian man, Demetrius wants to marry Hermia, even though Hermia wants to marry Lysander instead. When Helena tells him that Hermia and Lysander have run off into the woods, Demetrius goes after them. However, once in the woods, Oberon, King of the Faeries, sees Demetrius being mean to Helena. Taking pity on Helena, Oberon instructs Puck to use the love-spell flower to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena. Unfortunately, the mischievous Puck doesn’t get things quite right the first time... 7 The Mechanicals Quince Peter Quince is a carpenter, and he and the other craftsmen are planning to put on a play for the Duke’s wedding day. They are going to perform a story called ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, and Quince is in charge of things, including deciding who what part everyone is going to play. Quince decides that he will play ‘The Wall’ and ‘The Lion’ himself. Flute Francis Flute is a bellows-mender, and Quince gives him the part of ‘Thisbe’ in their play. It’s an important role, but at first Flute isn’t too happy about playing a girl. In the end, he accepts the part, and does a pretty good job too! Bottom Nick Bottom is a weaver, and is a very loud, over-confident fellow. Quince decides Bottom will play the part of ‘Pyramus’ in the performance. During rehearsals for the play, Bottom gets separated from his friends and the cheeky fairy Puck magically transforms Bottom’s head into a donkey’s head! When Bottom’s friends see him, they run off, but Titania, Queen of the Faeries has been enchanted by the love-spell flower and has a very different reaction when she sees Bottom... They are referred to as ‘rude mechanicals’ because ‘rude’ means they are lower or working class, and ‘mechanicals’ means that they are common working men. There are several other mechanicals mentioned in the original play, including Snug, Tom Snout and Robin Starveling. They do not appear in our version of the story. 8 Henry Purcell: The Fairy Queen British baroque composer Henry Purcell published The Fairy Queen in 1692, three years before he died at the age of 35. This semi-opera was loosely based on Shakespeare’s much loved comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Purcell did not directly set Shakespeare’s text, instead he used a libretto adapted by an anonymous writer. In the premiere performance at the Queen’s Theatre in Dorset Garden, Oberon and Titania were played by children as young as 8 or 9 and several of the fairies were also played by children. What is the role of music in theatre? Music is a very useful theatrical device.