A Midsummer Night’s Dream Puck: Robin Goodfellow, Workshop Study Guide Puck, Hobgoblin Compiled by Laura Cole, and servant fairy Director of Education and Training to Oberon. He is [email protected] “that merry for wanderer of the The Atlanta Shakespeare Company night.” at The New American Shakespeare Tavern Peaseblossom, Mustard Seed, Moth and Cobweb: Fairies. 499 Peachtree Street, NE Atlanta, GA 30308 Philostrate: Courtier/servant to Theseus. Phone: 404-874-5299 The Story www.shakespearetavern.com Theseus, Duke of Athens and Hippolita, Queen of the Amazons, are about to be Who’s Who in Midsummer married. Theseus says of their relationship Theseus: Duke of Athens, about to be married to “I woo’d thee with my sword, And won thy the Amazon Hippolita. love, doing thee injuries: but I will wed thee in another key, with pomp, with triumph and Hippolita: Amazonian Queen, engaged to with reveling.” Egeus enters with Hermia, Theseus. Lysander and Demetrius in tow. It seems Egeus: Father to Hermia, and an important man that Lysander and Hermia want to wed, but in Athens. Egeus wants Hermia to wed Demetrius, his Hermia: In love with Lysander. Her father choice. She will not and Egeus wants the wants her to marry Demetrius. Duke to command Hermia to obey her father. The punishment for disobeying is “to Demetrius: Young man of Athens. He used to dye the death or to abjure for ever the sight date Helena, but now he wants to marry Hermia. of men.” Lysander objects to the whole Lysander: Young man of Athens. Also wants to thing, since he is as worthy as Demetrius. marry Hermia. He is “as well derived” as Plus, Demetrius has “Made love to Nedar’s Demetrius. daughter, Helena, and won her soul.” Helena: “Fair Nedar’s daughter” and best friend Theseus sends everyone away and tells of Hermia. She is in love with Demetrius. Hermia to consider well her decision. Lysander and Hermia decide to run away Bottom: Workman of Athens. He is a weaver, just as Helena shows up, lovesick for and is “set down for Pyramus.” Demetrius. She says, “Sickness is catching, Peter Quince: Another workman, he likes o were favor so.” She wishes Demetrius theatricals! would love her the way he seems to love Hermia, and wants to look like her, in case Snug, the joiner: Workman of Athens, the name says it all. that will do it. After Hermia and Lysander leave she decides to tell Demetrius that Francis Flute: The bellows mender. He will Hermia, her childhood friend, and Lysander assay Thisbe in the play. plan to run away that night. Snout: The tinker. In another part of Athens, a group of Robin Starveling: The tailor. Athenian workmen, or “mechanicals” are met to practice their amateur play they hope Oberon: The King of the Fairies. He is arguing to perform for Theseus’ wedding with his queen over a little foundling boy. celebrations. Peter Quince hands out parts to Titantia: Queen of the Fairies. Her little page is Bottom, Flute, Starveling and Snout. They the son of a “votress” of her order, or priestess. begin to rehearse and have a hard Midsummer Study Guide, page 2 finds them and decides to spice things up. When he does so, he changes Bottom into a donkey and everyone runs screaming further getting the sense of the drama- “the most into the forest. lamentable comedy, and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.” Further into the forest, Titania is napping on “a bank where the wild thyme blowes.” In the forest outside Athens, Robin Bottom shows up, ass head and all, and she, Goodfellow, or Puck to some, meets a fairy, of course, wakes up and falls in love with who sings “over hill, over dale, thru brush, him. She takes him off to her bower, for thru briar” and “I do wander everywhere and more merriment. I serve the Fairy Queen.” Oberon and Titania are both heading towards the same Puck reports back to Oberon that “my grove and fireworks are expected. Oberon mistress with a Monster is in love.” While wants Titania to hand over a little human they enjoy this, Demetrius shows up still in boy she is raising as her own. The boy is love with Hermia, and Oberon realized Puck orphaned and she will not part with him. must have enchanted the wrong Athenian They argue and Titania leaves. As she does, youth. Demetrius lies down to sleep and Oberon says, “Well, go thy ways: thou shalt Oberon enchants his eyes with the love not from this grove till I torment thee for potion. Lysander and Helena enter, and this injury.” He asks Puck to find a purple Helena is very upset that Lysander has flower, “love-in-idleness” because “the juice forsaken Hermia. Demetrius wakes and now of it, on sleeping eyelids laid, will make or he is in love with Helena too! Hermia soon man or woman madly dote upon the next finds her way to the other three lovers and live creature that it sees.” much fun ensues as each one pursues someone who doesn’t love them anymore. Meanwhile, in another part of the forest as night is closing in, Demetrius and Helena Oberon is furious with Puck for this fiasco are looking for Hermia and Lysander. At the and insists Puck make it right. He does so by same time he is rejecting her girlish attempts leading the four lovers on a mad romp to seduce him. He says, “I love thee not, through the forest at night. Eventually they therefore pursue me not.” Oberon, watching all collapse from exhaustion, quite near each the whole scene and feeling sorry for other and Puck anoints the correct lovers Helena, orders Puck to take part of the eyes with the love potion. He says, “On the magical flower and find this Athenian youth ground sleep sound, I’ll apply in your eye, who has spurned her. Hermia and Lysander gentle lover, remedy.” show up, lost and deciding to rest, sleep the Shortly, in another part of the forest, Titania rest of the night. Puck happens upon them is entertaining her donkey lover, Bottom. and mistaking one Athenian youth for the She says, “Come, sit thee down upon this other, puts the juice in Lysander’s eyes. flowry bed, While I thy amiable cheeks to Helena soon enters and sees Lysander coy, And stick musk roses in thy sleek, asleep. Of course when she wakes him he smooth head.” They enjoy entertainment and magically falls in love with Helena, and as a snack, and then take a nap. Oberon enters she runs away, he abandons Hermia to chase and charms Titania back to herself. Once she Helena. Hermia awakes alone and follows sees Bottom with his asses head, she flees the other two, saying, “either death or you with Oberon saying, “Oh, how mine eyes I’ll find immediately.” doth loath his visage now.” Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the Now, the forest is waking to the dawn, and mechanicals are holding another rehearsal. Theseus, Hippolita, Egeus and the Athenian They are not satisfied with the text they are court are out hunting. They come upon the working with and decide to improve it with four lovers who wake up very confused! All some additional characters and scenes. Puck Midsummer Study Guide, page 3 Then, note “action” words- is someone doing something physical on those words? Example : Lysander’s line “Stay, gentle appears to be well, and Demetrius disavows Helena” his former love to Hermia. Instead he asks to marry Helena, and Theseus proclaims, In Elizabethan England playgoers demanded “Egeus, I will over-bear your will; for in the a different play every day, which prevented temple by and by with us, these couples actors from rehearsing a lot. Why might the shall be eternally knit.” They all go off to playwright include stage direction and get married and watch the entertainment. emotional clues to performance right in the play text itself? Does the scene become Bottom awakes and remembering his clearer to your modern ear once you find amazing “dream” says “I had a dream, past clues for action and emotion in the the wit of man, to say, what dream it was.” language? Peter Quince and his friends find Bottom and rejoice his return. They return to Athens Find the definitions of: to perform their play for the wedding Poetry festivities. Iambic Pentameter The three newly married couples, Egeus and the rest of the court gather to enjoy Rhymed Couplets entertainment. When it is apparent that Bottom and his compatriots are not the most experienced actors in Athens, Theseus says, During a Workshop: “for never any thing can be amiss when simpleness and duty tender it.” Soon, it is Every time you hear a rhymed couplet (look time for the entertainment to end and the day that one up) raise your hand! Does the draws to an end. playwright use rhymed poetry for a reason? What do you think his reason was? Oberon, Titania, Puck and their cohorts return one last time, to bless the Duke and Help your fellow “actors” to imagine the his Lady, the lovers and all Athens, saying, lover’s scene as a big wrestling match. “Hand in hand, with fairy grace, will we sing and bless this place.” The play closes Every time you hear an insult, raise your with Puck’s entreaty “Give me your hands if hand. How does the playwright make the we be friends, and Robin shall restore insults funny, and not hurtful? Or does he amends.” mean them to hurt and why? Before a workshop: After a Workshop, Talk About Read “the lover’s fight” scene, Act III, This: scene ii, from Demetrius line “Oh, Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect, Doubling the roles in Midsummer: divine” to Demetrius’ line “Follow! Scholars know Shakespeare’s actors doubled Nay, I’ll go with thee cheek by jowl” in roles- they played more than one Circle any words that sound like an “action” character in the play.