A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare

Theseus, Duke of Athens, is preparing to marry his Amazonian love, Hyppolita. Hernia wants to marry Lysander, but her father wants her to marry Demetrius. Demetrius and Lysander are both in love with Hermia, but Theseus says that the laws state that Hermia must obey he father's wishes. Helena loves Demetrius, even though he scorned her some time ago. No one love Helena, except her best friend Hermia. Lysander and Hermia plan to marry in secret, Demetrius goes to stop them after Helena reveals their planned, and Helena follows hoping that Demetrius will fall in love with her, or at least be thankful that she helped him to he his love back. An acting company is practicing their play for the wedding ceremony, but they do it out in the woods so people can't spy. Oberon, the fairy king, and Tirania, the fairy queen, are fighting over Totania's new changeling boy, so the forest, weather and the fairy world are messed up (more figuratively than anything else). The lovers in the woods get caught up in the chaos, and Puck the fairy makes everyone fall in love with the wrong person. In the end, Puck is able to fix everything and everyone falls in love with the right person, believing that the events of the previous night were a dream. There is a wedding feast, and everyone gets their happy ending.

That is the entire plot of this play. Honestly, it was boring and, for lack of a better word, lame. I was expecting so much more apt a folklore feel from the fairy aspect. Also, the setting of Athens was completely arbitrary because reading this was nothing like reading the plays of classic Greek playwrights. This is by far my least favourite of any of the Shakespeare plays I have read.

There are some great themes concerning the relation between plays, dreams, and reality, but that wasn't enough to improve this play for me.

The female character, particularly Helena and Hermia, were shallow and undeveloped. Their entire role was centred on their affections for the men. The men, similarly, had very little character aside from their relationships. The fairies were more interesting, and at least had a real conflict spurring them on. The players were also more complex characters, most likely because of their comic part. They are not very bright, or great at acting, but they are funny, especially Bottom.

Pick was the only character I liked. He is a really questionable character because his motives and intentionality in his actions are unclear. He is definitely a grey character because, whether or not what he did was done on purpose, he is a mischievous little imp. He enjoys watching people get confused and hurt, but understands when he needs to make things right. I wish the whole play had been written more the way that his character was.

I don't do this often, but I would suggest skipping out on this play, unless you want to read it to just to say that you have. But please don't let me dictate what you read. Maybe you're the kind of person who would enjoy this play. I'm not. And that's okay.