A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Never too Late to Read Classics

Mar 22, 2012 midnightfaerie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, rory-gilmore

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A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is not one of my favorite plays by far. For some reason I found it boring. Even with it's redeeming quality of having faeries in it, which I love, it was still lacking. Bottom was the best character and the most entertaining along with Puck. I won't go into the plot, a quick online search will give you a brief overview, but at a very high level, it's about a number of different romances being tampered Click here for William Shakespeare Disclaimer

A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare is not one of my favorite plays by far. For some reason I found it boring. Even with it's redeeming quality of having faeries in it, which I love, it was still lacking. Bottom was the best character and the most entertaining along with Puck. I won't go into the plot, a quick online search will give you a brief overview, but at a very high level, it's about a number of different romances being tampered with by some mischievous faeries at the instruction of Oberon, the King of the Faeries. Puck is his right hand man and likes making trouble. On a side plot, there's a group of humans working on a play for the Duke's marriage and they're terrible. Everything gets turned upside down when Puck comes upon them and decides to turn the head of one, Bottom, into an ass. The Queen of the Faeries, Titania, ends up falling in love with him after her husband drugs her to play a trick on her and get back the child he wants as a page. Much hilarity and chaos ensues which is finally made right at the end, with all in love. Thus concludes the debacle with a funny enactment put on by Bottom and his men which is so bad, it causes much laughter amoung the audience. The play then ends with Puck talking to the audience, telling them if they didn't like it, perhaps it was just all a dream.

One of the comedies and one of the more popular of the plays, it has various themes such as magic, dreams, and the difficulty of love. I loved the fantasy aspect of this but almost wished there were more characters being messed with by the faeries. I think there were still some aspects that confused me and perhaps that's why I didn't enjoy it as much as I could have. Why did Oberon care so much about the changling? Was it just a typical "My wife's annoying me and I should get it because I want it?" kind of thing? And then there's one of the first scenes with Theseus talking to Egeus about his daughter Hermia being in love with Lysander. In the end, the Duke says Egeus has the right to invoke the law that says she has to marry Demetrius, the one her father picked for her, or die. Then he leaves, asking Egeus and Demetrius to come with him for some "schooling". I'm not clear as to what's going on here. Is he going to give them a talking to, making sure they're doing the right thing? Or is he leaving Hermia and Lysander alone on purpose to have some last minute time together? That's what I thought at first, but then you see them together later somewhere else so apparently they can get away together quite easily. Then they make plans to run away. Doesn't anyone see this coming? Especially since the father feels so strongly about the match that he wants his daughter to die rather than be with anyone else? Maybe there's something I'm missing or maybe I'm just looking into it too much. Then after reading some online info, I found that there's a common consensus among some that Titania actually slept with (made love) to Bottom when she was under the spell Oberon cast on her. First of all, where does it say that? I realize there are multiple versions of Shakespeare out there and disputes on which are the originals, but no where in mine it indicates that. It says she tells him she loves him and takes him in her arms and they fall asleep. So fine, if it was implied somewhere and I missed it, why doesn't Oberon have issue with this? No big deal because she was under a spell? I can't see any husband being fine with that, even if it was his doing. In any case, even with the boredom factor, I still enjoyed it. Shakespeare once again has solid themes and strong characters that will carry any plot line no matter how soft. Oh, I also loved the names of faeries in service to Titania: Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, and Mustardseed. (Wondering if there's any connection to the passage in the bible about faith and the mustardseed)

I choose two movie versions to watch after reading this play. The first is probably the most popular, the one starring Kevin Kline as Bottom. I thought it was okay. Kline was really the one that pulled the movie through. He was absolutely perfect for this role and played it well. I also very much enjoyed Stanley Tucci as Puck. I was pleasantly surprised to see Calista Flockhart playing Helena, but found her falling short. Usually I'm a big fan, and there were times she did well, but for the most part she just wasn't believable. Michelle Pfeiffer as Titania and Rupert Everett as Oberon did much better than I anticipated. Especially Everett. I just couldn't see him as a King of the supernatural, but he brought a strength to the role I didn't see coming. Everyone was just a little too pretty for my tastes as well. When talking about faeries, the world they live in isn't all sparkles and sunshine. A little more gritty, a lot more earthy, the part of nature that encompasses that, that's where I see them. To this end, I wouldn't recommend this movie.

The other movie I saw was the version starring Judi Dench as Titania. She was excellent. Despite the mini skirts that bothered me - I think the movie was filmed in the 50's or 60's - and the fact it seemed almost dubbed because often the words didn't line up with the mouth movement, I enjoyed it much more than the other movie. Not so pretty and a little more real, you could see the sweat and rain on the actor's faces. Also, it was taped in a real like setting, a forest, unlike the other movie, which was obviously taped on a set. And a not very good looking one at that. The faeries were green, which was a nice touch, and the queen's attendant faeries were children instead of adults in this version. Dench did a wonderful rendition of Titania and I was surprised and how much I enjoyed her acting. I had never seen her in anything in her younger years. I was also mesmerized by the ass's head they put on Bottom, which was much more real like. Overall it was a better production if I had to pick one of the two. Looking forward to seeing it at the Ohio Shakespearean Festival at Stan Hywet Hall this summer. ...more

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Jul 28, 2024 Shirley (stampartiste) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-classics, published-1899-and-earlier, favorite-author-shakespeare-william, to-read-in-2024, challenge-bingo-2024

This play was such a lighthearted, fun romp. Having only read Shakespeare’s tragedies to date, I wasn’t prepared for this switch to a comedy. But it was so enjoyable and made for such an easy read!

I loved how Shakespeare’s play interacted characters from Greek mythology with creatures from Fairyland. I loved how Shakespeare set up the love triangles among the couples. The dialogue could have been written today. So timeless. The best part for me was the administration of love potions to the wrong ...more

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Dec 20, 2012 Mike Snodgrass rated it it was amazing

Read and saw performance. Best comedy.

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Dec 22, 2012 Zuzana rated it really liked it

Shelves: play, classics, 2015-challenge

Yay! After a disappointing All's Well That Ends Well here's once again a Shakespeare's play I really like. Elfs, love potions, asses, butt jokes and all. ...more

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