Most of Shakespeare’s plays have more characters than there were actors available to perform them and are therefore structured to allow efficient use of acting two parts to cover the roles (see The Comedy of Errors and Hamlet chapters for more examples of how this might have worked). But sometimes that doubling seems to have an interpretative, as well as a practical, payoff. Most notably, A Midsummer Night’s Dream seems to be constructed to allow Theseus and Hippolyta, the rulers of Athens, to be doubled with Oberon and Titania, monarchs of the fairy realm. They’re already
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