April Fantasy Read - A Midsummer Night's Dream

Since this is a short piece and there are no real "spoilers," I'm going to just have one thread.

I'm going to be reading this from SparkNotes No Fear Shakespeare at http://nfs.sparknotes.com/msnd/. It has the original text plus a modern translation side by side. I'm planning on reading 3 scenes a week, so it will take me three weeks to complete.

How will you be reading this play?

I'll be reading the text in a Complete Works of William Shakespeare that entered the family as a school prize to my father in 1926. At least the first read-through I would like to move at the pace the play probably did when first performed, so completing it in 2--2-1/2 hours, 3 hours at most.

I have just finished reading This Wooden 'O', a fascinating account of the rebuilding of Shakespeare's Globe in London. Although the book seems rather rare (only 18 copies in LT) I would urge any April readers to read it either before or as soon after the actual play as possible. It sets the whole thing in context in a most fascinating way.

Much as I would love to recommend the theatre's own website, Google tells me that at the moment it is compromised by a virus / other malware and so has the status of an 'attack page'. If it is cleaned up in time it will again be an almost compulsory extra for this read. In particular, when I visited it last night (and it was still clean) it had a fascinating clip from an actual performance which, although not 'our' play, I shall certainly draw on when imagining ours as theatre.

In my record collection I have a 1906 recording of Tree declaiming Falstaff's speech on honour; the same speech is most of the clip referred to above. What a difference! Tree's is a deep-chested roar of 'WHAAAT. IIIS. HONNAAAH? ...'. And replaying it in the mind, this is how it would have to be in somewhere like the Albert Hall, where he would have been a long way from the front row, the back row of the gods would seriously need opera glasses, and there was no amplification. In the Globe clip, Falstaff is so close to the front row of groundlings that he is almost standing on their elbows, and the back row of the gods is barely 20 metres away. A thoughtful, conversational '(Hmmmmz...) What is honour? ...' works much better, and that is what Shakespeare meant. So when our characters soliloquize, they are really discussing with the audience at armchair range, and so on.

We should also remember (sorry, Morphy) that in the original performance, the actors would have spoken their lines quite fast by today's standards (so compressing Tree's 2 minutes for Honour into the clip's 1:15 minutes), and there would have been no breaks for scene shifts or intervals. If you needed refreshments, sellers circulated among the audience; if you needed the loo, you got up and went quietly. That is how it is that the average Shakespeare play ran for between 2 and 2 1/2 hours, uncut.

And finally (at last!) a few months ago BBC3 broadcast -- on the internet too -- a performance of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' with Mendelssohn's incidental music. The whole performance took 3 hours, and the bit most seriously in need of trimming was the Wedding March, which seemed to take for ever. After all, how long does it take for ten people to walk 5 metres slowly? Not as much as five minutes!

*gets down off soap box, with apologies for the length of this post*

No apologies necessary. Great post!

Many thanks! By the way, in Elizabethan English one went to hear a play, not to see it. Turns out there's a good reason for this. The groundlings got to see most of what was going on, and hear it too (give or take their neighbours' conversation). But the Globe's web site indicates that every actual seat in the house has a partially obscured view of the stage. Contrary to a modern theatre, the best seats are not Dress Circle, dead centre -- they're almost the furthest from the stage -- but on top of the tiring room, behind the stage, where you would hear every word and every footfall, but wouldn't see a thing. And indeed they're so shown in Elizabethan drawings: scumbags in casuals in front, Lords and Ladies in their glad-rags behind the stage.

I read this, but it's been some time ago. I am as yet undecided whether I will read it again or not, but I'm already enjoying this thread tremendously. I love the insights, Hugh.

When I read Shakespeare, I like to watch at least two, more if possible, productions of what I'm reading. Every performance has its own take on the subtle meanings, some of which come out not in words but in actions, tones, or even costumes.

I'm reading it on my kindle, and will be watching it again - the version with Stanley Tucci, where it's reset to a 19th century Italy framework. I've had bits of it in my head the last month from watching a Midsummer Night's Dream-inspired movie musical called Were The World Mine. It's very different (and queer, in case that'll affect whether you'll watch it), but has some amazing singing from people who aren't professional singers.

You may enjoy this summary of the plot. if you follow the link, do please look at the rest of the site. Maynardville is open-air theatre in suburban Cape Town. If the GD magic carpet worked, I'd be suggesting a day outing starting at Groot Constantia, where we'd pick up some wine for the picnic. Then get the rest of the makings at one of two nearby shopping centres (maybe including a bottle of Vin de Constance for any Jane Austen fans) before making our way to Maynardville for a picnic and show. Not now -- it's closed for winter, which is Cape Town's rainy season.

Morphy may like this "educational page" about Our Play.

I'd suggest exploring The Shakespeare's Globe site too, now that it's clean again.

How was it dirty?

Google was showing it as an "attack site" and refusing access. i assume it had been hacked or picked up a virus.

Oh, well, I definitely like the clean version then.

Hugh, I visited that "educational" page (see #8 above) and had to chuckle. It's entirely in keeping with modern day sensibilities and puts MSND in an appropriate context!

I'm going to watch the version with Judi Dench! And I'll probably use the Calla Edition of the text.

I wish I could see the version they'll be doing in Korean! All those languages! *sigh*

Act 1, Scene 1

The course of true love never did run smooth.

Ha! I recognize that line.

That, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and Earth,

No clue what that means. Anyone?

***

No Fear Shakespeare is really helping me out. I read the modern version and then the original.

I'm reading the copy from my old high school anthology. Also took a peek at what Harold Bloom has to say in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human. An interesting quote near the beginning:

"Nothing by Shakespeare before A Midsummer Night's Dream is its equal, and in some respects nothing by him afterwards surpasses it. It is his first undoubted master-work, without flaw, and one of his dozen or so plays of overwhelming originality and power. Unfortunately, every production of it that I have ever been able to attend has been a brutal disaster, with the exception of Peter Hall's motion picture of 1968, happily available on videotape."

14 - The context elaborates it a bit:

Brief as the lightning in the collied night, that, in a spleen, unfolds both heaven and earth

Take out the spleen bit, and it's talking about how lightning lights up the night, but only briefly. The whole line is talking about "choice" (from a few lines before) - a choice is very momentous, but happens in a very short instant. I suspect that "spleen" is not referring to a body part here, but rather acting more like onomatapoeia, as in "a spleen of lightning" being analogous to a sheet of lightning.

(I read that "collied" means "black like coal", as in "colliery" referring to a coal mine.)

>16 Choreocrat: Thanks! That is helpful.

Morphy, I had no idea what it meant either. (I had just skipped over that particular phrase)

But I googled it with quotes and found a site called 'C T Onions, A Shakespeare Glossary' and here's the entry for 'in a spleen' (and all Shakespeare's other uses of spleen).

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.03.0068:entry=spl...

Number 4 is the usage from MND and it translates it as 'a fit of anger or passion'. That makes sense to me--first because we do still use the phrase 'venting one's spleen' for a bit of rage and second in the context of the sentence.

So between choreocat's working out the 'coiled' and this use of spleen I would say it goes something like:

As quick as lightening in a pitch black night, that in a burst of passion, lights up heaven and earth.

Pretty neat phrase, once it's untangled.

This is the problem with figuring out meaning via context; one tends to have only a vague sense whereas this crowd actually does untangle the meaning. You all are wonderful!

Thanks, Jim, for sharing the background about the play. Master-work, huh? That makes me happy that Morphy chose it.

I actually have Bloom's book, too, but I've been too lazy to dig it out. (hangs head).

I noticed something in reading through the first Act and having watched one version of the play on film. The lovers' dialogue in that first Act seemed to me to be somewhat less lyrical than some of the longer speeches granted to Titania and Oberon. But it reminded me of something I'd read in Actors Talk About Shakespeare earlier this year. One of the actors quotes one of his mentors as saying:

In the clickety-clickety-click of the lovers scene in MND if you get out of sync with the rhythm by one scintilla, the comedy will not work. You cannot make a move nor do any business except at the end of the line. If it's a couplet, you've got to wait until the end of it, then do the business. If you do it in the middle of the couplet,you've completely wrecked it.

so look at these exchanges as an example:

LYSANDER
How now, my love! why is your cheek so pale?
How chance the roses there do fade so fast?
HERMIA
Belike for want of rain, which I could well
Beteem them from the tempest of my eyes.
LYSANDER
Ay me! for aught that I could ever read,
Could ever hear by tale or history,
The course of true love never did run smooth;
But, either it was different in blood

It is true that you absolutely have to move through those lines fairly quickly to make the language seem natural as conversation between two human beings. Imagine how hard it is to do that and add in any stage business necessary in moving around the stage.

At the same time, lines like this sound almost choppy as one reads them (silently).

Morphy, I like the No Fear Shakespeare version. I had not made up mind to read this one, but I think I'll give it a shot. It's been years since I read A Midsummer Night's Dream.

This never occurred to me when I read/saw the play in high school, but it did hit me this past week. Titania and Bottom are the key characters in the action of MND. (Yes, I know. I'm a bit slow on the uptake sometimes.) Oberon and Puck set the action spinning on its way, but when it comes to the actual themes of the play, the important ones are Bottom and Titania. The four lovers (Hermia, Helena, Lysander, and Demetrius) seem to me to be just the pretty faces and the Mechanicals themselves provide comic interest.

I like to think of Puck as the McGuffin bearer, with the flower itself as the McGuffin*.

*A plot device, often a physical object, that is the main thing that drives the plot along, but isn't necessarily the main point of the plot.

Act 1, Scene 2

I love Bottom! He's such a ham. I grinned through the entire scene.

I love the malapropisms (what, 200 years before Sheridan gave us the sainted Mrs Malaprop?) that pepper every scene with the mechanicals.

Their actual performance in 5: 1 shows exactly how there would be running backchat between the actors and the groundlings (and between members of the audience) all the way through any Elizabethan (or Jacobethan, if I may be permitted that Betjemanism) play.

Also enjoyed the play on die (obvious meaning or deuce) / ace / ass between the noble men when Pyramus, ahem, dies.

26 - That's one of the things I'm always looking for when I read Shakespeare. I'm sure I'm missing half of the hilarious puns that are now unrecognisable, but I try to find the ones I can.

Yes, I can't help thinking every now and then that if we were Jacobethans or Shakespeare alive today, he'd be right up there with Monty Python, the Goons and others -- as well as being a highly respected 'serious' writer.

Act 2, Scene 1

No Fear Shakespeare translates,
"And I serve the fairy queen
 To dew her orbs upon the green."
as
"I work for Titania, the Fairy Queen, and organize fairy dances for her in the grass."

Really? To dew her orbs means organize dances?

***

And it translates pensioners as bodyguards. That doesn't seem right either? Attendants maybe.

***

Ugh, Helena's a bit of a stalker, isn't she?

***

Re: dew her orbs --> My folk-lore source suggests instead that this reference is to the very special dew that would appear on fairy rings (those created by outward spreading fungi like mushrooms) in order to improve their complexions. But the fairy rings themselves (orbs in Shakespeare's phrasing) were simply the proof that the fairies themselves had been dancing circle dances in that location. As a human, you'd want to be careful not to destroy those rings in case you angered the faery folk. So there's something more to the back story than your translation might seem to offer.

And, in today's vernacular, rather than thinking of her as a stalker, you might want to think of it more in terms of Helena having self-image and/or self-worth issues. Remember she likens herself to Demetrius' spaniel.

I still think she's a stalker. It's not healthy. To liken yourself to someone's dog isn't useful no matter what the year, and it's not remotely romantic. In the version I watched, Callista Flockheart (aka Ally McBeal) is very stalkerish. Not dangerous at all - pathetic, in fact, but still stalkerish.

And yet, Diana Rigg playing the same role in the 1968 Royal Shakespeare Company film delivers a very cool, casual Helena. Her version has Helena wondering at the curious behavior of Demetrius in not loving her but not tipping over the proverbial "cliff" because he doesn't love. There's alot of Mrs Peel in her Helena.

Actually in that production, Judi Dench playing Titania is most memorable although Ian Richardson does a rather Satanic Oberon.

Anyone know *why* Oberon is always played as this dark, brooding sort?

I think if you try to play Oberon as anything but dark and brooding, it comes across as straight up conniving, or madness. When he's dark and brooding, he can be in a bad mood and willing to play at a bit of vengeful pranking (and the conscience of a toddler). If he were, for example, happy, it would be less of a prank, so much as someone who wants to torment her.

Something to play with. The search tool, Wolfram Alpha, has uploaded all of the plays of Shakespeare for analysis. Midsummer Night's Dream is one of their examples. Go see: http://blog.wolframalpha.com/2012/04/10/to-compute-or-not-to-compute-wolframalph...

As an example, above in the thread I said something about the key characters being Titania and Bottom, but Wolfram Alpha showed me that Helena actually talks more throughout the play than either of them (although Bottom isn't too far behind her in terms of number of words spoken).

Granted I have the extent my geek side showing, but it's an interesting way to look at the play! Or at least I think so...

Act 2, Scene 2

Oh boy. Everything is in a bit of a stir, eh?

Act 3, Scene 1

I'm really enjoying this. There is so much humor. I especially like how bumbling the players are. Totally incompetent.

The player bits are some of my favourites. The other bits have great use of language, good plotting, and so on, but the interludes with the players gets a good laugh.

Yes! The humor is great! I've seen this play both as a Shakespeare in the Park offering and put on by high school students. The humor comes through even if some of the language doesn't to an audience not familiar with Shakespeare.

The commentary I'm reading points out that the four lovers are actually pretty cardboard and bland--the two men Lysander and Demetrius completely interchangeable even more so than the women, Hermia and Helena. Since there's no characterization other than youth in love, it doesn't matter to the audience who ends up with whom.

I was glad to read this, because when I started reading the play, I couldn't keep the couples straight and had to make myself a cheat sheet as to who is in love with whom.

Yup. Don't need to pay much attention to the pretty faces. Meanwhile, Bottom and Peter Quince are entirely discernible in their characters. Bottom is an over-acting ham and Quince is the much-abused director/stage manager trying to keep the over-reaching thespian in place.

Just a comment, I'm not reading this, but have read it, and am really enjoying reading this thread.

#39 et al. Indeed. I can easily accept the idea that the nobs (including Theseus and Hippolyta) are there purely as an excuse for the fairies and the 'rude mechanicals'.

By the way: BBC are having a Shakespeare festival on Radio 3 (Shakespeare's music) and 4 (the environment that formed the background to his activities). It sounded as if there might be more on other radio and TV channels as well. I'd suggest you take a look (or a listen).

Act 3, Scene 2

I didn't like this scene as much. I find the four lovers annoying. The men are all bluster and the women are all whine. "I will fight you!" "You are teasing me!" Ish.

I guess that takes it back to #38, the bland lovers are something to hang the rest of the plot off.

Not to throw off the general flow of the discussion, but a question occurred to me last night flipping through the text. Who has the important speeches in this play and which are the key speeches? We're all agreed that the four lovers aren't the most important characters. So of Oberon, Puck, Titania, Bottom, and Theseus, who has the most important speeches? Thematically, poetically, dramatically?

Puck's final valediction is certainly one of the most famous speeches, and one that I rather like.

Puck's valediction has been bugging me since we started this group read. Compare it with Prospero's farewell in The Tempest and the final speech in Henry IV part 2. All ask the indulgence / applause of the audience for the playwright. I have for some weeks been wondering how many other Elizabethan playwrights ended their plays like this. Does anybody in this thread know if that was in any way or to any degree standard practice at the time?

Back on topic, two of the three valedictions are placed in the mouths of important characters (Puck and Prospero), which might suggest that the last speaker in the play is always an important character. But the speech in Henry IV: 2 is put in the mouth of a dancer who doesn't even rate an individual name. So that hypothesis bites the dust.

Any thoughts, anyone?

It's kind of like a bookends thing for me. Sometimes you want your story to have a narrated opining or closing, for a particular reason. In both MND and the Tempest, there's a big fantasy element, so the final speech grounds the audience back in the real world. Henry IV I don't know, so I can't comment, but it also applies to the one (I can't remember which) that has a similar opening, reminding the audience that they're just actors on a stage. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to apply it to Fortinbras as well, but that one doesn't have the fourth wall effect. In other drama of the time? I don't know. I have to admit, I've never read any, not even Marlowe.

>48 Choreocrat:: Romeo and Juliet also begins and ends with those sort of bookending speeches from a minor character, IIRC. The opening sets the scene by telling of the feud, (having just looked this up, the Prologue is not even spoken by a named character), and the Prince ends the play with a brief summing up of the sorrow of the story. It's not expressly addressed to the audience (unlike the prologue), but could be interpreted that way.

Sorry for going off topic . . .

If we're thinking of famous quotes you can always use this as a reference (contains homoerotic imagery, if that isn't going to be pleasant for you). "Be as thou wast want" is another one from the same movie.

Just because I like this one --


Note the animal heads on some of the figures; also the idea that Puck is the puppeteer.

This week we're supposed to be wishing the Bard a happy birthday!

http://birthday2012.bloggingshakespeare.com/

I wonder if he was included in the Green Dragon pub birthday list?

Also the Library of Congress is offering a digital exhibit of their collections of Shakespeare-related material. http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/tr33a.html#shakespeare

I must say I am disturbed by Grover Cleveland as Hamlet. Or is the Romeo-related chewing tobacco worse?

Happy birthday, Will!

I finished up by watching the Royal Shakespeare Company's 1968 version from Netflix. Great performances and it was amazing to see Judi Dench so young!

But..... this is a bad, bad copy of the original film. All the colors are gray--blue gray, green gray, yellow gray, red gray. The sound is horrible and the film is badly scratched in places. I don't know if there are better copies out there or if this one was just exceedingly bad. (Can you tell I thought it was bad?)

Act 4, Scene 1

This scene feels more simplistic and a little bit boring. All the plots were fixed with what seemed like a snap of the fingers.

The bit at the end with Bottom was amusing, of course.

But a little odd, wasn't it? I mean, Bottom is funny when he's talking about the ear of man hath not seen and so forth, but then at the end he says something about he would sing Bottom's song at her death. Whose death? Titania, being a fairy, is well nigh to being an immortal. Or so I would have thought. Or is this still Bottom being confused with sleep and the effect of the spell wearing off?

Act 4, Scene 2

Barely a scene so moving on...

Act 5, Scene 1

It is the wittiest partition that ever I heard discourse, my lord.

*snorts*

***

Well, that was interesting. Very different from the only other play I've read, Hamlet. It was much lighter and comedic than I was expecting. I loved the last scene with the nobles making fun of the players. And the players were SO awful with the alliteration and mixed up words that it was painfully funny.

The players doing their Pyramus and Thisbe is *wonderful*.

I've always loved that it's going so badly, and then Thisbe steps up and delivers a wonderful death soliloquy.

I've read both Hamlet and A MidSummer Night's Dream this year and I think I do rather prefer Hamlet. The language worked for me more successfully in that. I don't know if I can put it properly here, but I felt like the dah-dah-dah-dah-dah-dah rhythm of the language was more noticeable in this play than in Hamlet. It seemed more elementary than poetic as a result (and that may be an odd or even the wrong way of putting it), but that's how it seemed to me.

I enjoyed this month's read-along though and I thank you for pulling it together, Morphy.