A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The play is the play but the commentary is somewhat less than inspired. ( )

As a play, this is great to watch, especially with a cast that understands the text and can play up to the brilliant comedy of Shakespeare. But, as someone who is reading it as literature, it becomes a much darker entity. From the pranks pulled on Titania, Hermia's possible sentence of death if she doesn't marry Demetrius.

I was surprised at how how Shakespeare handled the tradesmen's play of Pyramus and Thisbe, Hippolyta and Theseus make gentle fun at the players. The best parts of the story really is the the play within a play -

As for this specific edition - I liked the information about Shakespeare, his theater, his day to day life. It even accounts for Shakespeare's education. I found the explanation of certain phrases and words paired WITH the actual play very useful, although at times, it was more distracting than not. ( )

Theseus, duke of Athens, has conquered Hippolyta, the Amazon queen, and is about to wed her. Meanwhile, two lovers, Hermia and Lysander, seek refuge in the forest near Athens when Hermia’s father demands that she marry Demetrius. Hoping to win Demetrius’s favour, Helena tells him their whereabouts and follows him to the forest, where he goes in search of Hermia. The forest is also full of fairies who have come for the duke’s wedding. Oberon, the king of the fairies, quarrels with his queen, Titania, and bids his mischievous servant Puck to drop magic juice into her eyes as she sleeps; his intent is to punish her for her disobedience by causing her to fall hopelessly in love with whatever person or creature she happens to see when she awakes. Noting that the human lovers in the forest are also at odds, he orders Puck to drop the love juice into Demetrius’s eyes so that Demetrius’s one-time affection for Helena will be restored. Because the two young Athenian men look much alike, however, Puck mistakenly administers the love juice to Lysander, who then happens to see Helena when he awakes. He falls hopelessly in love with her. Now both young men are in love with Helena and neither with the poor deserted Hermia. This situation does not make Helena any happier, though. She comes to the conclusion that they are all making fun of her. Hermia and Helena fall out over this contretemps, while the young men have become fierce and even would-be murderous rivals of one another for Helena. All is at sixes and sevens. ( )

Read this play many years ago and loved every second of it. ( )

I've seen this play at least 3 times now and while my most recent experience, by the Globe was a great production i'm still not a big fan.
Its really quite a mess with the lovers running about for most of it none of whom i care about and then what feels like 20 minutes extra tacted on to deal with the play within a play.
The Globe version also emphasizes the messed up theseus/hippolyta and oberon/titania relationships. You really feel that hippolyta/titania are ill-used to say the least. However while its great they address that it does leave you with a bit of a sour taste in the mouth. Since although they can show the plays darkside with the acting, they can't actually fix it without rewriting the whole plot.
I really like some of the characters in this and the fairies are a great idea but no matter what version i've tried its never lived up to its promise. ( )