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Last week, I reviewed Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream , a filmed production of the play. Jeanie saw a couple of plays, including Something Rotten, at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. Marg loved The Little Wartime Library by Kate Thompson, about a library set up in the tube station below Bethnal Green during World War II. Jane read three novels that allow readers to explore Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the Lake District of England.

Book: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, edited by David Bevington with a foreword by Joseph Papp
Genre: Play
Publisher: Bantam Books
Publication date: 1998 (originally, sometime between 1594 and 1596)

Source: Paperback borrowed from the library

Summary: Shakespeare’s romp to celebrate summer takes place in Athens and in a forest outside of the city.

The framing of the story is the wedding of Theseus (famed as the slayer of the Minotaur, escaping with the help of thread provided by Ariadne) to Hippolyta (defeated queen of the Amazons).

In between the announcement of their wedding in the first scene and the wedding feast of the final scene, we follow the adventures of four young lovers, a group of actors preparing a play for the wedding festivities, and inhabitants of the fairy world who have their own drama but don’t mind stirring up a bit of drama among the humans, too.

Washington Allston’s 1818 painting, Hermia and Helena

At the beginning, Lysander and Hermia love each other but her father disapproves. Demetrius loves Hermia and he’s her father’s choice of a husband for her. Hermia’s best friend, Helena, loves Demetrius but can’t get him to return her affection. Through potions and mistaken identities, the middle of the play mixes it up so that both men are in love with Helena, who believes that they are just making fun of her. Neither is in love with Hermia, who is sad and confused. Things are put right in the end with Demetrius forgetting his love of Hermia and returning Helena’s love, instead. Both couples have their happy ending with their weddings taking place alongside that of Theseus and Hippolyta.

The actors, sometimes called the Mechanicals, are tradesmen from Athens engaged in the creative pursuit of the stage. They don’t really know what they’re doing and take many things too literally and other things too cavalierly, leaving the audience more confused and amused than entertained in the way that was intended. Bottom, the most bold of the actors, spends the middle part of the play with the head of an ass (which suits his personality) while being fawned over by Titania, queen of the fairies.

Drawing by Charles Buchel, 1905. Folger Shakespeare Library Digital Collection.

Titania is in the midst of a fight with Oberon, king of the fairies. He wants her foster child, described as an Indian boy, but she insists that the child is her responsibility. Puck serves Oberon and makes many of the actions and mistakes that propel the action in the play. Together, Puck and Oberon arrange for Titania to fall in love with ass-headed Bottom. While she’s distracted, Oberon convinces her to give him the boy.

In the final act, the actors perform their play-in-a-play with the other characters providing commentary (I kept thinking of Statler and Waldorf, the Muppet characters who are always criticizing the performance).

Thoughts: Where I live in the middle of the United States, the summer solstice will be early on Sunday morning — 3:24am, June 21, 2026 (according to timeanddate.com). To observe the longest day and shortest night, I’ve been exploring A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare.

I started by reading a graphic novel version and listening to a panel of experts discuss the play.

Then, I watched a filmed stage production while reading the play, scene by scene. I reviewed Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream last week.

Seeing the actors perform the dialogue and actions of the play immediately after reading the words helped me gain new interpretations — and also an awareness that the choices that I imagined making weren’t always the same as the actor and director. Mostly, of course, the professional choices were a vast improvement over my own, but, occasionally, I liked what came from my imagination better.

The Wikipedia article about the play has many paragraphs of interpretation and criticism throughout the centuries, some of it contradictory. I felt like this gave me permission to have my own thoughts.

Egeus, Hermia’s father, is clearly the villain of the piece. Shakespeare makes him look ridiculous and demented in his desire to see his daughter dead rather than disobedient. So, even if Shakespeare wasn’t a feminist, he certainly understood the comic potential in making fun of arrogant men.

The women get pretty poor treatment in the play. I remember learning from Judi Dench’s book, Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent, that actors and directors find nonverbal ways to show that the women have agency and find effective ways to fight back. Lines are present in the text to assist with that. As Theseus and Hippolyta exit the first scene, Theseus says “What cheer, my love?” It’s not clear what Hippolyta did to elicit that ironic response — walked off in a huff? slapped him? — that’s up to the stagecraft.

The conflict between Oberon and Titania reflects colonialism and racism as well as sexism because the play is four hundred years old. Modern casting helps. The audience is encouraged to stretch our imaginations about how Athenians or fairies can appear, like in Julie Taymor’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

I loved this experience. For the rest of my life, the summer solstice will have the magic of this story humming alongside — fairies and foolish mortals and dark woods and gleeful goofiness.

What is your experience with A Midsummer Night’s Dream?