William Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Directed by Michele Delattre

Director’s Notes

A dream. What if you are lost and alone, stumbling through a dark, mysterious forest. Maybe wolves are howling behind you. Any small misstep would mean disaster. Then a forest spirit reaches out and leads you through the wilderness into a celebration of marriage, empathy, and community.

Midsummer is a mad dash into a dreamland that transforms all who encounter it. It begins with preparations for a high royal wedding, featuring the Greek hero Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolyta, but almost immediately catapults into a wild landscape populated by tyrannical parents, confused young lovers, an exotic tale from India, amateur theatrics, English folklore, and magic.

Shakespeare holds the myriad pieces together within a framework of four troubled marriages. Two young couples are blocked from marrying at every turn. The Athenian rulers and their forest counterparts, the king and queen of the fairies, all have their own romantic power struggles. Puck, a character from English folklore, does what he can to stir up even more tension. There is a donkey head involved. At any moment tragedy could overtake wedding plans and bring down Nature herself. Then at the center of this storm Shakespeare makes an unexpected move — a play within the play. He brings on a group of simple tradesmen who might have stepped out of a village festival play to act out Ovid’s tragic love story, Pyramus and Thisbe. It is a hilarious and loving parody of playmaking itself.

Midsummer was one of the first plays of any kind I encountered as a child, and over subsequent decades I have found it moving in entirely new ways with every viewing. Amid its themes of patriarchal tyranny, lust and jealousy, what stands out is Puck’s final message: that theatre is a sort of communal dream that can transform characters and audiences, and mend all things. For those of you who are revisiting the Dream, I hope it continues to work its magic. If this is your first Dream, my advice is to jump down the rabbit hole and enjoy the trip with us.

Michele Delattre