Graduating MFA Actors: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream is about three plots in which four lovers have a love “square,” actors try to put on a play, and Titania is unhappy with her husband Oberon's actions against her “adopting” a young child. These plots converge with the main plot of Hippolyta and the Duke's wedding. The action of the play is driven by Oberon and Puck as they put a spell on Titania, Lystander, and Demetrius with a magical flower that will make them fall in love with the first person that they lay eyes on as they awake from their slumber.

The theme in which Shakespeare asks us to examine is the perception of how humans love others. The play is full of characters who love others and some who are strongly opposed to the ones who love them. Oberon, Puck, and the fairies should be the ones who are instigating the proper couples who love each other, but things get messed up when they drugged Lystander instead of Demetrius.

In this particular production, I did not feel that it accomplished portraying this theme accurately. I find that the main reason it did not work for me was the actor who played the Duke and Oberon. I felt that he was not committed to the text or environment of the play. In the first scene between Titania and Oberon, I felt that the actor playing Titania had a good grasp of the situation, but felt that Oberon was an actor on stage trying to figure out his part. I did not feel any character, any realization of the situation, or any real involvement. The scene is supposed to set up their relationship and the plot, however I was focused more on his acting than the story. I did not understand the love that each had for the other or even why Oberon wanted to put the spell on Titania. I did not get his strange involvement in the lives of Helena, Demetrius, and Lystander because his words did not portray his wanting to make the relationships right.

Another scene that I think through me out of the theme involved the Duke and the players near the end of the play. The actor playing the Duke messed up on a line and actually gave a little chuckle because he switched lines around. In that moment, I felt totally disconnected from the play because he choked on the words and was not in the intention of the scene. I felt that he was so focused on the text that he was not in his actions, the other characters, or even the meaning behind what he was saying.

Another aspect that took me out of the theme was the shifting of era's in costume but not in the production. For example, the beginning of the play until the players' first scene, the costumes were traditional Athenian costumes. It helped the actors get into the environment of the play. However, during the first players' scene as the characters came on stage, Bottom was in a 1970s suit and the others were in modern clothing. I was a little thrown off by the switch in costumes which once again did not make me think about how love is portrayed in the play.

I think that the play was very entertaining to watch, however I did not feel that I really got the theme of how love affects others. I felt that the play was a good production in the aspect of understanding and connecting speech and action, with the exception of the actor playing Oberon, but I felt that the theme could have been explored more if the actors would have committed themselves more to actions and meanings rather than the text. I understood the theme because of the text, but it was lost for me in the action and production of the play.