A Midsummer Inception

See? Woods. 

See? Lights.

I was in the Castle Amphitheater version, and watched the one on Netflix to compare. This was the same bewildering adaption that was talked about in a previous post. For the purpose of some third party opinion, I'm comparing a scene that didn't involve Hippolyta at all. Act II, scene I, we happen upon Robin Goodfellow and the first fairy. They have their banter, and then Oberon and Titania appear. In our play, the set is minimal, yet indicative. We did not have plastic trees or otherwise, but we were outside, nestled in woodland all around. And we attempted some semblance of flowers and nature in these fairy scenes. The 1996 movie adaption, on the other hand, did not use that same set or even setting. All around the fairies are floating lightbulbs--and that's all. No decorations otherwise, no true set. This was somewhat true of the other spaces in the movie. The scenes all seemed enclosed in their separate sets and were surrounded by some sort of blue fog. Instead of the liminal traveling space between sets, such as pathways, doorways, etc., the liminal space was fairly literal in that there was just nothing in time and space connecting these different places. The fairy scene is the most obvious. There was simply nothing save a few lights. This was an obvious decision to increase the dream aspect, which this adaptation played upon a lot using the actual dream inside a little boy's head as the setting of the entire play. In our version of this scene the fairies are literally in the woods when they interact, drawing more upon the dark human qualities that they possess. The vast difference in setting made for a very unique perspective on the scene. These fairies exist merely in  a dream. There is no Titania, no Oberon, no Puck--all are merely a figment-an apparition in one child's mind. This could be an amped up telling of the performing aspect. We've already seen how performance plays a role in this play, but what if the use of a child being the audience of the play, and us being the audience to him, is merely a commentary on just how little in the world is unobserved, and authentic. The literal dream interpretation begs the question of who is dreaming, and who is actually experiencing life as we see it. 

Fairies in the Woods

One of the most fascinating aspects of A Midsummer Night's Dream to me is Shakespeare's use of both the fairies, and the setting of the play. Both are utilized so that they become more than simply other characters, or trip through the woods. They become symbols, characters, themes--and vital to understanding what the play is really about. 

To start off, the setting; the play begins in Athens, in the midst of a civilized group of people bursting at the seams with issues. Theseus and Hippolyta are meant to get married, but in reality he "wooed her with his sword", Egeus is trying to get his daughter either killed or wed to Demetrius, who loves her, but she doesn't love him, of course. She loves Lysander. As soon as those two decide to take their fate into their own hands, they run away to the woods. That's an interesting and cleverly crafted decision to move them out of civilization into something darker and more wild. As soon as they leave this royal court they find themselves inside a world that they cannot control, and where conventions of society don't exactly exist. And the woods are where everything begins to get interesting.

Within the woods we have the fairies. They also exist in a world outside of social conventions. Naturally they have their own social structure, but it operates on a different playing field. Oberon and his wife can get into magical fights where they use their powers to get their way at all costs. Selfish, childish, or maybe just privy to more primitive human emotions. They are ruled by passions, and cannot be bothered with rules. They simply don't play by those. Puck is an impish, playful, sometimes malicious, example of the most base of human feelings. All of the fairies, really, represent those wild and less manageable emotions. 

Shakespeare uses both the woods and the fairies to display a darker side of humanity. Wild, passionate, outside of standard societal rules, they exist beyond what we think of as normal.