Reflections: A Middsummer Night's Dream

   If I had a choice in being either a playwrite or a director, I'd choose to be the writer. The script of the play contains the actual story, while the production crew merely tweak it. But when watching A Middsummer Night's Dream I realized how much a play can change based on what isn't written down.

   The most striking moment where I saw this was right after the workers had finished their play. Hippolyta picked up a flower, looked at Bottoms for a moment, and then threw it to him. There was obvious significance in this moment.

   And yet Hippolyta had never met Bottoms before. Instead, it was her counterpart Titania he met in the forest. The scene implied a connection between Hippolyta and Titania. This adds a whole new aspect to the play, as the fairy world and the mortal world could now be distorted images of each other.

   There is nothing in the script that speaks of this connection, or a least nothing that I could hear. Instead it was created through the decision of casting the same actors for both sets of monarchs, and by the moment at the end.

   Though the potential for this other level was clear in the plot, it did not have to come to fruition. But the director, or perhaps another member of the production staff, chose the direction the play would take.

   Other, smaller details also had major effects on the impact the play left. Early twentieth century clothes made the characters much more sympathetic than a toga would have. For me, the clothes reminded me of the struggle for women's rights that was started during that period, which was echoed in the play.

   On the other hand, I thought the clothes jarred with spoken language. They didn;t quite fit in. And that is why I still would rather be the writer. Ultimately the words of a play have the final say in how the play will direct itself. If you don't respect the context of the play, then it won't quite make sense.

   The best part of Shakespeares works is that these little inconsistencies don't happen very often. Shakespeare's work is often sightly fantastical to begin with, and yet it is grounded in the characters and their emotional narratives.

   It is this foundation which allows directors and actors to tweak the play in order to say what they want about it. The plays are realistic and human enough that each conversation contains many aspects of life, and it up to the theatre which they want to emphasis, and which they will leave in the background.

There are gaps to be filled by nonverbal suggestions and audience imagination, but throughout they must all be centered around the original structure.