A Midsummer Night's Dream Response Essay

Play Response

In the play Midsummers Nights Dream, the director conveyed many different meanings in the play and there were many that stood out to me that night. One of the main concepts I captured from the play was the significance of love. All characters in the play are lively, careless and thoughtless, especially the character Puck, one of the dominant characters in the play. Through the assistance of imaginary elements as well as characters Puck and Oberon, the true message of love in William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is revealed. Puck is significant to the plot, tone, and meaning of A Midsummer Nights Dream. He of course becomes a characteristic of the theme of love in the play. He has the ability to a higher power to control what and whom humans will fall in love with. By capturing this theme, the director shows the couples in the woods and how they appear in their bare undergarments and how they deeply love one another. Puck plays a love trick on all of them to confuse one another and play mind tricks. "Though she be little, she is fierce” is what I think of when I image their arguments with each other. But at the end of the play it shows them waking up from their horrible encounter that night, they seem to be ashamed with what they are wearing the next morning and try to cover themselves. This reminds me of the beginning of the bible with Adam and Eve, how they felt sinful and naked. The
director though I feel makes us feel forced to see how irrational and wild love is. The idea that things are not necessarily what they seem to be at the realization of everything is another theme in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
Throughout the play scenes, characters are falling asleep, waking up and imagining the unreal and being in a dreamlike state. Also reality and appearance is demonstrated through the part where there is a play within a play. Us the audience know that this play is not real. We know that really a boy is not a woman. Also we know the man is not a lion yet we still watch believing the stupidity of it and laugh at the
part. Being apart of the play Henry IV has heightened my ability to notice how to follow along with what the characters are actually talking about. Even not knowing what they are saying, I can follow along by their gestures and emotions in the face. Setting was also very important because in Henry IV we had many different plots and different scenes that play a big part in the atmosphere. In the Midsummer play, I knew where we were because of the screen and the surroundings around the characters. Also partner chemistry plays a big role in this play and also Henry. In henry we had to be able to interact with other characters whether that be a lover and friend or king. Also, we had to know how to create a fighting scene to make it feel real. At Guthrie, the characters had to show hatred, love and also power. In conclusion, the play in general was directed and presented to perfection. The actors and actresses had there characters memorized which benefitted the play overall.