A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

The Story

Just as Duke Theseus and Amazon warrior Hippolyta are planning their wedding, his advisor Egeus brings in a complaint: Egeus’s daughter, Hermia, won’t marry Demetrius because she’s in love with Lysander. Ancient Greek kids today, right? Theseus orders Hermia to obey her father or, according to Athenian law, she must either enter a convent or face the death penalty.

This seems mildly unreasonable, so Hermia and Lysander plan to elope by night. They tell their friend Helena, but she’s in love with Demetrius so she tells him immediately of their plan, hoping to win his affection by logic that makes sense to anyone who ever was a teenager, had self-esteem issues, or both. That night, all four young lovers sneak into the forest.

Meanwhile, a group of Athenian tradespeople plan to perform The Tragedy of Pyramus and Thisbe in celebration of the Duke’s wedding (read the room, gang), which they’ll rehearse later that night…in the aforementioned forest.

The fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania (in the same forest, of course), continue an argument over Titania’s refusal to give up a page-boy to Oberon. He sends loyal hench-fairy Puck to find a magic love-potion plant to cast a vengeful spell on Titania. En route, Puck overhears the rehearsal and for no particular reason (beyond “Puck gonna Puck”) transforms Bottom’s head into that of a jackass. The others flee in terror, Titania wakes, and the first creature she sees is donkey-faced Bottom, with whom, thanks to the flower, she falls madly in love.

Oberon and Puck and their love-flower juice meddle in the entanglements of the four Athenian lovers and make everything worse, then better, somehow. SPOILER: All is well, except the reviews of Pyramus and Thisbe, which are fair at best.