A Midsummer Night’s Silences
By Rebecca Clemens
Hippolyta Dreams of the Amazon (Act One) If these woods around me were as they are at home, if 6,000 miles could be bridged with a wish, this palace’s gates would hold no power. But sometimes the war sways out of your favor and the warrior must bide her time until a new moon brings a new bow. I could tell this Athenian girl before me now how I fought swiftly alongside men in the Attic War and let loose the horse. How my father Ares taught me the art of the spear and the music of shield hitting shield... But some battles must be fought all on your own. Look with your own eyes, speak with your own voice. Ask not pardon for boldness or apology for desires. Be like the liana of the rainforest: long, woody vines rooted in soil, using weaker trees to climb up to the canopy and claim their share of the sun.
A Dream of the Yellow Sands (Act Two) The day my mother died, or so I have been told, the yellow sands met the edge of the blue seas in perfect harmony. She was there, the Fairy Queen, and she took me in her arms and carried me away from India, away from the spice filled air, away from the land of my mother. Here in this bower now, I hide. A prize to be fought over. My presence causing fogs and pelting rivers overflowing to the rotting fields. No longer stories of my mother’s laughter. Only fairies whispering jokes about the changeling child they have exchanged for a human. Only spirits hiding away the day, Only a crown of marigolds in my hair.
When Puck Dreams of Being Mortal (Act Three)
Thick-skinned fools, crude patches of a barren sort, you cower at thorns and see not your shallow life. And yet, you welcome each morning and can live outside the margin of night. I watch you silently in your midsummer madness, making sport of your love. What does it feel like to let dawn’s rays awake you? To know the gentle touch of a loved one despite your weaknesses? To weave, and mend and create something That lasts beyond the moon’s passing? When dawn arrives, I will be gone, following darkness with nothing but the memories of the monster I make, the monsters that make me.
Helena Dreams of the Woods (Act Four-Five)
Is love a product mostly of geography? Those we are in close proximity to will likely grow on us more quickly than the voyager. And when a loved one is far away, do we not find ourselves forgetting the face, the voice we once loved in turn for nearer comforts? Although I awoke this morning to find Demetrius’ eyes changed towards me, yet still I doubt us here in this palace: So near Hermia, So near Egeus. Where will his loyalties reside upon another waking? There where I was told I was a goddess, there where I was the pursued rather than pursuer, there where I dismissed affection as a jest, in those groves of pines did love become for me a thing to call mine own, yet still beyond grasping. Now, if we were to return, would we find the river changed, the dream turned nightmare again, and every little crystal muddied?
Dream of the Bellows Mender (Act Five) At sunrise, I alone enter the church,
tools of my trade in hand, to mend the lungs of the great organ. Its voicelessness creates a gap towards Heaven, and so I must needs repair. Last night, my voice as Thisbe moved souls. I could feel the breath of the crowd gasp and release. In one unified moment, The air was transformed and for a moment, Flute was fled. Now, in the light of a new morning, I am returned to the world of rough hewn edges leaving holes in the skins of things.