A Midsummer Night's Dream (Grades 9-12)

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Bristol Old Vic in association with Handspring Puppet Company presents

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

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Student Matinee

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A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

EDUCATION AND OUTREACH STAFF Amy Kirkland, Associate General Manager Carolyn Palmer, Artistic Programming Manager Alisa De Los Santos, Education and Outreach Coordinator Jonathan Redding, Dramaturg Klarissa Leuterio, Education and Outreach Assistant Jackie Rosas, Education and Outreach Assistant CONSULTANTS Nick Musleh, Curriculum Writer Jonathan Ng, Designer

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Education and Outreach at The Broad Stage is supported in part by Austin and Virginia Beutner, Eisner Foundation, Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Arts Commission, Herb Alpert Foundation, John W. Carson Foundation, The Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation, The Green Foundation, SMC Associates, Matthewson Charitable Trusts, The Roth Family Foundation, Bank of the West, the Ralph M. Parsons Foundation and the Dwight Stuart Youth Fund.

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EDUCATION & OUTREACH Phone 310.434.3560 education @thebroadstage.com thebroadstage.com/artsed

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Greetings from The Broad Stage!

Dear Educators, We are so excited to bring you and your students A Midsummer Night’s Dream! From the Bristol Old Vic in association with the Handspring Puppet Company, this production is an inventive take on Shakespeare’s most famous comedy, using puppetry to weave the magical world of the faerie kingdom. It is our hope that this fresh look at young love and transformation encourages you and your students to delve deeper into the language and timeless themes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, whose relevance continues to speak to generations of theatre-goers.

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In preparation for the student matinee performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, we ask that you take the time to look through this study guide and implement some of the activities in your classroom. These teaching resources are based on California Core and VAPA State Standards. Our goal is to support your efforts not only in preparing students for this particular program, but in integrating the arts into other aspects of your students’ day to day learning process.

Thank you for taking this journey with us and for your continued dedication to your students’ academic and artistic development. We’ll see you at A Midsummer Night’s Dream!

Sincerely, Alisa De Los Santos Education & Outreach Coordinator Delossantos_Alisa@smc.edu

Klarissa Leuterio Education & Outreach Assistant Leuterio_Klarissa@smc.edu

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In support of this spirit of shared inquiry, we are piloting a Professional Development program for our educators. We value your time, experience and feedback throughout this process and invite you to join an ongoing conversation as we create and refine this program.

The workshop that you attend and the following guide are in service of an effort to deepen our effect on the students and teachers that we partner with throughout each season.

CONTENTS

Contents Lesson 1: Getting to Know A Midsummer Night’s Dream Lesson 2: The Language of Love Worksheet 1: Helena’s Speech Worksheet 2: Lysander’s Love

Worksheet 3: Rude Mechanicals Worksheet 4: Discussion Questions Worksheet 5: My Review

Appendix Plot Summary Character Summaries Essay on the History and Context of A Midsummer Night’s Dream Scansion Guide Theatre Glossary Shakespeare Glossary California Common Core and VAPA Standards Addressed

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Lesson 3: A Play Within A Play

LESSON 1

Getting to Know A Midsummer Night’s Dream (60 minutes) Grade Levels 9-12 Materials: Large butcher paper, scissors, tape, coloring and writing materials, open space in any room, Plot Summary, Character Summaries

Objective & Goals: 1) Students will demonstrate comprehension of the play through a visual organizer and an oral discussion.

2) Students will cooperate in telling the story through living tableaus created in groups.

3) Students will create their own scenes developed from improvised characters during gesture work.

4) Students will create staging and design concepts informed by their Note: The activities comprehension and analysis of the text. throughout this guide are Standards Addressed: See Appendix

PART 1 Engagement

based on some prior introduction to the plot and characters of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Before completing the activities with the students, please take a look at the Plot Summary and Character Summaries in the Appendix section.

Complete the following engagement exercise with your students.

Role on the Wall Character analysis through life sized visual representation.

Step 1: Ask students to get into groups of four (roughly) and assign each group a different character.

Step 2: Each group of students will trace life-sized silhouettes on larger paper and tape them to the wall.

Step 3: Each group completes the following on their “Role on the Wall”

• Fill the silhouette with character descriptions, attributes, and personality traits of each character supported by the text.

• Students must find a creative way to visually represent two dimensions of each character, meaning:

• Space to put character’s feelings and thoughts (i.e. inside the silhouette) vs. outward appearance (i.e. outside the silhouette).

• Space for what the character thinks about himself vs. what others think of him.

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Summary: 1) Three activities designed to differentiate instruction of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream 2) Beginning of a larger unit, but may stand alone, as it addresses VAPA and California Core Standards and facilitates comprehension of the plot, characters, and includes an introduction into the performance techniques required to read the play for meaning 3) Provides a framework and artistic tools needed for students to understand how to convey the story with their bodies 4) Introduces characters in the play both visually and kinesthetically

LESSON 1

Examples:

• Nick Bottom clearly sees himself as a jack of all trades, someone who can perform

many roles with dignity, but Puck, and other characters of higher status see him as a Jackass, and he visually becomes one because of Puck’s magic. How could you create a silhouette to convey this inner feeling of Bottom’s with the outward perception of him?

• Helena is constantly scorning her own looks and mourning the loss of her feminine charms because she is unable to win Demetrius, but is her outward appearance repulsive? She is probably lovely, though her self-image is low.

Step 4: Once the class has completed each role, they share with each other, and walk around the room, learning about each character. These roles on the wall are to be references for students during performance activities.

PART 2 Activity 13 / 14 SEASON

Moving Through the Space: The teacher models this exercise of spatial awareness.

Step 1: The class forms a circle with the teacher in the center.

Step 2: The instructor covers the space (walking throughout the circle trying to make sure every area is covered) and asks the class to observe.

Step 3: The instructor uses guided questioning (ask the students what is happening so that they may draw conclusions, but lead them to a certain conclusion) throughout the exercise.

Question Suggestions: What am I doing? How am I moving? If I speed up, what do you think of me? If I look at the ground or stand still and look up, what that suggest about me?

Step 4: Explain that you are covering the space, using as much of the space as possible, changing directions, stopping and starting, etc.

Step 5: Take volunteers to join.

Step 6: When there are about 10 students covering the space, explain the concept of doorways - walking through the space between others. Give students some time to move about. Remind them to change directions, use doorways, start and stop.

Step 7: Freeze!

String placement: Imagining strings are pulling on body parts is an effective way of inspiring gestures that can evoke emotions and stories.

Step 1: Imagine a string attached to the chest, pulling upwards. Walk around in that for 30 seconds.

Step 2: Imagine your chest string is cut. Now imagine a string between your shoulder blades, pulling upwards. Walk around. Now imagine a string on your chin, on the tips of your toes, etc.

Step 3: As students move around the space, point out any students who are creating a character in response to the different string placements.

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Remind students that as actors work to create characters from analyses just like the previous activity, they use a variety of physical exercises to inform their development.

LESSON 1

Step 4: Ask students- How do these gestures make you feel?

Step 5: Based on student answers, pick a few students to stay in the circle and continue moving but with two different string placements. Ask the rest of the class:

• Who could these people be?

• Where could they be?

• What’s happening to them?

Use student answers to create improvised stories based on the emotions portrayed through gestures. Conduct the story as students make suggestions.

Point out the use of gestures to convey a character or a story. Model a gesture and ask the class to repeat the word, and echo the definition.

Gesture: An expressive movement of the body or limb

Encourage students to play out scenes, taking suggestions for dialogue and lines from the audience. As the exercise progresses, students can tag out so others may have a chance to play.

When the exercise has run its course, ask students currently in motion to freeze.

Explain that a tableaux is a staged moment in a story, where the performers statically hold gestures and spatial relationships to each other to convey the action and internal experience of the characters.

Ask students to attach a story to the frozen tableaux in front of them.

Begin with a single student, then pairs, then groups, to tell simple stories by freezing in a posture and have class attach narrative to their postures Group students and task them with creating tableaux of specific moments in play, creating major plot points of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Examples: Act I, “The Trial”; Act II, “Oberon and Titania Argue”; Act III, “Lover’s Quarrel”; Act IV, “Bottom with the Faeries”; Act V, “Pyramus and Thisbe”

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Body Storytelling into Tableaux

The Dumbshow

• Like to a tableaux mixed with a

PART 3 Take it Further The Forest, in this play, serves as a standard motif in mythology that is a place in which the rules of society are suspended, unsuspected forces come into play, tribulations are endured, and new knowledge of the self is won (for good or for ill).

modern film trailer, a dumbshow was a pantomimed brief enactment of the play the audience is about to see, giving them enough information to entice viewership.

• Shakespeare uses a dumbshow most

notably in Hamlet before the players perform “the Mousetrap.”

Below are a few differentiated activities dealing with the “Big Truth” of The Forest. These activities are designed to afford flexibility to an instructor to pick what is best for his or her students.

1. Class discussion on theme of the Forest. Discuss contemporary examples of the archetype of the Forest (Star Wars, Hunger Games - The Arena, The Hobbit - outside the Shire).

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LESSON 1

2. Students Write a short narrative of their own experience of a Forest in their own lives, or the life of someone they know a. 10-20 minute free write about a place that can represent a personal learning ground.

3. Visual Exercise: draw or sketch forest as a place where there are trials, tribulations and the rules of society are suspended.

4. Design concept for Midsummer: group activity with blank page of a stage and create‌ a. set design – draw a model of a setting onstage for your production of Midsummer b. blank body costume designing c. Speech: pitch your concept of the setting/forest of your film version of Midsummer, where it should take place, and why that location d. Dramatic Convention: Faery World, describe in a brief essay or speech how the magic works in your story (in the play, juice from a flower is dropped on the eyes of the lover). e. Design and pitch your own movie trailer

Because of teacher modeling of body gestures and language use, this lesson is differentiated for English Language Learners. 90% of the first activity is physical, and therefore accessible to English Language Learners by facilitating comprehension kinesthetically as well as verbally. The instructor is to introduce simple vocabulary words like, ACTION, FREEZE, and GESTURE, DUMSHOW. The instructor repeatedly uses these words to clarify their meaning.

Visual strategies are incorporated in the lesson, also for differentiation.

This lesson is also naturally differentiated for special needs students. The lesson can be done from a seated position for students who have special mobility needs. The pace of the lesson is determined by the degree to which students are able to perform the modeled behavior. The instructor can work individually with students slowly or at a quicker pace with the entire group.

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Differentiated Instruction for Special Populations and English Language Learners

LESSON 2

The Language of Love (60 minutes) Grade Levels 9-12 Materials: Worksheet 1: Helena’s Speech, Worksheet 2: Lysander’s Loves, pencils or pens Summary: 1) Includes three activities designed to differentiate instruction of William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It is the second part of a larger unit, and is based on prior knowledge of the plot and character summary.

2) Addresses speech techniques used to speak the thoughts in each line clearly, and teaches one of the most interesting dramatic conventions of the play – the effect of ‘love potion’ on the character.

Objective & Goals: 1) Students will perform the Helena speech.

2) Students will have the opportunity to coach and be coached by other students in text analysis preparation for performance.

PART 1 Speaking Distribute Worksheet 1: Helena’s Speech Ask a volunteer to read the passage below in which Helena, after chasing Demetrius into the woods, begs his love, which he persistently refuses. The end of his line before is “I cannot love you…”

(On Worksheet 1: Helena’s Speech) HELENA: And even for that do I love you the more.

I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love,— And yet a place of high respect with me,— Than to be used as you use your dog?

Explain that this monologue is filled with rhetorical devices that, if used by the performer, can help clarify the meaning of the text to the performer and the listener.

Instruct students to complete the bottom rhetoric exercise on Worksheet 1. Read the directions and descriptions together as a class.

Rhetorical devices in Shakespeare are endless…assonance, consonance, alliteration…above are just a few an actor can use to clarify the meaning of this monologue.

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Standards Addressed: See Appendix

LESSON 2

WORKSHEET 1 KEY: HELENA: And even for that do I love you the *more. (B) I am your *spaniel(1); (B) and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: (B) Use me but as your *spaniel(2), (B) spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, (Unworthy as I am), to *follow you. (B) What worser place can I beg in your love,— (And yet a place of high respect with me,)— Than to / be us- / ed as / you use / your *dog(3)?

WORKSHEET 1 LEGEND: * = Operative words – words that require more vocal emphasis than any other word in the sentence/line

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Circle = Builds and lists – vocally build with volume or intensity • ex. Spurn me, strike me, neglect me, lose me Note: If students do well with the rhetorical devices above, or have some familiarity with Shakespeare, continue with the “Bonus Rhetorical Devices” below, also listed on their Worksheet.

Bonus Rhetorical Devices: () = Parentheticals – to be said as a sidenote, deviation from the main thought • ex. (And yet a place of high respect with me) (B) = Breathing points – where to take a breath 1, 2,3 = Repetition – repetition of a word or idea suggests a vocal build in volume or intention • I am your spaniel…use me but as your spaniel…to be used as you use your dog! (synonym of spaniel)

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= Antitheticals – comparative words, the second word in an antithetical pair usually has more emphasis • ex. the more you beat me, I will fawn on you

LESSON 2

Direct students to look at the last line of the monologue again together.

Introduce the concept of Scansion: using an awareness of iambic pentameter to identify unstressed and stressed syllables to clarify meaning (5 iambs per line, in each iamb, the first syllable is unstressed and the second syllable is stressed).

• Ex. Two house - / holds both / a - like / in dig- / ni - ty Or in this case: Than to / be us- / ed as / you use / your dog?

Lead students in marking the last line of Helena’s monologue to look like the line above and read it together as a class.

See Scansion Guide in Appendices for additional information.

Playing with Breath

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2. Have your students each choose a partner, and instruct each pair to try reading the speech to one another while breathing only at the indicated marks.

3. Once each student has had an opportunity to deliver the speech, ask each student to take their partner’s text, and write their own ‘surprise’ breath marks into the speech.

4. Have each of the student read the speech to their partner again, this time breathing only at the ‘surprise’ breath marks selected by their partner.

5. Working as a whole class, ask students to reflect on their observations of breath placement in the speech. Did the original breath marks aid them in making sense of the speech? Does the rhythm of the language lend itself to deliberate placement of breathing? What challenges arose from the new breath placement their partner suggested? Can changing where you place the breath ever change the sense of a thought?

6. Present this short example on the board, asking a volunteer to read: “To be or not to be that is the question. (B)” Then, place the breath earlier in the line: “To be or not to be that (B) is the question.”

7. Working as a whole class, discuss the challenges faced by Shakespearean actors in managing breath, rhythm, technique and clarity of thought while also striving to make language fresh and spontaneous.

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1. Using the Teacher Worksheet 2 Key, have students mark (B) breath marks into their copies of Helena’s Speech, indicating probable breathing points in the performance of the speech.

LESSON 2

PART 2 Activity Shakespeare deals with the “Big Truth” of young love and desire and how quickly those feelings can change.

Engage the students in a discussion on the following themes and topics:

• young love (permanence vs. infatuation) • overbearing parents • self-determination • examples from other stories and their own lives/observations • difficulties of love relationships among friends • saying things we regret, etc.

• changing nature of emotions and desire Ask for two volunteers who can sum up the above discussion in a short improvised dialogue. Lead the students in creating an example of a reversal: “I want this so bad!” *SNAP* “Now I want THIS so bad!”

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PART 3 Activity Distribute Worksheet 2: Lysander’s Loves.

Discuss with the students that the presence of rhyme suggests order, and can be used to show characters in sync. However, the sharing of rhymes can also suggest urgency, overbearing fondness, and high stakes.

Read the first column (scene #1) with two volunteers. Discuss the rhyme structure.

Lysander, when in love with HERMIA, is most polite, and they speak in rhymes, but do not share rhymes.

Read the second column (scene #2) with two volunteers. Discuss the rhyme structure.

Lysander, when in love with HELENA, interrupts her rhyme and shares it, suggesting passion, obsession, and more aggressive pursuit because of the love potion.

Have students perform the scenes again, paying attention to the change Lysander experiences indicated by his interrupting of Helena’s rhyme and completing it.

Discuss his changing level of intensity from courtesy and manners vs. desperation and aggression.

Differentiated Instruction for Special Populations and English Language Learners Though this lesson may not seem to have differentiation because it is text based analysis, it in fact is very helpful to English Language learners because they spend a large amount of time familiarizing with a certain piece of text focused on how it is supposed to SOUND, considering where to breath and which words deserve more emphasis to express the thought. It is primarily an oral exercise, scaffolding the comprehension of the written text with sounds and visual text analysis techniques.

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Pair the students and challenge each pair to improvise and write scenes where characters go back and forth between loving each other. Incorporate and play reversals.

Example: “I love you…but I don’t. But I need you…but don’t.”

LESSON 3

A Play Within A Play (60 minutes) Grade Levels 9-12 Materials: Worksheet 3: Rude Mechanicals, Worksheet 4: Discussion Questions, Worksheet 5: My Review, pens or pencils, an open space in any room Summary: 1) Based on prior knowledge of the plot, character summary, and speech techniques needed to perform the text 2) Stage a scene and discuss critical thinking questions to be aware of as they are watching the performance 3) Question and discussion of themes of the play: • Living vs. Acting, Dream vs. Reality

Objective & Goals: 1) Students will have a deeper understanding of the themes of the text.

2) Students will demonstrate text analysis through performance and discussion (and however the teacher chooses to assess their comprehension).

3) Students will create their own scenes developed from improvised characters during gesture work.

4) Students will make choices in performance informed by their comprehension and analysis of the text.

Standards Addressed: See Appendix

PART 1 Engagement Distribute Worksheet 4: Discussion Questions to the students.

Acting, Living, Dreaming 1. A running visual motif in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is people behaving (acting) while others watch and criticize their behavior. What is Shakespeare’s message about behavior, observation, and experience?

2. In the forest, the lovers believe themselves to be secluded: How does this affect their behavior?

3. Do actors behave differently when they know they are being watched? Do people behave differently when they know they are watched?

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• The root and motivations of behavior • Audience observation and investment

LESSON 3

Observation and Audience Experience 4. How does Oberon feel after witnessing Helena’s desperation for Demetrius? What is he moved to do?

5. How does Puck react to the humans in the forest? How is it different from Oberon’s reaction?

6. In Act 5, the lovers turn into an audience, and watch the story of Pyramus and Thisbe told by the Rude Mechanicals. Compare how the lovers behave as an audience to the way Oberon and Puck behave as an audience.

Read the questions together.

Ask students to keep these questions in mind as you do the next activity.

Distribute Worksheet 3: Rude Mechanicals to the students.

Remind students of the context in which this scene appears.

Assign students to each speaking part and read the scene together as a class.

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Direct the students in staging the scene. Create a space for the “Rude Mechanicals” (Moonshine, Thisbe, Lion, Pyramus) to perform while the actual characters (Theseus, Demetrius, Hippolyta, Lysander), while still onstage, watch from the side. The audience of students not participating in the reading should represent the “real” modern audience.

Remind students to be conscious of what “part” of the experience they are a part of – play within a play (Rude Mechanicals), the play (Midsummer characters), or the audience inhibit.

When the play has been staged, discuss the questions with the students based on their experience in the staging exercises.

PART 3 Reflection Discuss the shared experience of seeing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Broad Stage.

Start with getting on the bus at school, arriving at the theater, etc…

Ask students if there was anything that stood out to them during the performance? Was it what they expected?

Distribute Worksheet 5: My Review.

Write a review, using the Worksheet as a guide, of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that gives a future audience member an idea of what they will be seeing.

Share students’ reviews with the class and discuss the overall reaction to the performance.

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PART 2 Activity

WORKSHEET 1

Helena’s Speech HELENA: And even for that do I love you the more.

I am your spaniel; and, Demetrius, The more you beat me, I will fawn on you: Use me but as your spaniel, spurn me, strike me, Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave, Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love,— And yet a place of high respect with me,—

Mark the above monologue with the following rhetorical devices, using the descriptions as a guide.

Hint: each one is used at least once. * = Operative words – words that require more vocal emphasis than any other word in the sentence/line = Antitheticals – comparative words, the second word in an antithetical pair usually has more emphasis Circle = Builds and lists – vocally build with volume or intensity Bonus Rhetorical Devices: () = Parentheticals – to be said as a sidenote, deviation from the main thought (B) = Breathing points – where to take a breath 1, 2,3 = Repetition – repetition of a word or idea suggests a vocal build in volume or intention

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Than to be used as you use your dog?

WORKSHEET 2

Lysander’s Loves LYSANDER: Fair love, you faint with wandering in the wood;

HELENA: But who is here? Lysander! on the ground!

And to speak troth, I have forgot our way:

Dead? or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,

Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.

And tarry for the comfort of the day.

LYSANDER: [Awaking] And run through fire I will for thy sweet sake.

HERMIA: Be it so, Lysander: find you out a bed; For I upon this bank will rest my head.

LYSANDER: One turf shall serve as pillow for us both;

That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENA: Do not say so, Lysander; say not so

HERMIA: Nay, good Lysander; for my sake, my dear,

What though he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

Yet Hermia still loves you: then be content.

LYSANDER: O, take the sense, sweet, of my innocence!

LYSANDER: Content with Hermia! No; I do repent

Love takes the meaning in love’s conference.

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Then by your side no bed-room me deny;

Not Hermia but Helena I love:

For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.

Who would not change a Raven for a Dove?

HERMIA: Lysander riddles very prettily: Now much beshrew my manners and my pride, If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.

But, gentle friend, for love and courtesy Lie further off; in human modesty…

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One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.

Transparent Helena! Nature shows art,

WORKSHEET 3

Rude Mechanicals A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Act V, Scene i Moonshine: This lanthorn doth the horned moon present;— DEMETRIUS: He should have worn the horns on his head.

THESEUS: He is no crescent, and his horns are invisible within the circumference.

Moonshine: This lanthorn doth the horned moon present; Myself the man i’ the moon do seem to be.

THESEUS: This is the greatest error of all the rest: the man should be put into the lanthorn.

How is it else the man i’ the moon?

DEMETRIUS: He dares not come there for the candle; for, you see, it is already in snuff.

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THESEUS: It appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane; but yet, in courtesy, in all rea- son, we must stay the time.

LYSANDER: Proceed, Moon.

Moonshine: All that I have to say, is, to tell you that the lanthorn is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

DEMETRIUS: Why, all these should be in the lanthorn; for all these are in the moon. But, silence! here comes Thisbe. [Enter Thisbe.]

Thisbe: This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?

Lion: [Roaring] Oh— [Thisbe runs off.]

DEMETRIUS: Well roared, Lion.

THESEUS: Well run, Thisbe.

HIPPOLYTA: Well shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.

[The Lion shakes Thisbe’s mantle, and exit.]

THESEUS: Well moused, Lion.

LYSANDER: And so the lion vanished.

DEMETRIUS: And then came Pyramus. [Enter Pyramus.]

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HIPPOLYTA: I am aweary of this moon: would he would change!

WORKSHEET 3

Pyramus: Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams; I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright; For, by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams, I trust to take of truest Thisby sight.

But stay, O spite! But mark, poor knight, What dreadful dole is here! Eyes, do you see?

How can it be? O dainty duck! O dear!

Thy mantle good, What, stain’d with blood! Approach, ye Furies fell!

O Fates, come, come, Cut thread and thrum; Quail, crush, conclude, and quell!

THESEUS: This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

Pyramus: O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame? Since lion vile hath here deflower’d my dear: Which is—no, no—which was the fairest dame That lived, that loved, that liked, that look’d with cheer.

Come, tears, confound; Out, sword, and wound The pap of Pyramus; Ay, that left pap, Where heart doth hop: [Stabs himself.]

Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Now am I dead, Now am I fled; My soul is in the sky: Tongue, lose thy light; Moon take thy flight: [Exit Moonshine.]

Now die, die, die, die, die.

[Dies.]

DEMETRIUS: No die, but an ace, for him; for he is but one.

LYSANDER: Less than an ace, man; for he is dead; he is nothing.

THESEUS: With the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.

HIPPOLYTA: How chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?

THESEUS: She will find him by starlight. Here she comes; and her passion ends the play.

[Re-enter Thisbe.]

HIPPOLYTA: Methinks she should not use a long one for such a Pyramus. I hope she will be brief.

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HIPPOLYTA: Beshrew my heart, but I pity the man.

WORKSHEET 4

Discussion Questions Acting, Living, Dreaming 1. A running visual motif in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is of people behaving (acting) while others watch and criticize their behavior. What is Shakespeare’s message about behavior, observation, and experience?

2. In the forest, the lovers, believe themselves to be secluded: How does this affect their behavior?

3. Do Actors behave differently when they know they are being watched? Do people behave differently when they know they are watched?

Observation and Audience Experience

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4. How does Oberon feel after witnessing Helena’s desperation for Demetrius? What is he moved to do?

5. How does Puck react to the human’s in the forest? How is it different from Oberon’s reaction?

6. In Act 5, the lovers turn into an audience, and watch the Pyramus and Thisbe told by the Rude Mechanicals. Compare how the lovers behave as an audience to the way Oberon and Puck behave as an audience.

WORKSHEET 5

My Review 1. Title of your review 2. Your name (by line) 3. Introduction: a. Title of the play b. What genre of play is it? c. Name of the performing group d. Name of the director 4. Theme: a. What is the message of the play?

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6. The Actors: a. Did the lead actor deliver a strong performance? b. Were there any remarkable performances within the smaller roles? c. Were the actors believable? d. Was there a performance that detracted from the show? e. Was the show appropriately cast?

7. The Director: a. Did the director surprise you with any innovative show elements? b. Did the director’s choices support the text of the play, or detract from it? c. Was the show easy to understand or were there confusing elements?

8. Personal Opinion - Make sure to give reasons to back up your opinion: a. What did you think of the play as a whole? b. Would you recommend the show? c. What did you particularly enjoy? d. Were there elements you did not enjoy? If so, how would you change them?

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5. Production Values: a. Describe the set and lighting b. Costumes c. Sound d. Does it all work together? What effect does it achieve?

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

APPENDIX Plot Summary ACT I

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Meanwhile, at the house of Athenian craftsman Peter Quince, a group of “rude mechanicals”- laborers and workmen- are busy planning an amateur play for Theseus’ wedding feast. Quince announces the play: the ‘Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe’. Quince then hands out the roles to his ‘actors’. The natural leader of the group, Nick Bottom (who is a basket-weaver by trade) is given the lead role of Pyramus, and yet he attempts to volunteer for additional roles as they are assigned.

Bottom is finally convinced to play only Pyramus, for the good of the play. Roles are handed out to the others: Flute the bellows-mender, Snout the tinker, Snug the joiner, and Starveling the tailor. The group agrees to meet in the forest to rehearse, so that no one in Athens will see how the play is to unfold.

ACT II Deep in the forest, the faery Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, tells another sprite of the dispute between his master, Oberon the faery king, and his queen Titania. They have fallen out over a young “changeling child”, a beautiful creature with magical properties, who was left in the care of Titania by his dying mother. Oberon wishes to bring the changeling child into his service, but Titania has refused. The two have kept their distance ever since, but now Titania has returned to see the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta.

Oberon and Titania meet in the wood where he once again presses her for the changeling, and she refuses, continuing on her way. Stung by her rejection, Oberon orders Puck to find a rare flower, the juice of which can be poured into the eyes of any being and cause them to fall in love with the next living thing they see. Oberon broods on his plan as Demetrius enters, followed be Helena. Oberon overhears Helena’s pitiful offer of love to Demetrius, who again spurns her and leaves her in the dark forest. Oberon is moved by her plight, and promises that before she leaves the forest, Demetrius will seek her love. When Puck returns with the flower, Oberon commands him to find the young man in Athenian clothing, and to give him the love potion when the next thing he sees will be the young Athenian lady.

Puck goes off to carry out his orders, and Oberon goes to the sleeping Titania and pours the potion in her eyes as well, telling her to “wake when some vile thing is near.” Puck, meanwhile, comes across Hermia and Lysander and, mistaking them for Helena and Demetrius, pours the love potion into Lysander’s eyes. Demetrius enters the clearing where THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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A Midsummer Night’s Dream begins in the city of Athens, where the Duke Theseus and his betrothed Hippolyta anticipate the night of their wedding. Theseus orders his Master of Revels, Philostrate, to prepare entertainments for their celebration when he is suddenly interrupted by Egeus, an Athenian nobleman, with three young people in tow. These are his daughter, Hermia, along with her two suitors: Lysander, whom she loves, and Demetrius, whom her father has arranged for her to marry against her wishes. Theseus hears their arguments, and Hermia publicly refuses to marry Demetrius. Egeus invokes the law of Athens, which says that if Hermia disobeys her father’s will she must either be sent to a convent or be put to death. Theseus gives her until his wedding day to decide, making it clear that he will enforce the law if he must. Hermia and Lysander make plans to elope that night through the forest, and say their goodbyes to another friend: Helena, who loves Demetrius. Helena warns Demetrius of their plans, hoping to gain his affection, and the four young lovers enter the forest by night: Lysander and Hermia, who are pursued by Demetrius, who is pursued by Helena.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Hermia and Lysander sleep, still chased by Helena, who drives him off further into the woods. Helena stumbles across Lysander, who awakes and immediately falls in love with Helena. Lysander professes his newfound love to Helena, who believes he is making fun or her and continues after Demetrius. Lysander leaves Hermia sleeping to chase after Helena; Hermia wakes up alone, frightened, and stumbles off into the woods after them.

ACT III

Oberon and Puck reunite, and Puck tells Oberon of his successful trick on Titania, to Oberon’s delight. Hermia and Demetrius pass by them, with Demetrius still professing his love, and Oberon realizes that Puck has laid the love potion on the wrong man. Demetrius, rejected again by Hermia, lies down to sleep, and Oberon chastises Puck for his mistake, ordering him to go find Helena and bring her to the sleeping Demetrius. Puck hurries to obey, and Oberon pours the love potion in Demetrius’ eyes. Helena enters chased by Lysander, hurling insults at him for what she still believes is an elaborate prank. Demetrius wakes at the pinnacle of her rebuke to Lysander, sees her, and falls instantly in love.

Both young men begin to woo Helena with over-the-top protestations of love, and she is convinced that they have conspired in a cruel joke at her expense. The two men start to bicker over her, when Hermia stumbles into the clearing, rushing to Lysander. Lysander insults her, pledging his love to Helena, and a general brawl ensues in which Hermia tries to fight Helena, Demetrius and Lysander try to fight each other and woo Helena at the same time, and Helena tries to escape the prank which she now believes all three have concocted together. Oberon, observing all with disgust, orders Puck to resolve the situation. Puck leads the lovers in a roundabout chase through the woods, dividing them and mimicking their voices, and finally- one by one- he causes them to fall asleep. Puck once again squeezes out the juice of the love flower- this time into Lysander’s eyes, who he leaves sleeping by Hermia- and, his job done, departs with Oberon.

ACT IV Titania and her attendants re-enter with Bottom, who continues to delight in his new circumstance. The faeries lay Bottom in Titania’s bed, and depart, leaving her to fall asleep beside him. Oberon and Puck return. Oberon lifts the love spell from Titania, allowing her a good look at her ‘love’ before Puck returns Bottom to normal. Oberon and Titania make their peace, and depart as the morning dawns, leaving Bottom asleep.

Theseus, Hippolyta and Egeus enter the woods at dawn, intending to hunt. They come across the four young lovers sleeping; Theseus wakes them and listens to their account of journeying into the woods by night. Amazed, Demetrius relinquishes his claim to Hermia, and pledges his love to Helena. Theseus overrules Egeus and orders that his wedding ceremony be made a triple wedding, with the two young couples to be wed alongside THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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The rude mechanicals gather deep in the forest to rehearse. A number of potential “problems” with the play are discussed: that the lion may be too frightening for the ladies at court, that they don’t know how to bring in a wall for the two lovers to whisper through, and that they can’t recreate moonlight. Nick Bottom comes up with ridiculous answers for each ridiculous problem, and is cheered on by his company. This done, they begin to rehearse, and at this moment Puck happens by and decides to make mischief.

When Bottom steps ‘offstage’ to wait for a cue, Puck transforms his head into the head of a donkey, and generally so terrifies the mechanicals that they run away and leave Bottom behind. Titania awakes, and the first thing she sees is the donkey-headed Bottom, with whom she- of course- falls in love, due again to the juice of the love flower. She approaches Bottom, who is awestruck by her presence and denies the praise she heaps on him. She summons her faeries to dote on him and lead him to her bed. Bottom, completely charmed by the adorable faeries (whose names are Cobwebb, Moth, Mustardseed and Peasblossom) follows them, chattering and making puns about their names.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

he and Hippolyta. The Athenians set out for home, leaving Bottom to wake alone, utterly perplexed by his “most rare vision”. Bottom resolves to have Peter Quince “write a ballad of this dream”, and to include it in their play; he hurries back to Athens and his company.

The mechanicals wait glumly at Quince’s house, worrying about Bottom, who arrives with the promise that he will “tell [them] all just as it fell out”, but first gives them the good news: their play is ‘preferred’, id est, likely to be selected for performance at the wedding feast. They race off to prepare for performance.

ACT V

The rude mechanicals enter and perform their absurd play, with many interjections and comments made by the newlyweds, to the general amusement of all. They end the night of revelry with a dance, before Theseus pronounces midnight and “lovers, to bed”. Oberon and Titania enter with the return of night, blessing the three marriages, and the play ends as Puck offers to “restore amends” to any audience member who may have taken offence at this “weak and idle theme, no more yielding but a dream.”

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A few days later at the palace of Theseus, the Duke and his new wife share a quiet moment after the wedding ceremony puzzling over the story of the young lovers. Theseus ponders the nature of imagination, explaining away their strange tale as a figment, but Hippolyta is unconvinced due to the consistency of the four versions. The four lovers enter and conversation turns to what entertainments will distract them until night falls and each pair goes off to their beds as husband and wife. Philostrate presents Theseus with several options, out of which Theseus selects ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’, against the strong advice of Philostrate that the play is terrible.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Character Summaries THESEUS: the Duke of Athens, a character taken from Greek mythology where he was the Basileus, chieftain or king, of Athens. Theseus’ exploits included journeying to Crete to slay the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, escaping with the Thread of Ariadne. In Midsummer Theseus is presented as a patriarch, having recently taken Hippolyta captive in a campaign against the Amazons and fallen in love with her. As he says in Act 1, “Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword//and won thy love doing thee injuries//but I will wed thee in another key//with pomp, with triumph, and with reveling.” The play begins four days before his wedding to Hippolyta, and the conflict of the play is begun when he sides with Egeus in a dispute over the arranged marriage of Egeus’ daughter Hermia.

DEMETRIUS: friend of Egeus and chosen husband of Hermia, a young Athenian noble who presses his claim to Hermia with the help of her father. Formerly romantically involved with Helena, another young woman, who continues to pursue him but who he now spurns.

Demetrius pursues Hermia and Lysander into the forest when they elope, and is entangled in the mischief of Puck. By the end of the enchanted night in the forest, he has been bewitched to love Helena. He gives up his suit to Hermia, and marries Helena with Theseus’ blessing as part of a triple-wedding (Theseus to Hippolyta, Lysander to Hermia, and Demetrius to Helena).

LYSANDER: beloved of Hermia, a young Athenian noble who seeks to marry Hermia against her father’s wishes, eloping with her into the forest by night before falling prey to the love potions of Puck. His right mind is restored to him in the end, and he marries Hermia with the blessing of Theseus.

PHILOSTRATE: the Master of Revels to Theseus, an officious attendant who is not impressed by the amateur play of Peter Quince and company.

PETER QUINCE: a carpenter and amateur director/writer, manages the band of “rude mechanicals” comprised of Bottom, Flute, Snug, Snout, and Starveling. Quince leads the band in rehearsing their play of ‘The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe’, to be presented to Theseus and Hippolyta at their wedding celebration. The straight man of the mechanicals, Quince constantly struggles to hold his play together.

SNUG: a joiner, plays the part of the Lion in Pyramus and Thisbe. Snug is frightened, first that he will not be able to memorize his lines- to which Quince answers him that he may “do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring”; and then that he will terrify the ladies of the court with his roaring, a problem which is resolved when he is given a simple speech to assure the ladies that he is in fact merely an actor playing a lion.

NICK BOTTOM: a weaver, is the natural leader of the rude mechanicals, whimsical and holding a high (and undeserved) opinion of himself as an actor. He first attempts to take on a variety of different roles in the play, before Quince convinces him to play only Pyramus.

While rehearsing in the forest, he is transformed so that his head becomes the head of a donkey. When his friends are driven away in terror by Puck, Bottom becomes the object of Titania’s magically-induced love, delighting in his time among the faeries before waking, bewildered, from his “most rare vision” and returning to Athens with his own head restored. He rallies the craftsmen and they perform their play before the Duke.

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EGEUS: father to Hermia, an older Athenian nobleman outraged at his daughter’s resistance to accepting the marriage he has arranged for her. He invokes Athenian law, that he may either send her to a convent or have her put to death if she disobeys him.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

FRANCIS FLUTE: a bellows-mender. Flute, a slender young man, is to play Thisbe, the lover of Pyramus, despite his complaint that he has “a beard coming in”.

SNOUT: a tinker. Snout is easily disheartened, and winds up solving the ‘problem’ of how to bring in a wall to the play by being cast in the part of Wall.

STARVELING: a tailor. Starveling, the most quiet of the rude mechanicals, is given the part of the Man in the Moon to solve the ‘problem’ of how to bring moonlight into the play.

HIPPOLYTA: Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus. Another figure from Greek myth, Hippolyta was either tricked or charmed by Theseus in the course of a military action against the Amazons, and brought back to Athens to become Theseus’ wife. She appears cool towards Theseus during the Trial Scene of the first act, but their relationship is a loving one by the time the enchanted night has passed.

HERMIA: daughter to Egeus, in love with Lysander. Petite in stature. She flees from her father’s harsh decree, eloping with Lysander, but falls prey to the mischief of Puck in the forest. When she believes Helena has seduced her fiancé, she responds with attempts at physical violence, prompting Helena’s famous line: “though she be but little, she is fierce!”

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OBERON: King of the Faeries. A figure from Celtic myth, Oberon is a natural spirit with great power, who has fallen into a dispute with his wife, Titania. Oberon desires a ‘changeling child’ with magical properties, whom Titania has sworn to raise and protect; Oberon’s first aim in the play is to gain the changeling and have revenge on Titania by giving her the love potion, but he takes pity on Helena and sets his henchman, Puck, the task of causing Demetrius to love her. This leads to disaster, and Oberon and Puck spend most of their night trying to right the mess they have made with the four young lovers. Oberon finally relieves Titania of the love-spell, and is reconciled with her: the two come together to bless the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta at the close of the play.

TITANIA: Queen of the Faeries. Another archetypal figure, Titania’s name comes from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where it is an alternate name for the Goddess Diana. Titania is protective of the changeling child, whose mortal mother died and left the child in Titania’s care. After defying Oberon, Titania is caused to fall in love with the transformed Nick Bottom, who has been given the head of a donkey. Oberon later lifts the spell and she is reconciled with him, bringing peace to the faery kingdom and blessing the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta.

PUCK or ROBIN GOODFELLOW: a mischievous forest sprite, with a notorious reputation even among other faeries, Puck serves Oberon as simultaneously a lieutenant and a court jester, sometimes trying his master’s patience with pranks and complications. Puck pours the love potion mistakenly into the eyes of Lysander, setting the lovers in disarray; Puck also transforms the head of Nick Bottom into that of a donkey, which leads to the bewitched Titania falling in love with him. At the play’s end, Puck has set everything to rights on Oberon’s orders, and offers a humble amends to the audience in his famous final soliloquy. The name ‘Robin Goodfellow’ was an English nickname for Lucifer, although Puck is more a prankster than a Mephistophelean spirit.

PEASEBLOSSOM, COBWEB, MOTH, and MUSTARDSEED: adorable faeries attending on Titania. Bottom is more fascinated by these childlike sprites than he is by the beautiful faery queen.

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HELENA: a tall and willowy young woman in love with Demetrius. A friend of Hermia since girlhood, she tells Demetrius of Hermia’s plans to elope, and follows Demetrius into the forest hot on Hermia’s trail. She repeatedly tries to woo Demetrius, most famously in the “Spaniel” scene of Act 2, and becomes convinced that the effect of the love potion- both Demetrius and Lysander suddenly pledging her their love- is actually a cruel prank.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Essay on the History and Context of A Midsummer Night’s Dream A Midsummer Night’s Dream was most likely written in the winter of 1595-96, or perhaps as late as the spring of 1596, in anticipation of a summer 1596 debut (which has often been speculated as occurring by commission at an aristocratic wedding ceremony, with Queen Elizabeth I as the guest of honor). What is certain is that it was composed before 1598, when it was mentioned in a list of Shakespeare’s plays assembled by Francis Meres.

This period of Shakespeare’s career, often called the ‘lyrical’ or ‘high Elizabethan’ period, is associated with a particular fullness, both of language and of spirit, as well as an exploration and apotheosis of Elizabethan theatrical conventions. This would be the period wherein Shakespeare mastered the comedic epithalamium, meaning a song or poem celebrating marriage (of which the Dream is the supreme example); as well as reaching the peak of his storytelling prowess in the medium of the History play, and epitomizing the Tragedy of Accident in Romeo and Juliet (as opposed to the High Tragedy: evolved from Sophocles, Euripides, Aeschylus and Aristotle and fulfilled from Hamlet to Antony and Cleopatra). The Dream probably followed Richard II, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Romeo and Juliet (parodying the latter in the play-within-a-play, Pyramus and Thisbe); and was situated roughly contemporary with The Merchant of Venice just preceding the entrance of Prince Hal and Jack Falstaff to Shakespeare’s canon in Part 1 Henry IV. To put it plainly, this was the time in Shakespeare’s career as dramatist where his exploration of existing forms was at its zenith: he took the kinds of plays his audiences were accustomed to and wrote new ones in that mold, quickly outdistancing his competitors as the leading playwright of his age. He tended to divide verse (written language designed around a metrical rhythm) and prose (language not beholden to metrical rhythm) in conventional measures: in the Dream, 80% of the play is in poetic verse, with the occasional inclusion of rhyme (largely for comedic effect); the remaining 20% is in prose, spoken primarily by the ‘rude mechanicals’. This division was a standard of the day, wherein English verse was for characters of higher station, and prose for the lowly born.

Shakespeare would later blur this verse-prose division severely, as he would blur every other boundary. In later periods of his career, the genres he most championed early on would turn sour: the light invocation of Greek myth achieved by including Theseus and Hippolyta in the Dream would give way to the destruction of the Greek heroes in the ‘problem play’ Troilus and Cressida; the epithalamium would reach critical mass in the raucous Twelfth Night and the darker As You Like It before collapsing in upon itself in All’s Well That Ends Well, finally corroding into a condemnation of social institutions in Measure for Measure. The troubled (and troubling) Prince Hal would yield to the doomed Hamlet, who had no Falstaff to vie for his soul; the ‘star-cross’d lovers’ Romeo and Juliet, who died in some last vestiges of their innocence, would become Othello and Desdemona, who were destroyed by choice and world and malign intelligence.

To offer a more specific example of this ‘ripeness’ of language and form: this was the period in which Shakespeare created an ebullient and childlike (as opposed to childish) weaver, and named him Bottom: literally the bottom of the skein on which the weaver would wind the wool of his trade; and figuratively the base and center, the humblest point of contact, the earthen face of the play. And let us not forget, Shakespeare named the man “Bottom” and then turned him into an ass. Bottom is the only major figure in the play to be unchanged by his night in the enchanted forest; simultaneously, he is the only figure in the play to be literally transformed by it. Bottom is the character who could be turned into a donkey and yet, by virtue of his constant and unflappable nature, suffer no ill effect THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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By Jonathan Redding, Broad Stage Dramaturg

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Returning to the Dream: this is one of Shakespeare’s very few plays to lack a definitive source for the action of the plot. It shares this distinction with Love’s Labour’s Lost, The Tempest, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, although this last seems to take at least some of its inspiration from Ovid’s description of Acteon being transformed into a stag and bayed by his own hounds in the Metamorphoses. (As a side note: Bottom’s interlude with Titania also represents a sort of benign iteration of the Acteon myth: Titania’s name in fact originates from Ovid, where it was an alternative name of Diana.) The text of the Dream comes to us through publication first of a small quarto edition (First Quarto) in 1600, with a reissue in 1619 (Second Quarto) which was corrected and reissued in the First Folio of 1623.

The largest role in the play belongs to Nick Bottom, with 12% of the text; he is followed closely by Helena and Theseus, with 11% each, and Oberon and Puck, with 10% each.

The play intertwines four distinct groups: the Athenian Court, which draws the figures of Theseus and Hippolyta from Greek mythology; the Young Lovers, who are essentially timeless in their character; the Rude Mechanicals, who are rustic workmen and amateur playwrights drawn from Shakespeare’s England rather than ancient Greece; and the Faeries, who draw severally from Celtic myth (Oberon), Ovid (Titania), and English folklore (Puck and the remaining faeries). It is worth noting that ‘Robin Goodfellow’ was, prior to Shakespeare’s lifetime, once a popular pseudonym for the Christian devil in England.

Among the most famous productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are: The Covent Garden production of 1840, helmed by Madame Vestris, which reinstated Shakespeare’s text for the first time in a century and a half (it had become fashionable to present lavish operatic versions of the play from roughly 1690 to this restoration).

The 1856 production of Charles Kean and company, which likely began the convention of using child actors as faeries with a 9-year-old Puck, Ellen Terry.

The Savoy production of 1914, directed by great Shakespeare interpreter and literary mind Harley Granville-Barker, who tremendously simplified both dress and setting, invoking the audience’s imagination in place of grand stage furniture.

Peter Hall’s two celebrated stagings at Stratford-upon-Avon with the Royal Shakespeare Company, in 1959 and 1962 respectively. The latter featured Ian Richardson as Oberon and a young Judi Dench as Titania; it yielded a later film version in 1969.

The revolutionary 1970 production, again with the Royal Shakespeare Company, under the aegis of Peter Brook. This was called the “White Box” production, because the set looked like a pure white room with no fourth wall or ceiling. This was a deeply psychological (and controversial) production of the play, which invoked an internal dreamspace and conducted magic through acrobatics and circus theatrics; it has informed every interpretation of the play since, demanding that artists examine the possibilities of the play’s symbolism beyond mere pageantry.

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whatsoever. This kind of consideration, wherein the archetypal symbology of a character is breathed and integrated into every level of the dramatic whole, was deeply satisfying to Elizabethan audiences; it is also emblematic of great western writers throughout history.

This was a poet concerned with universals, and the fashion of his age can trace its roots as far back as the epithets of Homer (Odysseus Polymetis, ‘Odysseus the Many-Minded’), as far forward as Joyce’s invocation of the ‘grand artificer’ in Stephen Dedalus, and beyond.

Shakespeare was the poet who created a supreme lover and named him ‘Romeo’: three syllables which scan cleanly (RO-me-O), all rolling phonation; a name meant to be sighed.

He set against him a pure fighter, and named him ‘Tybalt’: two syllables now, which scan against the grain as a trochee (TY-balt); a riotous enjambment of consonants, battling one another in the mouth of the speaker. He set between them an arbiter of chaos and named him ‘Mercutio’: four syllables this time, a name which seems to contain both qualities in equal measure, and which invokes the chaos of the trickster-god Mercury (Latinized Hermes), as well as the proximity to the heat of the sun born by the innermost planet of our solar system.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

Scansion Guide

By Jonathan Redding, Broad Stage Dramaturg

Iambic pentameter means that the measured rhythm (meter) is made up of five (penta) distinct units, and in the English tradition the word ‘feet’ is used to describe these units.

The word ‘iambic’ tells us what kind of unit makes up each line: an iamb is a unit of speech with two syllables, where the first is unstressed and the second is stressed.

One famous example of a normal iambic line from Midsummer can be found in Helena’s speech at the end of Act 1 Scene 1: love LOOKS / not WITH / the EYES / but WITH / the MIND and THERE / fore IS / wing’d CU / pid PAINT / ed BLIND Each of these five sections is an iamb: “love LOOKS”, an unstressed followed by a stressed syllable. So that, as pure rhythm, a normal line of iambic pentameter is often taught as: da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM da DUM Another series of iambs begins Hamlet’s most famous speech, with a well-known line we will examine more closely below. To think of a normal iamb, you need only remember: to BE / or NOT / to BE However, returning to our example from Helena above, an actor may also approach this with a different sensibility, and consider that the first two ‘feet’ of the first line may be trochaic instead of iambic. This is one of many variations on the normal meter Shakespeare commonly employed: a trochee means a reversed foot, one where the heavy stress is first and the light stress second.

Read this way, with two trochees and three iambs, the line would be emphasized: LOVE looks / NOT with / the EYES / but WITH / the MIND The trochees would pull the attention of the listener to the beginning of this particular line and thought, making it pop out of the rest of the speech. Another famous example of a trochaic line is from the beginning of Richard III: NOW is / the WIN / ter OF / our DIS / con TENT THE BROAD STAGE AT THE SANTA MONICA ARTS CENTER 1310 11TH ST., SANTA MONICA, CA 90401 / 310.434.3560

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‘Scansion’ means the work of analyzing the rhythm of metrical poetic verse. ‘Metrical’, in this sense, means only that the verse is composed of units of similar length; the word derives from the Greek metron, which means ‘measure’. Metrical verse has taken many forms throughout the ages, preceding even written language in the oral traditions of the ancient Greeks: their verse was felt, rather than written, and used to manage and give form to very long poems which were performed through a mixture of memorization and improvisation within the rhythm. This was the original dual purpose of rhythmic speech: to give pleasure to the hearer, and to lend form to the speaker. As written language evolved, first in the Greek alphabet and then in the Latinisation which accompanied the Roman empire and gave birth to the romance languages, the concept of rhythmic speech transferred to the written form and became systematized: it was given rules and variations, similar to music, and elaborated into many different types and sub-forms over the centuries. When rhyme is not present but metrical rhythm is, which is often the case in Shakespeare, poetry is called ‘blank verse’. In the plays and poems of Shakespeare, when we say the word verse we are referring to iambic pentameter.

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Beginning a play about a usurper with a trochee is a subtle indicator of things to come: from the very first syllable of the play, Richard’s nature is made clear. He jumps the gun. He seizes control from his first breath. To remember a trochee, remember Richard III seizing control: NOW is / the WIN / ter Another common variation Shakespeare used in his verse is the ‘feminine foot’, which is comprised of a first unstressed syllable, a middle syllable which is stressed, and then a third unstressed syllable. “da DUM da.” Often this is used at the end of the line as a ‘feminine ending’, whereby an eleventh syllable is added to the final foot of a line. The most famous example of this technique comes from Hamlet’s fourth soliloquy: to BE / or NOT / to BE / that IS / the QUES tion There is a sense of vagueness that comes in to the ending of the line here, and therefore a sense of vagueness to the thought contained in the line. Feminine endings sometimes indicate that a character is puzzling something out, or thinking quickly on his feet.

There are other types of three-syllable variations, including the dactyl: this is when the first of three syllables is stressed followed by two unstressed. Consider this speech by Iago, in Act 3 Scene 3 of Othello:

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MUCH will be / SEEN in that. / IN the / MEAN time Let me be thought too busy in my fears…

Iago sometimes uses dactyls when he is landing a blow against the mind of Othello. In the middle line above, the whole meter is irregular: two dactyls followed by two trochees. It breaks the rhythm and ensures that the thought will land with particular importance on Othello’s ear (and ours). Iago uses more dactyls than any other character in Othello.

Another three-syllable variation is the anapest, or two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. This can sometimes convey a sense of rushing, a higher momentum leading to the stress. An example from Part II Henry IV, Act 2 Scene 1: you MADE / in a DAY / my LORD / whole TOWNS / to FLY The anapest here draws the attention of the hearer to the most significant facet of the accomplishment being discussed: that the towns in question were put to rout “in a DAY”, as opposed to a longer time.

Yet an actor could scan this meter more strangely still, which gives us an opportunity to examine the last two significant variations on the two-syllable foot in Shakespeare: the spondee, which is two strongly stressed syllables in a row; and the pyrrhic, which is two unstressed syllables in a row. For example, an actor could choose this reading: YOU MADE / in a DAY / my lord / WHOLE TOWNS / to fly This reading has no regular iambs: it is a spondee, followed by an anapest, followed by a pyrrhic, another spondee, and another pyrrhic. It is worth noting that, usually if you find a spondee, or two strong stresses, the same line is likely to contain a pyrrhic of two unstressed syllables to balance it out. What happens when we read the line in this way is that the person accomplishing the heroic act (‘YOU’) is emphasized, along with the act itself (‘MADE’) and the qualifiers which make the act unusual (‘in a DAY’ and ‘WHOLE TOWNS’). In order to make this emphasis stand out, the actor would ‘throw away’ the feet containing the honorific (‘my lord’) and the action of the towns (‘to fly’).

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Note if your lady strain his entertainment…

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These terms: iamb, trochee, feminine foot or feminine ending, dactyl and anapest, spondee and pyrrhic, are the most important scansion terms with which we begin to approach Shakespeare’s poetry. Scansion is not, however, an exact science- it is an art, open to debate and interpretation, and one which rests often on texts and whole languages which have evolved over the years. We do not always know how words were pronounced in Shakespeare’s English, and on top of the different units of scansion there is a world of choice available to performers in terms of truncating words, pushing words together (called eliding), and creating additional effects in lines through the use of caesura (pauses) and elongated vowel sounds.

This introduction is meant to be precisely that: a touchstone to open your students to the awareness of this field of study, and its importance to an actor who wishes to interpret plays written in verse. Should you or any student wish to examine scansion more completely, many excellent texts are available, including Shakespeare’s Metrical Art by George T. Wright published through University of California Press; Shakespeare Without Fear by UCLA Chair of the Dept. of Theatre Joseph Olivieri; as well as celebrated American poet Mary Oliver’s Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse.

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GLOSSARY

Theatre Glossary actor • A person, male or female, who performs a role in a play or an entertainment.

pacing • The tempo of an entire theatrical performance.

antagonist • A person, a situation, or the protagonist’s own inner conflict in opposition to his or her goals.

pitch • The highness or lowness of the voice.

articulation • The clear and precise pronunciation of words.

production values • The critical elements of a production, such as acting, direction, lighting, costuming, sets, and makeup.

blocking • The planning and working out of the movements of actors on stage. center stage • The center of the acting area. characterization • The development and portrayal of a personality through thought, action, dialogue, costuming, and makeup.

projection • The placement and delivery of volume, clarity, and distinctness of voice for communicating to an audience. protagonist • The main character of a play and the character with whom the audience identifies most strongly.

conflict • The opposition of persons or forces giving rise to dramatic action in a play.

reader’s theatre • A performance created by actors reading script rather working from memory.

crisis • A decisive point in the plot of a play on which the outcome of the remaining actions depends.

rising action • The middle part of a plot consisting of complications and discoveries that create conflict.

critique • Opinions and comments based on predetermined criteria that may be used for self-evaluation or the evaluation of the actors or the production itself.

stage left • The left side of the stage from the perspective of an actor facing the audience.

denouement • The conclusion of the conflict of the plot.

subtext • Implied action which is significant to performance but not explicitly talked about in the text itself, including a character’s internal struggles and emotional life.

design • The creative process of developing and executing aesthetic or functional designs in a production, such as costumes, lighting, sets, and makeup. dialogue • The conversation between actors on stage. diction • The pronunciation of words, the choice of words, and the manner in which a person expresses himself or herself. directing • The art and technique of bringing the elements of theatre together to make a play. director • The person who oversees the entire process of staging a production. downstage • The stage area toward the audience. exposition • Detailed information revealing the facts of a plot. gesture • An expressive movement of the body or limbs. given circumstances • Acting term, any background information /character-specific exposition of which an actor must be aware. objective • Acting term, what a character desires in a given moment.

stage right • The right side of the stage from the perspective of an actor facing the audience.

superobjective • Acting term, what a character desires most. tactics • Acting term, this represents the means employed by a character to fulfill their objective. theatre • The imitation or representation of life performed for other people; the performance of dramatic literature; drama; the milieu of actors, technicians, and playwrights; the place where dramatic performances take place. theatrical experiences • Events, activities, and productions associated with theatre, film/ video, and electronic media. upstage • Used as a noun, the stage area away from the audience; used as a verb, to steal the focus of a scene. vocal quality • The characteristics of a voice, such as shrill, nasal, raspy, breathy, booming, and so forth. volume • The degree of loudness or intensity of a voice.

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climax • The point of highest dramatic tension or a major turning point in the action.

play • The stage representation of an action or a story; a dramatic composition.

GLOSSARY

Shakespeare Glossary play-within-a-play • A device by which characters within a play, themselves, stage a play (e.g. ‘the Mousetrap’ in Hamlet, staged

by Players before the King and Queen; or ‘Pyramus and Thisbe’ in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, staged by Athenian workmen at Theseus’ wedding).

folio • Literally a full printed page of parchment, or a bound volume comprised of full-sized pages. In Shakespeare this often refers to the First Folio version of a text, which means a text taken from the publication of 36 of Shakespeare’s plays and assorted poems issued in 1623.

scansion • The metrical analysis of rhythmic poetic verse, an important tool in a classical actor’s repertoire. See Scansion Appendix for a brief overview. verse • Writing arranged with a deliberate rhythm prose • Written or spoken language without a deliberate rhythm

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lexicon • The vocabulary of a person, language, or branch of knowledge. In Shakespeare scholarship or performance, refers to a two-volume set of books which contain the various definitions for each word he employed.

quarto • A page size achieved by folding a full folio page into quarters. In Shakespeare this refers to various cheaper ‘quarto editions’ of his plays which were published throughout and after his career, often compared against the First Folio versions for differences.

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California Common Core and VAPA Standards Addressed

LESSON 1:

Speaking and Listening Standards 9–10

VAPA Development of Theatrical Skills 2.1 Demonstrate the emotional traits of a character through gesture and action.

4.1 Critique an actor’s performance as to the use of voice, gesture, facial expression, and movement to create character.

Creative Expression

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Common Core Reading Standards for Literature 9–10 3. Analyze how complex characters (e.g., those with multiple or conflicting motivations) develop over the course of a text, interact with other characters, and advance the plot or develop the theme.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

4. Present information, findings, and supporting evidence clearly, concisely, and logically (using appropriate eye contact, adequate volume, and clear pronunciation) such that listeners can follow the line of reasoning and the organization, development, substance, and style are appropriate to purpose (e.g., argument, narrative, informative, response to literature presentations), audience, and task.

Speaking and Listening Standards 11–12

Writing Standards 9–10 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

Writing Standards 11–12 3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.

1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on- one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

4. Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

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2.3 Design, produce, or perform scenes or plays from a variety of theatrical periods and styles, including Shakespearean and contemporary realism.

1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

California Common Core and VAPA Standards Addressed

LESSON 2:

Speaking and Listening Standards 9–10

VAPA Development of Theatrical Skills 2.1 Demonstrate the emotional traits of a character through gesture and action.

4.1 Critique an actor’s performance as to the use of voice, gesture, facial expression, and movement to create character.

Creative Expression

13 / 14 SEASON

Common Core Reading Standards for Literature 9–10 2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the cumulative impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone (e.g., how the language evokes a sense of time and place; how it sets a formal or informal tone).

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

Speaking and Listening Standards 11–12 1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on- one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

Reading Standards for Literature 11–12 2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

4. Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in the text, including figurative and connotative meanings; analyze the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone, including words with multiple meanings or language that is particularly fresh, engaging, or beautiful.

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2.3 Design, produce, or perform scenes or plays from a variety of theatrical periods and styles, including Shakespearean and contemporary realism

1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM STUDY GUIDE

California Common Core and VAPA Standards Addressed

LESSON 3:

Speaking and Listening Standards 9–10

VAPA Development of Theatrical Skills 2.1 Demonstrate the emotional traits of a character through gesture and action.

4.1 Critique an actor’s performance as to the use of voice, gesture, facial expression, and movement to create character.

Creative Expression

13 / 14 SEASON

Common Core Reading Standards for Literature 9–10 2. Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze in detail its development over the course of the text, including how it emerges and is shaped and refined by specific details; provide an objective summary of the text.

Reading Standards for Literature 11–12 2. Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.

a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

Speaking and Listening Standards 11–12 1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on- one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 11–12 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively. a. Come to discussions prepared, having read and researched material under study; explicitly draw on that preparation by referring to evidence from texts and other research on the topic or issue to stimulate a thoughtful, well-reasoned exchange of ideas.

7. Analyze multiple interpretations of a story, drama, or poem (e.g., recorded or live production of a play or recorded novel or poetry), evaluating how each version interprets the source text.

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2.3 Design, produce, or perform scenes or plays from a variety of theatrical periods and styles, including Shakespearean and contemporary realism.

1. Initiate and participate effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grades 9–10 topics, texts, and issues, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.