A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare

Advantages: Lots going on
Disadvantages: graphic scenes of bestiality

...'A Midsummer Night's Dream' is a very difficult play to summarize. There are three main story lines. First of all four young lovers in Athens run away and spend the night in the forest, having had all sorts of problems arranging marriages. They run into the next storyline: all is not well in fairyland - Oberon, King of the fairies, and his queen, Titania (stop that sniggering!!)have had a row about a young boy (stop that sniggering at the back, boy!!). ...
...the fairies' wings are all a bit miserable and droopy. Oberon, being the mature, psychologically-sorted man that he is, decides to cause mischief, by casting a spell on his wife to make her fall in love with the next thing that she sees ...... in comes story number three. Bottom (well, it is a comedy, you know!) and his work mates are putting on a play in celebration of the (enforced) marriage of Theseus, Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta, Queen of ... Read review

Advantages: actually very funy.
Disadvantages: huge cast.

I am a huge fan of classic faerie literature, of which "A Midsummer Night's dream" is a good example. It shows us dangerously playful creatures more consistent with the mythological faerie than cutsy Victorian interpretations, and it's also very funny. Midsummer night is one of the eyar's turning points, and like Beltain (may the first) and Samhain (Ocbober 31st) it is associated with the veil between worlds growing thin, and strange, magical things ...
...Hermia. Does it sound like a soap opera yet? Group two are a collection of artisans - Peter Quince, Bottom the weaver, Flute, Starveling and friends. They are rehersing a play to be performed at the king's wedding. Much of the comedy comes from this ittle troupe. Then we have the faeries - their king and queen, Oberon and Titania, have had a fallnig out over ownership of a mortal boy. Oberon employs a particularly wiley faerie called Puck to play ... Read review

Advantages: Very Funny and Entertaining
Disadvantages: Confusing at times

A Midsummer Night’s Dream “…the most insipid and ridiculous play that I ever saw in my life.” Samuel Pepys (1662) Is this comment about ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ an accurate judgement on the reaction of the audience to the play, or do you believe its themes and characters are relevant and important? The play ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ involves four lovers running into the woods to escape an overpowering ...
...“the mechanicals” who are constructing a play named “Pyramus and Thisbe” which will be performed at the wedding of the duke of Athens’s, Theseus and his bride, Hippolyta, once Queen of the Amazons. All of these events are followed by the fairies, in the mysterious woods outside Athens. The play ‘A Midsummer Nights Dream’ uses three main interweaving plots to keep the audiences attention and deliver the themes ... Read review

Advantages: Funnier than other Shekaspeare plays
Disadvantages: The language is hard to understand.

...adventures take place and create a very enjoyable play within the human's story. However, there are another three characters involved in the human's story and that is Egeus, Theseus and Hippolyta. Egeus is the overprotective father who wants her daughter, Hermia, to marry another man, Demetrius. Theseus and Hippolyta are the equivalent of the king and queen area and are to marry very soon: 'And she is mine, and all my right of her, I do estate unto ...
...seriously believes that he is a good, honest nobleman but Hermia still wants to marry Lysander: 'The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius'. The worst in this case is the fact that if Hermia does not marry Demetrius, she will be beheaded and she is prepared to take that risk so that she can be with Lysander. The play about how love affects this group in particular and it shows all the different relationships between ... Read review

Advantages: funny, good storyline
Disadvantages: boring after a while

...studied "A Midsummers Night's Dream" a few weeks back for my coursework in English so for those 3 or 4 weeks all I had in my head was "A Midsummers Night's Dream". The Story was written in the late 16th century for the public but especially Elizabeth, who was the Queen of England at that time. Shakespeare wrote a character like the Queen as tall, reddish-blonde hair he did this so he would be in the "good books" with her. This play is about magic, ...
...are rowing so oberon makes a plan to make titania fall in love with the first thing she see's. In the meantime demetruis and helena have floowed hermia and lysander into the woods. Oberon makes this potion, and puts it on titania, demetruis and lysanders eyes and the men fall in love with helena and titania falls in love with a man with a donkey's ass on his head. It all carries on like this through the sort and can be quite funny but after a ... Read review

Advantages: Individual stories that can be enjoyed in isolation.
Disadvantages: Half the size of the previous publications.

...with the King of Dreams and the apparent revelation that humans were once subservient to the dominant cat race. This cat's noble lot is to travel the world and spread his tale, in the hope that one night, one thousand cats will dream of the way things used to be, and make it happen. The power of dreams is all but confirmed by Dream, and will doubtless play a large role in the rest of the series, and its modest introduction in a story focused on cats is inspired. 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' like Blackadder, grants credit for additional material to William Shakespeare, whose early play forms the basis for this amusing historical performance. The premise is that Dream, whose deal with Shakespeare follows on from a brief scene in issue thirteen, has commissioned this play and a unique outdoors performance on ancient land for the pleasure... Read review

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