Video Transcript:
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a comedy written by Shakespeare in the 1590s, around the same time the playwright wrote Romeo and Juliet. With several interweaving storylines, the play takes place on the eve of a wedding between Athenian nobleman, Theseus, and Amazonian queen, Hippolyta, on Midsummer’s Eve. This night is traditionally celebrated and commonly associated with temporary insanity and transformation.
The play opens as Theseus, the Duke of Athens, prepares the city for a large festival to mark his imminent marriage to Hippolyta, the queen of the Amazons.
He is interrupted when Egeus, another nobleman, enters accompanied by his beautiful daughter, Hermia; the man she loves, Lysander; and the man Egeus wants Hermia to marry, Demetrius. Egeus begs Theseus to invoke the ancient Athenian right to either force his daughter to marry Demetrius or have the right to kill her. Instead, Theseus declares that Hermia can either marry Demetrius or join a nunnery.
Next, Lysander convinces Hermia to sneak into the woods to marry him the following night. She agrees. But Hermia’s friend Helena is envious of Demetrius’ affection for Hermia. Lysander tells Helena of his and Hermia’s secret plan to elope. In turn, Helena decides to tell Demetrius about this plan, thereby sabotaging Demetrius’s engagement to Hermia.
Meanwhile, in the forest, a mischievous servant sprite, Robin Goodfellow or “Puck,” witnesses a quarrel between the king and queen of the fairies, Oberon and Titania. Titania has possession of a “changeling boy," whom Oberon wants for himself. When Titania leaves, Oberon vows to get revenge on her, ordering Puck to find some pansies, the juice of which has the magical power to make a person love the first thing he or she sees upon waking up. Oberon plans to drop the juice into Titania’s eyes while she sleeps so that she will fall in love with an animal when she awakes.
Meanwhile, Peter Quince and a group of local artisans plan to perform a tragedy about two fictional star-crossed lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe, for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding. Nick Bottom, a weaver acting in the play, is overeager and wants to play several roles at once, but Quince tells him to play only Pyramus. Puck stumbles upon the actors’ rehearsal and decides to transform Bottom’s head into that of a donkey.
Later, finding Titania asleep in the forest, Oberon drops the pansy juice into her eyes. Titania awakes to see Bottom and immediately falls in love with him.
Meanwhile, Demetrius and Helena argue after she has told Demetrius about Hermia’s plan to elope with Lysander, in the hopes that Demetrius will give up on Hermia and fall in love with her. But Demetrius insists he does not love Helena, only Hermia. Oberon overhears this and decides to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena, telling Puck he will drop the pansy juice into the eyes of an "Athenian man” in the woods.
Lysander and Hermia decide to rest. Puck enters and mistakes the sleeping Lysander for the Athenian man Oberon mentioned, dropping the juice into Lysander’s eyes instead of Demetrius’s. Abandoned by Demetrius, Helena spots Lysander and shakes him awake to see if he is dead or asleep. Opening his eyes, Lysander immediately declares his love for Helena and chases her deeper into the woods.
Then, Helena accidentally wakes a sleeping Demetrius, whose eyes Oberon has charmed with pansy juice in an attempt to fix the situation. Opening his eyes, Demetrius joins Lysander in falling in love with Helena. Hermia arrives and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander from her, while Helena is convinced the others are mocking her.
Upset with the mess Puck has made, Oberon orders the sprite to fix the situation by making Lysander and Hermia fall in love again and changing Bottom’s donkey head back to a human one. Oberon lovingly wakes Titania, who believes her love for Bottom was just a dream.
On a crisp morning stroll, the soon-to-be-married Hippolyta and Theseus arrive with Egeus at the place where Hermia, Lysander, Helena, and Demetrius are asleep. Waking up, the four recount their hazy memories of the previous night. Lysander declares his love for Hermia, while Demetrius says he is in love with Helena. Seeing this, Theseus declares that he will go against Egeus’ wishes and allow the two couples to marry as part of his own wedding that day.
Meanwhile, believing his memories of the night were a dream, Bottom and the other actors rush to the wedding. They perform the play so haphazardly that the guests believe it is a farce, instead of a tragedy. After everyone has retired to bed, Puck breaks the fourth wall by addressing the audience directly, and in a final twist, suggests that what we have been watching might have been a dream too.
The Question and Answer section for A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a great resource to ask questions, find answers, and discuss the novel.
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