One of the preeminent summer events just transpires to be the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he made a candid fairy kingdom, and all those who happen to join the kingdom emerge in some way enlightened and transformed by the actions and the real world in Shakespeare’s writings.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream premiered more than two centuries before Freud’s Sigmund. The Explanation of Dreams was in print in 1899. Dissimilar from Freud’s psychoanalytical methodology to the insentient, Shakespeare’s cheerful passionate comedy makes no technical claims. Up till now perhaps the play’s understandings into the human cognizance have had a cultural effect that is as important on people’s perception of dreams nowadays. Actually, Shakespeare’s expert on the matter has more fruitfully endured the test of time, perhaps because it is a pleasure to study dreams on the stage unlike challenging them on a psychiatric phrase (Thomas, 1).

In his play, Shakespeare comes up with two contrasting worlds, those are fantasy and reality. This two contrasting worlds illustrate the mental states of dreaming and waking.  In the cold, daylight of Athens controlled by Theseus and his bride to be Hippolyta, a mindful devotion to the founded order of human regulations rules supreme. In this supposedly enlightened kingdom, the passionate dreams of two fresh lovers, Lysander and Hermia, are threatened by steadfast legitimate practice and fixed tradition (Thomas, 2). The tool of their sadness is Egeus, Hermia’s father, who orders that she weds another young man, Demetrius by force; if she declines, Hermia’s dreadful choices are death or a convent. In the intervening time, Demetrius is himself the purpose of Helena’s exasperated affection (LoMonico & Michael, 120).

Another setting is the charmed forest outside the mortal rule. Here, Titania and Oberon, the queen and king of the fairies, control over a paranormal and chaotic of night spirits. Their arrival, attended by their personal long-standing argument, proves that complications in love are not constrained to human beings. However, it is merely in this organic setting where chaos, confusion, and anarchy rule the night that dreams actually can be real–aided by some supernatural interfering on the section of Puck, the “knavish and shrewd sprite” who smears the eyes of the fledgling lovers with the juice of “Cupid’s flower” to control their love (Thomas, 2).

Once the dwellers of the brick-and-mortar realm venture into the ghostly sphere of the pixies, Shakespeare depicts how the restrictions untying conscious realism and unconscious magic are not so evidently drawn. These two conditions of thoughts often intersect with no superficial design. Leaving the perceptible world behind, people descend into a dreamy nap that is out of their management or control, just like the environment of the play’s tangible, time-bound world changes to a seemingly irrational, enduring context that resists clear reasoning (Thomas, 2).

A third plot is about the “rude mechanicals,” a number of craftsmen from Athens gather in the forest to prepare a play for the Duke’s forthcoming nuptials. The prominent member of this absolutely unprofessional troupe is Bottom, a “ham” who cannot wait for his stage presentation. When Puck meets these actors, he cannot repel having a laugh at their expense and the bemused Bottom, left by his corresponding actors, becomes innocently entangled in the passionate confusion.

Though harmless, terrifying events take place in the moonlit countryside, they only prove to be imaginary halts on the comic voyage towards reunion in the clear daylight.    All is corrected by the play’s festive end. The practical witticisms are solved, and the false identities are relieved with “Dian’s bud,” a cure to the flower of love. Though, in the end one is left with the inquiry of which of the two kingdoms is really more rational, at least concerning the ideals of reason and passion (LoMonico & Michael, 119).

Even though the inhabitants of classical Greece assert to deliberately value a rational civilization, they have created an artificial, firm organization that is occasionally unpredictable and irrational. Neither the feelings of the heart nor the realism of the head is deemed first and notable in Athenian love affairs. In contrast, the unconcerned occupants of the unrestrained, natural realm–evidently demonstrated on the native traditional stories of Elizabethan England–readily show a more caring and sympathetic attitude toward affection. The pixies involuntarily assume that achieving passionate romantic desires and dreams is the fundamental way to happiness (Thomas, 3).

Realism of the head is deemed to be the first and notable in Athenian love relationships. In contrast, the unconcerned occupants of the unrestrained, natural world–evidently modeled on the natural traditional stories of Elizabethan England–readily show a more caring and sympathetic attitude toward affection.

The themes of Shakespeare’s shows (revenge and justice, the quest for supremacy and position, household loyalties and disloyalties, the association of sorrow to violence, and the strength and redemption) are exposed in Shakespeare’s human characters, their well-developed language and their cherished, dramatic stories. Various plots in the play portray how jealousy and revenge exist in between people due to love.

The Midnight Shakespeare acts present at-risk students in underserved metropolitan communities the chance to acquire life skills through the performance and study of Shakespeare. This staging partners and the Festival offer learning and social service groups to students making them to improve their creativity, a sense of belonging, and civic involvement.

The ironic area is that the settings is kept playing out in the real world. The performer playing Brutus was in reality knifed during a street disagreement (and has then recovered).  The performer playing Clitus, associate to Brutus, had lost a close associate to drug-related ferocity.

The fundamental love tale, based on the Babylonian story of  Thisbe and Pyramus, a type of Romeo and  Juliet tale repeated by Ovid in The Changes, happens two times in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, every time with a dissimilar ending. In Ovid’s tale, the parents of Thisbe and Pyramus have constructed a barrier to isolate their households and their youngsters. Fearless, Thisbe and Pyramus murmur through a chink and turn out to be lovers, making a vow to meet out of the urban barriers and run off. When Thisbe comes, she spots a lioness and leaves her shroud as she scampers for shelter in a cavern. Pyramus locates the shroud, already stained by the lioness with the blood of a lately consumed lamb. Believing that the lioness has consumed Thisbe, Pyramus pangs himself. Thisbe emerges from the cave only to find dying Pyramus, and, distressed, falls on his steel sword. They perish in each other’s arms.

The scene of love clearly portrays when Hermia’s father denies her devotion and adoration for Lysander. After that the youthful lovers decide to meet up out of the city where their father will not reach them and eventually decide escape. Shakespeare reveals the scenes in the beginning of the play, Helena and Demetrius have fallen in love, however, Demetrius has altered his choice and now he is in love with Hermia.

On the other hand, Hermia and Lysander have fallen in love against their parents’ wishes.  This makes Hermia and Lysander to escape to the forest to escape Duke’s judgment.  Though, Shakespearean problems alter Ovid’s scheme:  to begin with Hermia discloses to a confidant, Helena, who in turn tells Demetrius. They then go into the woods for love. Secondly, Lysander is lost in the woods and then the pixies get into action (LoMonico & Michael, 118).

Conversely, the forest is the household for the actors preparing their act in expectation of acting the wedding celebration. The Ovid’s misfortune turns out to be a humorist as the actors find means to act each scene even the scenery and props. When Puck misses a step and stumbles upon the problem blossom into a mix-up before the couple is issue is resolved (Nicoll, 190).

The pixies are accountable for the mix-up in the woods, the mysterious resolves of the disagreement, blessings of calmness, and their personal romantic tales. Titania and Oberon, the Queen and King of pixies, are already wedded, however, their path of actual love does not run well after all. Throughout the scenes there is an accusation of jealousy among each other. For instance, jealousy emerges between Theseus and Titania on the other hand; Jealousy emerges between Hippolyta and Oberon among many other Jealousy scenes that exist in this plot.  Those that are in disagreement due to jealousy appear willing to rebuke each other when sufficiently angered.

Every plot of this staging surrounds love. The only part in the love story that does not associate directly is about the lovers who are in the rustics and the lovers in the woods; however, they come in unit in the end of the act as newly married couple and comedians at the marriage ceremony.  The playwright’s approach is to swap parts from each scene, stressing the associations. His works are easily comprehensible if one studies them separately and then reorganize them to learn their reliance on each other (Nicoll, 192).

Online research

Shakespeare uses confusion to explain his plots.  He uses confusion in the play to exemplify the confusion in the minds of the both major and minor characters. Those actors that are in love and have read this play online say that the path of real love is the same as the plot: foolish, magic and confused. The online articles give a clear description of what is contained in Shakespeare’s plays. Some of the online articles include those found in the kcshakes website and the Google books like The Shakespeare Book of Lists and Shakespeare Survey, Volume 10.

Consideration of design elements and reaction of the audience

The costumes that are used in this play create an impression of a romantic world. They attract the attention of the audience and make the play seem to be real. The themes of love, betrayal, jealousy, and traditions emerge from this plot due to the best selection of costumes. It uses music that rhymes with actions and the different types of lighting bring actors into clear view. The background lights enable the actors to be separated from the background, the top lights enables the actors to be seen clearly from the top. All this evoke the feelings of love from the audience and that is why they remain silent and watch carefully awaiting the next move in each action (Trussell, 1).

It is a fact that the audience remains hooked from the beginning to the end. This is not just true for those who have read the play or watched it on its first performance but also for persons like me who had the opportunity to witness its dramatization in the open space of Kansas City. A Midsummer Night’s Dream was dramatized along another popular play called Antony and Cleopatra .The play, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as most people in the audience must admit, has a lot of suspense from the beginning to the end. What is most pleasing to the audience is the fact that although the protagonists, and specifically the four lovers, go through a lot of struggles, there is some form of happy ending. Additionally, the audience is pleased by the fact that all that happens in the play happens spontaneously, the fact that nothing is predictable makes the play worth watching live.

Costumes used in the play, just like it happens in most plays besides those of Shakespeare, is to capture the ambience of an era and the social status of those who form part and parcel of the society. In the play, the costumes used by varied characters display their social status in a more accurate manner than anything else. The Duke of Athens, Theseus, dresses like a duke mainly wearing long robes for the better part of the play, while Hippolyta, the Queen of Amazons dresses like a queen and has a crown. The forest fairies’ costumes are mainly made of animal skin-like materials and masks. The most important thing about these costumes is that they play a huge role in distinguishing the social classes and the roles played by the characters.

Music, in a similar way, tells the audience more about the era, and situations that the characters are going through. More importantly, music is used in the play to break the monotony of speech.

In conclusion, to put the final touch on this joyful ending, all the pixies visit Theseus’s palace and conclude the play with a dance and song, just as the mechanicals and Bottom ended their dramatic work with the Bergomask dance.

Works cited

LoMonico, Mike & Michael LoMonico. The Shakespeare Book of Lists New Jersey: Career

Press, 2001.

Nicoll, Allardyce. Shakespeare Survey, Volume 10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,

Thomas Canfield. Dream analysis, accessed on April 16, 2012, <www.kcshakes.org>

Trussell, Robert. Fringe Festival to feature unconventional shows in conventional homes, July

13, 2012. Accessed from < http://www.kansascity.com/2012/07/13/3702446/coming-of-age-on-the-fringe.htm

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