Introducing 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare
Let's get theatrical with pre-reading materials for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by William Shakespeare.
This readalong introduction is free for all readers because I want Shakespeare to feel more accessible to everyone! Thank you for supporting The Eclectic Reader and making these short summer classic readalongs possible. I would love for you to join us in reading and discussing A Midsummer Night’s Dream—maybe today’s newsletter will give you just the boost of literary confidence you need.
When I was 16, I spent my summer working in a local Chinese restaurant, driving around town with my friends, and memorizing scenes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Shakespeare Camp.
What is Shakespeare Camp? I am so glad you asked. For one week, we spent our days playing improvisation games and attending workshops led by actors from The American Players Theatre. We spent our nights in the audience seeing every production on the theater’s summer slate. In between, we did classic camp things, like hiking through the woods, sleeping in bunk beds, and gossiping about inter-camp relationships.
In addition to leading workshops, each actor in the American Players Theatre company was assigned to a small group of campers to direct a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. At the end of camp, our families were invited to watch selected scenes cobbled together to form an almost complete version of the play.
I don’t remember my director’s name—Paul? But he was dating Carrie Coon at the time. Yes, Carrie Coon of The Gilded Age and The White Lotus fame. Prior to her enviable Hollywood career, Coon spent time on regional stages. In 2008, she played Helena in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and gosh, I wanted to be her when I grew up.
I am nowhere near Hollywood, nor a career on the stage, but I do still have my lines memorized from that summer.
Hermia. Help me, Lysander, help me! do thy best
To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!
Ay me, for pity! what a dream was here!
Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:
Methought a serpent eat my heart away,
And you sat smiling at his cruel pray.
Lysander! what, removed? Lysander! lord!
What, out of hearing? gone? no sound, no word?
Alack, where are you speak, an if you hear;
Speak, of all loves! I swoon almost with fear.
No? then I well perceive you all not nigh
Either death or you I'll find immediately.
17 years later, The American Players Theatre is once again staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They produce this play every few years because it’s part of the outdoor theater’s storied past, which makes sense! It’s the perfect play for a theater in the woods. Magical seems too insignificant a description for seeing Midsummer on the APT stage.
By the time you read this, I will have attended the show. Rest assured, I’ll share all about my experience at some point—but I couldn’t wait to put together our introductory resources for this month’s readalong. In today’s newsletter, you will find tips and tricks for making Shakespeare easier to read, a summary and character map for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, suggestions for what to annotate and closely read, and where to watch a production.
July: A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
July 4th: Pre-Reading Newsletter
July 11th: Discussion for Act I-II
July 18th: Discussion for Act III-V
July 25th: Post-Reading Reflection
Tips for Reading Shakespeare
1. Watch a production.
Shakespeare is mean to be taken in as a performance, not a novel. I think of it like listening to an audiobook—you are still reading the text, just in a different format that enhances the emotion and adds clarity with visuals. Watching a performance before reading the play in text can help you visualize what is happening, along with stage directions, as you read. I love watching and reading at the same time! More about what that looks like HERE.
2. Read a section out loud.
If you are having trouble getting past a tricky section of the text, try reading it out loud. This is the next best thing after seeing a live performance and will help you find the rhythm of Shakespeare’s language.
3. Don’t try to understand every single word or phrase.
I know, I know. We like to comprehend every bit of what we are reading! But it’s not necessary or even reasonable to expect that as modern readers we can access every single bit of Shakespeare’s language. And in my opinion, it isn’t worth translating every phrase with footnotes—that just breaks up the reading experience too much. If you can get broad strokes of what is happening, how the characters are related to one another, and what they are feeling, you’re in great shape. You can go back to smaller sections for close reading later.
4. Read sentences, not lines.
Shakespeare is a poet, but his plays are not meant to be performed in the clip-clop rhythm of iambic pentameter. Instead of stopping after every line to wonder what you just read, read the play as if it’s in regular prose. Stop at a sentence, not a line. Let’s look at the difference with an example. First, read out loud to yourself and stop at the end of each line.
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour
Draws on apace. Four happy days bring in
Another moon. But, O, methinks how slow
This old moon ⌜wanes!⌝ She lingers my desires
5 Like to a stepdame or a dowager
Long withering out a young man’s revenue.
Next, read the section out loud as I’ve separated it, by full sentences:
THESEUS
Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws on apace.
Four happy days bring in another moon, but, O, methinks how slow this old moon wanes!
She lingers my desires like to a stepdame or a dowager long withering out a young man’s revenue.
Did you notice the difference?
5. Think like Yoda
Shakespeare often writes in inverted sentences, placing the subject and verb out of order. It sounds an awful lot like Yoda, so if you are fluent in Jedi, you might have an easier time with Shakespeare. Or, by rearranging the sentence subject-first in your head, you can easily translate some of the trickier bits. For example:
EGEUS
Full of vexation come I, with complaint
Against my child, my daughter Hermia.
Here is a translated version with a simple switch.
EGEUS
I come full of vexation with complaint against my child, my daughter Hermia.
For more Shakespeare tips, listen to this podcast episode:
Plot Outline & Character Map
Duke Theseus & Queen Hippolyta prepare for their wedding.
Egeus interrupts, angry at his daughter Hermia for loving Lysander when he wants her to marry Demetrius.
Hermia and Lysander run away into the woods.
Demetrius follows them, and Helena, who is in love with him, follows, too.
Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, are fighting again.
Oberon dispatches Puck to trick Titania, but Puck can’t resist making more mischief.
Thanks to Puck and a magic flower, Demetrius and Lysander are in love with Helena instead of Hermia.
On Puck’s journey, he comes across a group of workers preparing for their own play-within-the-play. He turns one of them into a donkey as a joke and leads him to Titania, who falls in love with an ass.
The lovers devolve into chaos while Oberon watches. He eventually tells Puck to make it all right again, and the trickster does so, pairing the couples appropriately.
Out of the woods, everyone attends the wedding and the workers perform their play, a comic highlight to end the production.
You can find lots of character maps online, but I find the one from CliffsNotes easiest to follow. For a more thorough plot summary, visit Sparknotes or the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.
Themes of Note
Love
Jealousy
Dreams vs. Reality
Order (Society) vs. Chaos (The Woods)
Logic vs. Emotion
Comedy
Where to Watch
If you are near San Rafael California, the Marin Shakespeare Company is staging A Midsummer Night’s Dream until July 13. If, like me, you are closer to Madison, WI, the American Players Theatre is running the play through October.
The next best thing to live theatre is recorded live theatre! Here is a list of previous productions to watch:
Stream The Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2024 production on Marquee TV.
Stream The Globe Theater’s 2013 production via their website.
If you’re up for a super artsy-weird production, watch Julie Taymor’s 2014 version on the PBS All Arts player.
The next, next best thing is a film adaptation. The 1999 film starring Kevin Kline, Michelle Pfeiffer, and Stanley Tucci as Puck (?!) is available on Amazon Prime or Apple TV.
I also enjoy Folger Shakespeare audiobook productions, featuring fully dramatized editions of the text. If you like reading and listening in tandem, this is an excellent route for you.
How do you think you will read A Midsummer Night’s Dream? Have you seen any memorable productions or read the play before? Where does it rank among your Shakespeare favorites?
Thank you for sharing all of this wonderful information with us for free! I taught this in the spring, and I really appreciate the tips you shared about how to read Shakespeare (and the quick synopsis/outline).
I’m so thrilled to be reading this along with you this month! My boys and I memorized a few passages from the play using Ken Ludwig’s How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare (great tool for teaching one’s self, too) last summer, and this summer we’ve been working through Read Aloud Revival’s Shakespeare Summer guide for AMSND, too! In that program, the host suggests first reading a story version of the play. We have a couple different collections for that: Leon Garfield’s Shakespeare Stories and The Usborne Complete Shakespeare collection. Stories and guides geared towards kids are often a great starting place for adults, too, for the broad strokes.
I live in Richmond, VA and our local Shakespeare theatre company is performing AMSND this summer, so it’s all so serendipitous! I’m looking forward to seeing it performed live after engaging with the text both with my kids and here in this group.
Thank you for getting us started, Chelsey, and for all these resources! My mind is blown that you’ve spent time with Carrie Coon 🤩 what a cool experience!