Contents: Early Stage Performances |Adaptations in the Arts
Production History
Early Stage Performances
In this section, Bryan Wallingford details information about early stage productions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Private Performance
The exact date of the first performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not known, but most scholars place an estimate between 1595 and 1596. The earliest performance was most likely “the wedding in 1596 of Elizabeth Carey to Thomas, son of Lord Berkeley at the Blackfriars house of the bride’s father, Sir George Carey” (“A Midsummer Night’s Dream - Shakespeare In Quarto”). The fact that the story begins with Theseus and Hippolyta discussing their “nuptial hour” and ends with the matrimony of three couples would have played quite nicely at a celebration of real-life wedding. (Figure 1)
How Could it Have Been Staged?
In these circumstances, the performance would have been limited in its playing space. A raised bare stage and rear curtain might have been all the players had to help tell their story. Like all of Shakespeare’s plays, the words spoken in the script are used to help the audience forgo their disbelief and imagine the world of the play. For example, in the opening of Act II of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the Fairy says her/his job is “To dew her orbs upon the green” (2.1.9). In this, the audience can suppose a setting that takes place overnight when grass collects dew. Likewise, when Oberon enters the scene, he says that he and Titania are “Ill met by moonlight” (2.1.61). In this way, the early audiences who might witness the scene outside during the day after wedding festivities could picture the dark night, even though they see a sunny day.
In Act II scene 1, Oberon describes all the floral canopy of Titania’s bower as a “bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows, Quite overcanopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet muskroses, and with eglantine” (2.1.257). By describing the scene with words, the audience would have been able to envision the bower even with limited scenery and props.
Public Performance
From the title page of the play in Shakespeare’s First Quarto (Figure 2), it is clear the play has been publicly performed several (or sundry) times by 1600. So, it is important to see where The Lord Chamberlain’s Men might have staged these performances in publicly, not just private gatherings like weddings or other exclusive events.
Although Shakespeare’s troupe is often associated with The Globe, that playhouse was not built until 1599. They also had previous performances in the courtyard at the Cross Key Inn (Figure 3). However, by 1594, The Theatre and The Rose were licensed as the only two officially legal playhouses in London and plays were no longer allowed at Cross Key Inn (Egan and Gurr). This narrows down the most likely public performance to be held at The Theatre, a playhouse situated in Shoreditch, which was owned by actor Richard Burbage’s father. (“Lord Chamberlain’s Men”) or The Curtain, also just outside the City of London.
The Theatre
The Theatre was built in 1576 by James Burbage in partnership with his brother-in-law John Brayne. Most believe The Theatre was built very much in the style seen in The Globe, a “Wooden O” shape with tiered levels of seating, an open yard for standing room, an elevated stage with curtains for entrances and exits upstage. (Figure 4)
It was home to many acting companies, but was used primarily by Shakespeare’s acting troupe, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, after 1594 (Mabillard). This would make it a likely place for a public performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream if one agrees that the play was written around 1595. But the window of opportunity for public performances at The Theatre is slim due to its closing in 1597. Towards the end of 1596, problems arose with the property’s landlord, Giles Allen. In order to save their investment in the property, Burbage and Brayne, with the help of a small group of workmen and chief carpenter Peter Smith, had The Theatre taken down, moved all the pieces across The Thames River, and used the beams to construct the first Globe Theatre (“Elizabethan Theatres”). In doing so, they created another playhouse outside of the city of London where the authorities could not enforce their strict and often arbitrary closures. In fact, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men could not have occupied a London theatre at the time because a production of Thomas Nashe’s play Isle of Dogs caused the authorities to decry that it was “seditious” and shut down all of London’s theatres (Mabillard).
The Curtain
The curtain was a purpose-built playhouse. Its purpose was for the performance of plays, and it seems to have been used by the Lord Chamberlain’s Men for performances between the end of the lease on The Theatre in 1597 and the opening of the Globe in 1599 (Goff). (Figure 5)
Thanks to Museum of London Archaeology’s excavation in 2011, modern scholars and students have many details that explain the shape and structure of one of Shakespeare’s celebrated playhouses. Similar to The Globe or The Theatre, The Curtain had galleries with “mid and upper areas for those who could afford to spend a little more, and a courtyard made from compacted gravel for those with less to spend. (“Archaeologists Uncover the Stage and Other Treasures at Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre”). However, The Curtain had some features that distinguish it from the other two playhouses mentioned. First, The Curtain was not a polygon or an “O” shape design. Even though Shakespeare’s Henry V played here, the description of “this wooden O” doesn’t hold true to The Curtain based on the archeological footprint of the structure. “Our archaeologists can now show that the playhouse appears to be a rectangular building, measuring approximately 22m x 30m (approximately 72’ x 98’), rather than being polygonal (“Initial Findings from Excavation at Shakespeare’s Curtain Theatre Revealed”). Second, the dig has given us new information about a series of tunnels under the stage. “MOLA’s excavation shows that the Curtain featured a hidden passageway under the stage where actors could move undetected” (Brown). Thinking about the blocking for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, imagine how many instances where this disappearing on one side and reappearing on the other could have been useful for characters in this play. Perhaps Oberon used it to appear almost out of nowhere or Puck leads the young lovers through the fog to their slumbers. Some of the information about The Curtain can be found in writings of plays that were intended to be performed there. A stage direction from Hector of Germany, a piece by Wentworth Smith that played at The Curtain, says to “sit on the rails.” “These rails may be an early occurrence of the sort of small rails seen at the front edge of indoor stages in the 1630s and 40s” (Lueger).
Conclusion
Without definitive answers to when and where all the performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream took place prior to 1600, we have to narrow down our focus to the potential public and private opportunities for performance. From weddings of England’s upper class to The Theatre and The Curtain for audiences of all classes and types, as we learn more of the playing and practices of their time, may we re-envision and reestablish A Midsummer Night’s Dream for future generations of theatregoers.
For Your Production
Whether you have a modern stage with elaborate scenery and set pieces or a simple, bare stage, explore all the ways you can use Shakespeare’s language and description of environments in the play to transport your audience to the imagined worlds of palace, wood, and fairy kingdom. Examine how you can use the architecture of your playing space to add to the “fairy magic” of the play with surprising entrances like the ones that might have occurred at The Curtain. Even if you don’t have an under-stage series of tunnels, can you have actors appear and reappear quickly in a new location?
Sources and Further Reading
Adaptations in the Arts
In this section, Emily Cornelius details information about adaptations of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in other artforms like dance, music, and opera.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream lends itself to adaptation and interpretation, as illustrated by the many existing ballets, operas, and other productions of the work. Within the text of the play itself, Shakespeare’s characters refer to theatre, singing, dancing, and music throughout the action of the play. Exploring existing adaptations using creative arts other than theatre (opera, ballet, instrumental, etc.) can highlight the themes and core creative elements of this play and can help you find sources and inspiration for your production. In this section we will explore the history and production of several relevant adaptations that have survived to the modern era.
Music and Dance in the Original Text
Several times through the action of the play, the characters speak of or to the act of singing and dancing. There are many words that would suggest singing and dancing such as “roundel” for dance. However, the context of the meaning of the words that convey the action of singing or dancing can also shift the interpretation based on the characters and what action they mean to convey. In Act 4, when Bottom thinks to himself to ask Peter Quince to make a “ballad” of his dream, he is speaking of a ballad type poem set to music (today’s opera). When he says “sing” he means to deliver prose through affected speech like reading poetry but we might hear that phrase today to mean he would sing a song or aria. Whereas, in Act 5, Theseus asks “what masques, what dances” - when you look up the definition of Masques you can see they were staged dances popular in this period - but they told stories (today’s ballet) whereas dance was not required to do so. Below are some examples of discussions of music and dance in the play.
Act II, Scene 2: [link to text dataline 67652]
Titania: “Come now, a roundel and a fairy song.”
Act 4, Scene 1. Line 85 [link to text dataline 67652]
Titania: “Music, ho! Music such as charmeth speak”
Act Five, Scene 1, Lines 381-390 [link to text datalines 69247-69256]
Oberon: “Through the house give glimmering light,
By the dead and drowsy fire:
Every elf and fairy sprite
Hop as light as bird from brier;
And this ditty, after me,
Sing, and dance it trippingly.”
Titania: “First, rehearse your song by rote To each word a warbling note: Hand in hand, with fairy grace, Will we sing, and bless this place.”
Act 4, Scene 1; Lines 88-92 [link to lines 68641-68645]
Oberon: “Come my queen, take hands with me
and rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.”
Act 5, Scene 1: Lines 34-44 [link to datalines 68870-68880]
Theseus: “Come now, what masques, what dances
shall we have to wear away this long age of three hours
Between our supper and bedtime
our after-supper and bedtime?
Where is our usual manager of mirth?
What revels are in hand? Is there no play
To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?
Call Philostrate.
Philostrate:, coming forward Here, mighty Theseus.
Theseus: Say what abridgment have you for this evening,
What masque, what music? How shall we beguile
The lazy time if not with some delight?
Act 4, Scene 1; Lines 220-225 [link to datalines 68780 – 68785]
Bottom: “The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a
ballad of this dream: it shall be called Bottom’s
Dream, because it hath no bottom; and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the Duke.
Per adventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall
sing it at her death.”
Exercise
Can you identify other characters that refer to song or dance? Which characters do not? When in your own speech or writing to words change in context? How could you interpret these lines in your everyday life? For example: when I read Theseus’ lines asking for entertainment - I can see him with a remote control looking for just the right channel to watch before bedtime.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Music
Henry Purcell, British composer, wrote The Fairy Queen, a semi-operatic adaptation in 1692. Purcell added music and “masques” for each Act. (Again, Masques were staged dances of the period.) Purcell did not use Shakespeare’s original text. The text for Purcell’s work is loosely based on the story but with additional characters and none of Shakespeare’s original characters sing (Savage, 1973). Listen to this scene which could be the equivalent of:
Act 5 Scene 1, Lines 30-31 [link to datalines: 68867-68]
Theseus: Joy, gentle friends! joy and fresh days of love
Accompany your hearts!
Felix Mendelssohn, German composer, read the play when he was 17 and wrote the E major, Op. 21 overture in 1827. This adaptation was not an opera and was intended as music only with no text. In 1843 Mendelssohn returned to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and wrote additional musical pieces to accompany a production of the play. Unlike Purcell, these Mendelssohn compositions are directly influenced and referencing Shakespeare’s text (Kimber quoting Botstein, 2006). [cross link to Rachael’s article?]
Listen to this linked section of music while reading the following text in Act 1, Scene 2 starting with Quince: “Is all our company here.” [link to dataline 67263]
Clown Theme. In this excerpt listen to how Mendelssohn underscores the stage directions and captures the characterization of Bottom and future transition of Bottom into an Ass.
Mendelssohn’s music comes alive in the play. His compositions are so moving, that they are quite recognizable out of context. You might be familiar with the famous Wedding March which could be used to depict the entrance of the court in Act 5, Scene 1. [link to dataline 68836]
Benjamin Britten, British composer, wrote the most popular operatic adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1960. Britten is credited as the only operatic adaptation to use the original text of Shakespeare. (Cooke, 1993). He worked closely with British Tenor Peter Pears as his librettist collaborator. Watch this excerpt of the most famous aria from the opera: Oberon singing to Puck in Act II, Sc. 1. Read the text while he sings and see if you can notice the literal alignment of music and lyrics. He is creating a lullaby-like quality to depict how other characters are sleeping and thus he will use the magic of the flower to change how they wake.
[link to datalines: 67629-67649]
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses and with eglantine:
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight,
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in:
And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,
And make her full of hateful fantasies.
Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove:
A sweet Athenian lady is in love
With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes,
But do it when the next thing he espies
May be the lady: thou shalt know the man
By the Athenian garments he hath on.
Effect it with some care, that he may prove
More fond on her than she upon her love:
And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.
Fear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.
Exercise
The Composer’s listed above used their imagination while reading the play in order to compose music - let’s try to see what happens if you physicalize the poetry. What would happen if you read the text as poetry over the music? What pictures, colors, and emotions begin to take shape in your imagination? Does the music and/or the text implore you to move or create? Allow yourself to improvise through singing, drawing, dancing, or acting as you read and listen. Additional Exercise: What songs from your favorite artists would work for each character? Create a current “opera” using contemporary music.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Ballet
Mendelssohn’s music inspired several ballet versions of the story. The two most famous and ballet adaptations were choreographed and set by George Balanchine in 1962 and Frederick Ashton in 1964. For Balanchine, choreographer for the New York City Ballet, this would be his first full-length ballet. Balanchine was inspired by the play and Mendelssohn’s music, and included additional works by the composer in the ballet he choreographed (Balanchine Trust, 2020). Watch the following excerpt of the same Clown scene to see how the body is used to physicalize the comedic character of Bottom and his transition as a bumbling human to braying Donkey.
Frederick Ashton, British Choreographer, was a contemporary of Balanchine. The two choreographers were inspired by each other and their work includes several hidden references to each other (MacCauley, 2018). Ashton used only original music written by Mendelssohn for the play. He cut bits of Shakespeare’s text to make it one act ballet that is less than an hour and titled the work The Dream. Watch the another excerpt of the Clown and see how Ashton envisions the movement differently.
Exercise
Watch the full performance of both interpretations. What do these two versions teach us about the central story? What does each production highlight? Differences? Similarities?