A Midsummer Night's Dream

Plot synopsis:
The play consists of four interconnecting plots, connected by a celebration of the wedding of Duke Theseus of Athens and the Amazon queen, Hippolyta, which is set simultaneously in the woodland and in the realm of Fairyland, under the light of the moon.
The play opens with Hermia, who is in love with Lysander, resistant to her father Egeus' demand that she wed Demetrius, whom he has arranged for her to marry. Helena meanwhile pines unrequitedly for Demetrius. Enraged, Egeus invokes an ancient Athenian law before Duke Theseus, whereby a daughter must marry the suitor chosen by her father, or else face death. Theseus offers her another choice: lifelong chastity while worshipping the goddess Artemis as a nun.
Peter Quince and his fellow players Nick Bottom, Francis Flute, Robin Starveling, Tom Snout, and Snug plan to put on a play for the wedding of the Duke and the Queen, "the most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe." Quince reads the names of characters and bestows them on the players. Nick Bottom, who is playing the main role of Pyramus, is over-enthusiastic and wants to dominate others by suggesting himself for the characters of Thisbe, the Lion, and Pyramus at the same time. He would also rather be a tyrant and recites some lines of Ercles. Bottom is told by Quince that he would do the Lion so terribly as to frighten the duchess and ladies enough for the Duke and Lords to have the players hanged. Quince ends the meeting with "at the Duke's oak we meet."
In a parallel plot line, Oberon, king of the fairies, and Titania, his queen, have come to the forest outside Athens. Titania tells Oberon that she plans to stay there until she has attended Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding. Oberon and Titania are estranged because Titania refuses to give her Indian changeling to Oberon for use as his "knight" or "henchman," since the child's mother was one of Titania's worshippers. Oberon seeks to punish Titania's disobedience. He calls upon Robin "Puck" Goodfellow, his "shrewd and knavish sprite," to help him concoct a magical juice derived from a flower called "love-in-idleness," which turns from white to purple when struck by Cupid's arrow. When the concoction is applied to the eyelids of a sleeping person, that person, upon waking, falls in love with the first living thing he perceives. He instructs Puck to retrieve the flower with the hope that he might make Titania fall in love with an animal of the forest and thereby shame her into giving up the little Indian boy. He says, "And ere I take this charm from off her sight,/As I can take it with another herb,/I'll make her render up her page to me."
Hermia and Lysander have escaped to the same forest in hopes of eloping. Helena, desperate to reclaim Demetrius's love, tells Demetrius about the plan and he follows them in hopes of killing Lysander. Helena continually makes advances towards Demetrius, promising to love him more than Hermia. However, he rebuffs her with cruel insults against her. Observing this, Oberon orders Puck to spread some of the magical juice from the flower on the eyelids of the young Athenian man. Instead, Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, not having actually seen either before, and administers the juice to the sleeping Lysander. Helena, coming across him, wakes him while attempting to determine whether he is dead or asleep. Upon this happening, Lysander immediately falls in love with Helena. Oberon sees Demetrius still following Hermia and is enraged. When Demetrius goes to sleep, Oberon sends Puck to get Helena while he charms Demetrius' eyes. Upon waking up, he sees Helena. Now, both men are in pursuit of Helena. However, she is convinced that her two suitors are mocking her, as neither loved her originally. Hermia is at a loss to see why her lover has abandoned her, and accuses Helena of stealing Lysander away from her. The four quarrel with each other until Lysander and Demetrius become so enraged that they seek a place to duel to prove whose love for Helena is the greater. Oberon orders Puck to keep Lysander and Demetrius from catching up with one another and to remove the charm from Lysander so Lysander can return to love Hermia, while Demetrius continues to love Helena.
Meanwhile, Quince and his band of six labourers ("rude mechanicals," as they are described by Puck) have arranged to perform their play about Pyramus and Thisbe for Theseus' wedding and venture into the forest, near Titania's bower, for their rehearsal. Bottom is spotted by Puck, who (taking his name to be another word for a jackass) transforms his head into that of a donkey. When Bottom returns for his next lines, the other workmen run screaming in terror: They claim that they are haunted, much to Bottom's confusion. Determined to await his friends, he begins to sing to himself. Titania, having received the love-potion, is awakened by Bottom's singing and immediately falls in love with him. She lavishes him with the attention of her and her fairies, and while she is in this state of devotion, Oberon takes the changeling. Having achieved his goals, Oberon releases Titania, orders Puck to remove the donkey's head from Bottom, and arranges everything so Helena, Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander will all believe they have been dreaming when they awaken. Puck distracts Lysander and Demetrius from fighting over Helena's love by mimicking their voices and leading them apart. Eventually, all four find themselves separately falling asleep in the glade. Once they fall asleep, Puck administers the love potion to Lysander again, claiming all will be well in the morning.
The fairies then disappear, and Theseus and Hippolyta arrive on the scene, during an early morning hunt. They wake the lovers and, since Demetrius no longer loves Hermia, Theseus over-rules Egeus's demands and arranges a group wedding. The lovers decide that the night's events must have been a dream. After they exit, Bottom awakes, and he too decides that he must have experienced a dream "past the wit of man."
In Athens, Theseus, Hippolyta and the lovers watch the six workmen perform Pyramus and Thisbe. The performers are so terrible playing their roles that the guests laugh as if it were meant to be a comedy, and everyone retires to bed. Afterwards, Oberon, Titania, Puck, and other fairies enter, and bless the house and its occupants with good fortune. After all the other characters leave, Puck "restores amends" and suggests that what the audience experienced might just be a dream.

Tags: psychedelic, fantasy, romantic

Review:
There were little jumps and quirks in this production by the Royal Shakespeare Company - but in reality they merely added to the otherworldly and ethereal overall effect.
The cast was superb -  and for those who only know Judi Dench as dowdy or as Queen Elizabeth, in this film she plays the queen of the fairies, Titania, in a costume consisting only of three small leaves!
If one does not understand the play by reading it, one will surely understand it after watching this film!
This is also a perfect film to see Clive Swift do some other acting other than his extraordinary performance upon "Keeping up Appearances"..
The Bard, and How to Get Him. Yes, it's clear that director Peter Hall was influenced by Richard Lester in his filming of Shakespeare's classic comedy/fantasy: the hand-held camera, jump cutting, etc.
And while one could quibble with some of his derivative directorial choices, there's no arguing that this is the best-acted "Dream" on film available.There's hardly a weak link in the cast, with the exception of David Warner and Michael Jayston as the male half of the quartet of lovers.
Jayston is competent, but dull and colorless.But the rest of the cast is marvelous, with special kudos to Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, Ian Richardson, and Judi Dench as a very sexy Titania.
Ian Holm's snake-tongue bit as Puck gets old, but his somewhat malevolent rendition of Puck is well done.I'm surprised that no one has made more out of Paul Rodgers superb Bottom, by far the best I've ever seen on stage or screen.
It's not only pictorial, but contributes greatly to the spontaneous, irreverent, slapstick-esquire approach to the whole production, which Peter Hall and his marvelous actors worked so hard to achieve.
The locations are also ideal, given the modernized, anglicized look of the production.Director Hall's interpretation of the play comes as close to 'perfection' as an enthusiast of the Bard could possibly ask for.
He refuses to reduce the play to an erotic fantasy, as so many other have done (i.e. the 1999 film), and he rejects the even more common temptation to turn it into a loud, garish costume-ball.
In other word, Hall presents the play as Shekespeare wrote it.It relies for its appeal on marvelous words and gestures, not on costumes and special effects.As for the cast, one only need to look at the big names on the list to see that this production was literally one-of-a-kind.
Actually the least famous major player in this company is the one most worthy of note: Paul Rogers, a wonderful character actor and a frequent collaborator of Alec Guinness, is quite possibly the best Bottom that most of us (in this day and age) are ever likely to see.
One of the best Shakespeare films ever!.
The superb service given by director and cast to Shakespeare's language and characters far more than make up for any shortcomings.
The Bard and the Royal Shakespeare Company fight the Swinging '60s to a respectable draw in this production, which does feature nearly all of the text of the play, splendidly _ if often frenetically _ delivered.
Director Peter Hall couldn't quite come up with a film equivalent of his famous stage production, which featured modern dress, a stark white set, and imaginative use of trapezes.
(Of course, perhaps some of this was the result not of artistic decisions, but merely of haste and a tiny budget.) It's somehow a very '60s Athens _ Hermia and Helena wear cute miniskirts, the four lovers get so twig-torn and mud-spattered that they look like refugees from Woodstock, and the fairies look like green-skinned members of a back-to-nature commune.
The two standouts are Diana Rigg (Helena) and Judi Dench (Titania) _ and this is your one and only chance to see the former sucking her thumb and the latter wearing an outfit (consisting mainly of body paint and flecks of vegetation) that Blaze Starr might have found drafty..
Not only do we get a treat to Diana Rigg's Helena in her pre-Emma Peel days but look at lovely Helen Mirren's delightful Hermia.
The youths, David Warner and Michael Jayston are great, twirled and swizzled by Ian Holm's delightful Puck messing up the good intentions of the bug-eyed Ian Richardson's Oberon.
This movie looks like it was hastily committed to film by high school students.
The costumes were trendy then but look rather silly now.The virtually uncut script, an advantage for students, has the disadvantage of occasionally slowing the action to a near stop.It's a pity because these are great performances by an amazingly talented cast.
Helen Mirren's Hermia, less strident than most, Ian Holm's doglike Puck and Judi Dench's near naked Titania are standouts certainly.
This spectacular film is currently experiencing a rebirth on cable TV this month, I've seen it listed several times, in its' completed version, without having the aggravation of commercials or editing.
A fresh and youthful Judi Densch is spectacular, along with the always sexy David Warner, but Diana Rigg's performance is the one that hammers home the reason why this stunning and statuesque actress was the darling of the 60's and 70's in the acting community in Britain.
I'm sure so many of these performers, who'd already made a name for themselves in the Shakespeare community later became absolute legends in film and stage.
Best Acting for any Midsummer Night's Dream adaptation.
Peter Hall's use of the hand-held camera keeps the movie very interesting and constantly moving.The cast is unmatched in any other Midsummer production with Diana Rigg, Ian Richardson, and Judi Dench.
So many future stars a decade before they would finally hit it big-- Ian Holm, David Warner, Helen Mirren as an ingénue, Judi Dench in the nude?!?!?!Hopefully the BBC saved the negative or at least a decent copy of this so that someday they release a decent copy of this..
Incredible cast, many who went on to greater things: Ian Holm, Ian Richardson, Diana Rigg , David Warner, Helen Mirren, Judi Dench.
A fine, and sadly forgotten, version of Shakespeare's most amusing play.
The camera angles were also rather ridiculous, and the constant shaky-camera effect gave me a headache and made me not wish to look at the screen.Another thing (though perhaps this is just me being difficult), but did the fairies really have to be green?
Diana Rigg, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Paul Rogers are especially fine.
How do you take a play by Shakespeare, a talented cast, and then stage, shoot, and edit it so horribly?
I saw this film in streaming video from a print that looks as if it had been decaying in somebody's dank basement for the past 40 years.
But this Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company production, directed by Peter Hall, contains amazing performances by Diana Rigg, Helen Mirren and Judi Dench (as Helena, Hermia and Queen Titania) when all three were young and beautiful but already capable of displaying the talent that subsequently carried them to fame.
Despite the poor quality of the film itself, you will surely wait a lifetime to see a version of Midsummer Night's Dream in which Helena and Hermia are dominant players, and you may never see a Titania as sexy as gorgeous or as outright sexy as Judi Dench.
Fortunately, there was another showing later in the day.To my surprise, the beautiful Titania was none other than a youngish Judy Dench.
Diana Rigg also appears as Helena, the spurned lover, who joins three other young people for the familiar comedy of errors.Besides the fairies, the actors dress in modern garb...casual: Button-up shirts, mini-skirts, go go boots.
The first thing to be said about this version of the Dream play is how really mediocre the DVD transfer is--it is very much in need of restoration--jumpy, often dirty, and terribly faded; that said, perhaps the effort of restoration could be better alloted to something like Von Sternberg's Shanghai Gesture or the original Front Page--something more worthy.It's amazing how much more dated this version of Shakespeare's romp is than the often stunning 1935 version with it's perfect Puck in Mickey Rooney and its lush dreamlike imagery.
This version attempts to be far too 1960's "with-it" using hand-held cameras, jump cuts, mini-skirts, featuring children that look as if they were plucked from the cast of Hair.The positives--and very positive: Seeing a very young Helen Mirren, Judi Dench, and Diana Rigg, all totally competent even then, interacting with a mostly able cast, and a script which clearly utilizes almost all of the dialogue.
I would only recommend this movie to people who would like to see a laughably horrible version of a great play.
Surprising, considering the movie takes place in Ancient Greece, or, at least, it's supposed to, but the director decided to say it was in Athens, when all the costumes and sets look like the Victorian times.
I have seen many versions of the play in my life, both on stage and screen.
Maybe this is just too delicate a comedy for the movies and needs to be seen live to be appreciated.But Judi Dench...
THere are three British dames in this film adaptation: Dame Judi Dench, Dame Diana Rigg and Dame Helen Mirren.
While the cast is outstandingly directed by Sir Peter Hall, the costumes appear to be weak and cheaply made.
When Titania played by Dame Judi Dench kisses a horses' behind, you can see his eyes.
The costumers dressed Titania as a green fairy which was just painted on like silly.
The William Shakespeare play is a festive comedy for the light-hearted and entertainment of its audience.
Everybody in the cast has been part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and are veteran actors by now.
THe play does entertain and I can poke fun at the cheap costumes and lack of expense towards the production.
Dame Helen Mirren is also cast as the young Helena who seeks to be in love.
Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968) was directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
It features some truly great actors: David Warner as Lysander, Diana Rigg as Helena, Helen Mirren as Hermia, Ian Richardson as Oberon, Judi Dench as Titania, and Ian Holm as Puck.MND is a perfect play for film.
That's probably how people saw it in Shakespeare's time, and that setting will always work.
So, seeing the women actors in miniskirts and go-go boots looks really, really funny.Most of the play is set in a forest, and the young actors get lost, stumble about, fall into streams, etc.
We can't really see them anyway, because of the print, but what we can see looks like Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren prepared for a commando raid.
Was it really necessary to hide the actors' faces?The movie is true to the text, which is good, but there's so much hand-held camera work, and so many jump-cuts, that nothing hangs together.
Strong direction and a superb cast make Peter Hall's 1968 version of William Shakespeare's comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream my favorite version of the film, and one of my favorite Shakespeare adaptations of any film.
The film is performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and the cast is composed of superb actors, many of whom did not become stars until years later.
These include: including Judi Dench as the Fairy Queen, a scantily clad Tatania, Diana Rigg as Helena, a young Helen Mirren as Hermia, the lover of Lysander (David Warren), Ian Holm as the inimitable Puck, Paul Rogers as the most believable Bottom I've seen, and Ian Richardson as the Fairy King Oberon.While the film had a limited budget, the clarity of its presentation may be one of the few adaptations of the Bard that doesn't need subtitles to fully appreciate Shakespeare's poetry.
The supernatural is the essential element that runs throughout the play and Shakespeare uses magic both to confuse the characters, and then resolve their bewilderment.
In this play, Shakespeare suggests that the world of the magical fairies is not separate from nature, but a part of it, even though Hall separates the fairies from the rest of the characters by depicting them in shades of green.
Shakespeare is also interested in the actual workings of dreams, in how events occur without explanation, time loses its normal sense of flow, and how the impossible occurs as a matter of course.
One aspect of the play, not often noted, is how Shakespeare's depiction of women challenged the convention of the time.
Hippolyta's first words in the play evidence the prevalence of dreams ("Four days will quickly steep themselves in night, / Four nights will quickly dream away the time"), and various characters mention dreams throughout (Act 1, Scene 1).
In spite of being a product of the 60s with its mini-skirts and boots, A Midsummer Night's Dream has a fresh and contemporary look and audiences of today would feel right at home with the film's use of jump cuts, and and-held camera (presumably a debt to director Richard Lester).
1st watched 5/25/2002 - 4 out of 10(Dir-Peter Hall): Well-intentioned attempt at silly Shakespeare play with some good acting, makeup, and set design, but a muddled mess of a movie.
A big piece of fluff from such a serious playwright as Shakespeare just doesn't seem to work and despite some good performances this version I thnk will be forgotten eventually..
Granted, so was the rest of the Royal Shakespeare Company circa 1968, an impressive list (Ian Holm, David Warner, Helen Mirren, Judi Densch, etc.); and this is a difficult play to do well because its plot is so hoary, and the play-within-the-play so tedious, that these actors can hardly be held accountable for the bard's sins.Not that they don't make enough of their own, however.
Add to that budgetary problems  Puck, Oberon, and gang appear as green-tinted hippies, with their faces not even matching the hue of their bodies  and you have a production that is easier to laugh at than with.Most of the actors give it their all, but most of them appear miscast.
I did like Warner's Lysander, who appeared the most natural of the four young lovers, and Ian Holm's Puck, but it's impossible not to enjoy a Holm performance.I tend to think Shakespeare movies tell you more about the period when they are made rather than when they are set (much like the plays themselves), and this one is no different.
It's interesting as a novelty piece to look at where Shakespeare presentations were, and where they were aiming to be, four decades ago; certainly we have a different emphasis now, as actors forty years from now will no doubt reinterpret the bard in their own fashion (android Iago?).
For all but a die-hard fan of any of the regulars or of Shakespeare's work, though, this film is a pass.
This adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" seemed like it was trying to be a liiiittle too arty.
The females were all wearing extremely short mini dresses, making it very clear that the movie was made in the 60s.Puck, Titania, and Oberon are running around naked and green.
People simply don't get that muddy walking in the woods!When we did this play at the school, it was stressed that we should USE our body gestures and hands, and so after having that pounded into my mind, the actors' almost completely inanimate bodies really bugged me, and Oberon seemed to be telling himself "Must not move face must not move face must not move face..."Puck's tongue thing was really odd, and the way the spirits teleported around...priceless!
All the actors were good - it's just that the film was put together so strangely.
My first exposure to Shakespeare was through the classic 1990s animated series "Gargoyles" in which Puck, Oberon and Titania were all recurring characters, as were Macbeth and the Three Witches.
Made by the Royal Shakespeare Company, it has one of the best casts of any film that I have ever seen: Judi Dench, Ian Richardson, David Warner, Helen Mirren (who also appeared in the 1981 BBC adaptation, though as Titania rather than Hermia), Diana Rigg, Michael Jayston and Ian Holm.
The strongest performer is certainly Judi Dench, whom I consider to be the best living actress.
However, she is just as good in the scenes in which she is required to be softer such as those with the fairy children (two of whom are played by her nieces Clare and Emma) and those in which she professes her love to Bottom after Puck has given him the head of a donkey.
For much of his later career, he was typecast as sinister characters and was and is excellent at that but it's always great to see him play a gentler character (for the most part, anyway).The rest of the film's cast is just as strong, particularly Paul Rogers as Bottom (who also played the role in a 1958 TV adaptation), Sebastian Shaw as Quince, Derek Godfrey as Theseus, Barbara Jefford as Hippolyta and Bill Travers as Snout, who was one of the then best known actors in the film in spite of his fairly small role.
I wonder if the exasperation felt by Quince whenever Bottom made a suggestion came from Shakespeare's own experience working with difficult actors.
The scenes with Judi Dench in which Titania fawns over Bottom are the funniest in the entire film.In spite of the strength of its cast, however, the film is not perfect.
Peter Hall may have been a great theatre director and the British theatrical world owes him a huge debt for founding the RSC but he was not a good film director.
Laurence Olivier and Kenneth Branagh's versions of "Hamlet" and Zeffirelli's "Romeo and Juliet" were all beautiful looking films but, in spite of the location work, this seems more like a filmed stage play rather than a film adaptation of one.
As much as I loved Bottom, the scenes featuring the entire acting troupe were the least interesting of the play.