Play To Today's Audience example essay topic

The Fairies are only in our Dreams William Shakespeare seems to have created A Midsummer Night's Dream from his own childhood. In Shakespeare's time it was believed that fairies and little people did exist. Fairies were said to be the reason why the unexplained happened. An unexplained bottle of milk toppling over, or a bucket in the stables was said to be the work of fairies, who avoided human interaction. Puck is the audience's key to the motives of the fairies. The movie version of a play gives the audience an advantage in the sense that mistakes are rarely seen, the use of visual effects, and the story is able to present multiple scenes.

This production does well with the directing and stage presentation elements of a movie, about a play, that suggests that it is all a dream. In this movie production of the play, Puck, compared to Oberon, King of the Fairies and Titania, Queen of the Fairies and the remaining fairies of the play, does not seem to fit in as well. This is probably why he is found drunk as he is introduced. While Oberon and Titania belong to the forest and the world of dainty fairies, a small, roguish village setting seems more appropriate for Puck. His character is the type that interacts with mortals because he likes to, as opposed to other fairies. When performed as a play, the audience should keep in mind that all the characters remain in sight on stage, even if they do not take part in the action.

The director purposely contradicts Shakespeare's usage of staging to simplify the interrelations of the four worlds– fairy, aristocracy, lovers, and mechanics. It makes for a delightful surprise for the audience to find that when the play is performed as movie, all the characters do not remain in sight and the director's intent to display simultaneous scenes is achieved. As the action moves towards chaos, the lines between the separate worlds of rational order and subconscious passions become intertwined. Puck's little job with a love potion and a young couple is perfect for him and he perfect for the job. Puck is a likable character who tends to create mischief around himself. The staging and direction are brilliant in the scene with Her mia and Lysander, and Helena and Demetrius.

When Puck mistook Lysander for Demetrius (The director conveniently had the characters look alike) and dropped the love potion into Lysander's eyes and then realized what he had done he knew he had to fix it. The movie conveniently portrayed Puck as a light-hearted, amusing jester to relieve the stiffness of the royal fairies. He also adds some probability to the play, which is needed in presenting this play to today's audience. The typical audience today, does not believe in fairies and little people, but Puck and his antics are convincing. It is possibly, even today, more plausible to have a little fairy running around causing problems than to have to try and believe that fate and destiny were the cause of all the joy, sadness and bad luck. When William Shakespeare created Puck it seems as though the play got much more out of the character than intended.

I believe the cinema version is in a sense like the character Puck; it keeps the play rolling which otherwise would be less interesting without the option. Finally, the director uses Puck as the final dramatic convention where a character speaks alone on stage to the audience. This serves to connect the dreams within the play to the dream of the play itself, and thus to directly involve the audience in an implicit dialogue over the nature of reality.