Midsummer Act 3: Or my strong feelings about where intermission belongs...

Act 3 starts with the Mechanicals rehearsing Pyramus and Thisby. Before rehearsal starts, Bottom says "There are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisby that will never please" and this time through I laughed wondering if Shakespeare thought that of Midsummer and jabbing at every comedy needing those moments to make them more than the delightful absurdity of Pyramus and Thisby.

I love that the things the mechanicals worry about are either that the audience will have too much imagination: believeing pyramus is a real person and is now dead, believeing that the lion will attack the ladies- and simultaneously wrry that the audience will not have enough imagination- how do we bring in moonshine?!?!?! or a wall?!

I think this is particularly funny b/c I know i've been in shows where we worry about things that essentially end up being as absurd/unnoticeable to friends in the audience as the aforementioned "problems" would have been if the mechanicals left it alone.

There are so many great making fun of actor moments in this play!!And seriously- audiences love that shit.

So after the rehearsal starts, Puck transforms Bottom by giving him an asses head (we can debate whether you think that's what happens or whether you think he's transformed into a talking ass with a human body... but i think it is the former). The Mechanicals are clearly frightened out of their wits- so WHY does Puck have his speech about leading them through brake and briar as a number of animals? Just for Puck's love of mayhem and mischief? Or is he afraid they will want to stay with Bottom in spite of their fear?

Bottom wakes Titania with his singing- the more ridiculous the better because the whole audience knows she's going to fall for him- since she has no choice in the matter being all potioned up. I do love that Titania just kind of mentions that he will stay with her whether he wants to or not and then goes on assuming he wants to. And on this point I'm with her. why wouldnt he want to be waited on and adored by the QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES!! But what's endearing about Bottom is that even though he knows he's Titania's new obsession, he is interested and jolly and kind with the attending fairies, giving each of them a shining moment.

Act 3 sc. 2 is monstrously long and this is where I would put an intermission. Just before this scene. But since we haven't been sitting through an entire play on we go...

This scene is crazy long. I know there are longer scenes that Shakespeare just kept going with- we'll get to those-but it is not just the length that  makes me argue for pre-3.2 intermission.

Another reason I feel like this scene is supposed to come after intermission is the way Puck does a re-cap of what we just saw to catch up Oberon. After this little summary, Demetrius and Hermia enter, setting up the groundwork for the epic lovers quarrel that happens later in the scene. Hermia is kind of crazy in this scene but it creates this wonderful reversal where Demetrius can't keep up with HER the same way Helena couldn't keep up with him. After Helena leaves, as Demetrius sleeps, Oberon uses the flower (or let's talk about what the script says: "love juice" yeah. i'm just gunna put that one out there and leave it.) so that when he wakes up he can see Helena and then Oberon's original plan that Puck screwed up will be back on course. So Puck comes back and says the famous "what fools these mortals be!" line - but I'm convinced that at the moment Oberon thinks Puck is the fool especially since his only response is "stand aside."

Lysander and Helena have apparently been going in circles since the last time we saw about how he loves her and she thinks he is mocking her.

Love this moment from Helena:

These vows are Hermia's. Will you give her o'er?

Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh.

Your vows to her and me put in two scales

Will even weigh and both as light as tales

Good advice. beware relationships born of lying and cheating. I kind of think this passage is a good moment to illustraet that in spite of her betrayal of Hermia's secret plan to run into the woods, she really tries to be a good friend.

I also think we get a glimpse in this scene why Helena loved Demetrius in the first place- his "wooing" lines seem much more competent than those of Lysander.

"O Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!" etc.

Additionally, Helena's response to this line is incredibly smart. I think too many productions of Midsummer make Helena simpering and pathetic and that her stupidity makes her choose Demetrius, rather than her love for Demetrius making her foolish.

TEACHING MOMENT: In our gateway course for grad school we had to analyze the rhetoric/verse of two characters and compare and contrast them- I'd like to give that assignment to someone for Demetrius and Lysander. And for that matter Hermia and Helena. I have a feeling this scene becomes even funnier when you play the differences in the four lovers rather than the similarities.

 

 

So Hermia enters the scene and when Helena thinks she is in on the "trick" the boys are playing she gives this stunning speech describing her friendship with Hermia:

Is all the counsel that we two have shar’d,
The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,
When we have chid the hasty-footed time
For parting us—O, is all forgot?
All school-days friendship, childhood innocence?
We, Hermia, like two artificial gods,
Have with our needles created both one flower,
Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,
Both warbling of one song, both in onekey,
As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds
Had been incorporate. So we grew together,
Like to a double cherry, seeming parted,
But yet an union in partition,
Two lovely berries moulded on one stem;
So with two seeming bodies, but one heart,
Two of the first, like coats in heraldry,
Due but to one, and crowned with one crest.

 

Friendship in Shakespeare's works is something I'm interested in continuing to examine as I work through this project.  Do Demetrius and Lysander understand this kind of friendship?  The men don't seem to have many friends in this play unless you count Oberon and Puck? Is their relationship more master/servant than the relationship Titania has with her group of fairies? What about the Mechanicals? are they friends? or just working together for the sake of this play?

 

Gender Thoughts: "Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it" -Helena seems to bring up what is appropriate for each gender role a LOT. and the male/female divide is interesting in this comedy because there is less gender confusion than in other comedies in the cannon (i.e. no cross-dressing) but its interesting the way this Helena shares a rhetorical trope with the All's well Helena - she is constantly apologizing for what she recognizes as a transgression of gender norms. There's a paper topic here somewhere.... remind me to tag this entry with Blackfriars conference brainstorm.

 

The fight that ensues after Hermia realizes Lysander is not joking about his love for Helena is a physical comedy gold mine and has some fantastic lines, but what really gets me is the performance choice of what the heck Puck and Oberon are doing throughout this fight. Are they just watching and enjoying? is Oberon bewildered? upset? amused? Is he stopping Hermia from tearing Helena's eyes out? is puck encouraging the fighting? I am torn between the endless possibility of how to use these "invisible" presences in the fight vs. how to keep the focus on the words/story in general, indeed how to make the two work together to highlight both.

 

A final thought: I love that Puck seems to think he is a ghost or demon

 

My fairy lord, this must be done with haste,
For Night’s swift dragons cut the clouds full fast,
And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,
At whose approach, ghosts, wand’ring here and there,
Troop home to churchyards. Damned spirits all,
That in crossways and floods have burial,
Already to their wormy beds are gone.
For fear lest day should look their shames upon,
They willfully themselves exile from light,
And must for aye consort with black-brow’d Night.

 

And oberon has to correct him and tell him "but we are spirits of another sort"

Did Puck never play in the daytime before now? I think this whole passage/exchange is so odd.

This act ends with Puck bringing the lovers back together and "fixing" the love potion plan so there are two happy couples. It ends with FOUR PEOPLE sleeping onstage. Another argument for not putting the intermission after this act- unless you are intrigued people sleeping onstage through intermission or unless you are in a theatre with a curtain. Personally, I think its kind of cruel to deny actors their intermission. Especially if there is doubling going on and they are onstage a lot and don't have many opportunities to hydrate/ use the restroom. Also, Act 4 begins to get into the "too many endings" argument Zac mentioned in a comment yesterday, or as I like to refer to it- the "Lord of the Rings" syndrome. so look for that tomorrow. 

 

Until then, today's picture is a poster from a production of Midsummer happening soon through the Shakespeare Forum. If you are in or near NYC you should check it out. Here's a link to the facebook invite: https://www.facebook.com/events/498399530191384/