Sogno di una notte di mezza estate

LEADING ACTORS & ACTRESSES

TESEO (duke of Athens): he is a good and determined man,  respected by everyone;

LISANDRO E DEMETRIO(Ermia's lovers): they both love Ermia, but she will choose only one.;

ERMIA(Egeo's daughter, Lisandro's loving): she is a sweet girl and belongs to an aristocratic family. She marries Lisandro;

ELENA(Demetrio's lover): she is a beautiful girl that loves Demetrio very much, even though he doesn't like her at once;

OBERON(king of sprites and fairies): he is a good king that rules over the forest with justice;

TITANIA(queen of sprites and fairies): she is a very beautiful woman. She flirts with Chiappa from sprite although she is fond of Oberon, but at the end she falls in love with him again;

PUCK(rascal sprite called also Bertin Buonalana): he is a very spiteful spirit and also Oberon's helper.

CHARACTERS

EGEO: Ermia's father;

FILOSTRATO: organiser of parties and shows at the duke's court;

IL TACCHIA: carpenter;

IL MORSA: cabinet maker;

IL CHIAPPA: weaver;

CECCO SOSPIRO: repairman bellows;

LO STAGNA: boilermaker;

MORTIMPIE': dressmaker;

FIORDIPISELLO, RAGNATELO, BRUSCOLINO, SENAPINO: spirits;

PIRAMO, TISBE, MURO, CHIARODI-LUNA, LEONE: characters of the interlude;

SPIRITO DI OBERON E TITANIA; GENTE DI TESEO E IPPOLITA

PLOT

A Midsummer Night's Dream consists of four plots and presents four groups of characters: Teseo, duke of Atena, Ippolita, queen of the Amazons, whose marriage provides the frame to the whole play; four Athenian lovers, whose happiness is finally made possible; the fairies, who are essential mythological figures in the celebration of nuptial, and who become here real characters, just like the mechanicals, Athenian workmen, who rehears the play Pyramus and Thisbe which they will perform at the celebration of Teseo and Ippolita's wedding.

ACTS

First Act. The play opens in the place of Teseo, who's going to marry Ippolita. Egeo goes to the duke to ask for advice about the behaviour of his daughter, Hermia. In fact she wants to marry Lisandro, while he has given Demetrio the consent to marry her. On the other hand, Elena, a friend of Ermia's, loves Demetrio. Ermia and Lisandro plan to leave Athens and to meet in the wood, where they might marry secretly. In the meantime, Demetrio is informed of Elena and Lisandro's elopement and follows them, while Elena follows Demetrio.

Second Act. The act is set in the wood near Athens, which has been designed by the four lovers as a meeting place. Here an entirely different world is presented: Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, who have just quarrelled, because Titania insists on keeping one of her pages, appear. To get what he wants Oberon decides to enchant the queen and sends his helpmate, the spirit Puck or Robin Goodfellow, to fetch the flower possessing the magic love juice. While Titania is sleeping, Oberon charms her by putting the filter on the eyelids, and instructs Puck to apply the same to Demetrio so that he falls in love with Elena. Unfortunately Puck mistakes Lisandro for Demetrio and therefore Ermia falls in love with Lisandro who loves Elena who loves Demetrio who loves Ermia.

Third Act A theatre company is rehearsing Pyramus and Thisbe, a traditional tale of love, to be performed at Teseo's marriage. One of the actors, the weaver Bottom, has an ass head placed on his shoulders by Puck. Bottom's song wakes Titania, who falls in love with him as a result of the love filter.

Fourth Act Oberon tells Puck to put a magic herb on Titania's eyelids so that the spell can be broken. Oberon puts to sleep all the other human beings who are in the wood to restore order in everyone's feelings. The lovers are awakened by Teseo, Ippolita and Egeo, who forgive the couples. Bottom's return to normality is also shown.

Fifth Act The scene takes place in Teseo's palace again, where the marriages between Teseo and Ippolita, Ermia and Lisandro, Elena and Demetrio are celebrated. During the ceremony the play Pyramus and Thisbe is performed by Bottom and his theatre company.

THE WORLD OF FAIRIES

As the title itself says, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a sort of 'dream'. In fact, most action takes place at night in the moonlight, the characters continuously fall asleep and dream, they do not control their thoughts and words, but act under the influence of illusion and enchantment.

However, as the other part of the title suggests, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play pervaded with 'superstition'; on Midsummer Night (24th June) herbs were thought to have special virtues and fairies were believed to be more powerful. The eve of May Day, during which most of the play is set, was also fitted to the supernatural events which take place in the wood, because on that night as well, magic was supposed to be practised. The form of the 'supernatural' employed in the play is represented by the fairies. Shakespeare used them in an original way, mixing them freely with mortals and making them responsible for the wonderful complication and interferences which take place throughout the play. In creating these aery beings, he drew inspiration from the Greek nymphs and fauns and changed the repulsive, evil fairies of the Elizabethans into mischievous, but benevolent creatures. These fairies are immortal, they can change their appearance or vanish at will, they move very fast without constraints of time and space. They also influence the weather, and their quarrels can have disastrous effects on the climate. They share mortal activities such as eating, drinking, dancing and singing. They are especially associated with flowers. Their presence in the play provides the link to connect the three worlds: the one of the lovers, the workmen's world and the magic world of the wood. Oberon is the king of the fairies, Titania is their beautiful queen, and Puck the court jester who performs malicious tricks.

The name of the little fairies- Peasblossom, Mustard-seed, Cobweb, Moth- confirm that Shakespeare's use of the supernatural in the play was lively and entertaining.

Another main theme of A Midsummer Night's Dream is 'love', seen as an unpredictable, inconstant feeling. Connected with it there is the theme of 'change and transformation', embodied by the character of Bottom, the weaver who is transformed into an ass and with whom Titania falls in love. Thus, love is represented as the result of enchantment, rather than the effect of deep passion and affection. The sense of romance is enhanced by the constant presence of the moon, which provides a background to almost all the action in the play.

Nature is a rich source of imagery with the varieties of flowers and animals which inhabit the wood.

STRUCTURE

A Midsummer Night's Dream represented a masterpiece within Shakespeare's early comedies because of the blending into one story of a series of plots that are apparently unrelated. Speech varies according to the characters involved: Teseo and Ippolita speak in blank verse; the lovers in, and even the play Pyramus and Thisbe has a metre of its own.

Moreover, songs are interspersed here and there in the play adding on the atmosphere of ; the fairies usually employ rhymed verse, but use blank verse when they quarrel; the rustic actors use prose enchantment. The special introduction of music and dance is an element taken from the tradition of the masque, as is the farcical interlude of the play-with-the play.

This device has the purpose of parodying the main story by replacing delicate and poetic feelings with rudeness and comedy. Moreover, it enables the author to comment on artistic creation and especially on dramatic art.