Rating: 3/5
The four lovers, Demetrius, Lysander, Helena and Hermia were all in a bit of a confusion. Hermia wanted to marry Lysander, and Lysander wanted to marry Hermia. Helena then wanted to marry Demetrius, and Demetrius wanted to marry her at first, but then he was told by Hermia’s father that he wanted him to marry his daughter, and that was when he fell for Hermia. Of course, as well as the fact that Hermia’s father wanted her to marry Demetrius, he did not approve of her marriage to Lysander. So Hermia and Lysander ran away to the woods outside Athens, so that the Athenian law of marriage did not apply to them. There, they said, would they marry. But Helena, eager for Demetrius to love her again, thought that she would tell him of Hermia’s and Lysander’s plan, so that he might like her more for what she helpfully told him. Then, the king and queen of the forest fairies, Oberon and Titania, had a big argument, and when the latter fell asleep, Oberon’s cheeky servant Puck squeezed some juice from a magical flower onto her eyes. This meant that when she woke up, Titania immediately fell in love with an actor, Mr. Bottom, who is wearing a donkey’s head when she awakens. Puck also accidentally squeezes the juice on Lysander’s eyes, so that when he wakes up, he sees Helena, and falls in love with her. Helena then believes that Hermia, Demetrius and Lysander are all mocking her, for Puck also puts the juice on Demetrius’s eyes, and he falls in love with her again. (But, as things always happen, everything is sorted out again at the end. Boring.)
This play was written by William Shakespeare in Elizabethan times. We read a lot of Shakespeare’s works so it wasn’t too complicated – although it would be better if Hermia and Helena had names that weren’t so similar, so it wasn’t, “Which one was with Lysander again?” and, “So that one’s Helena… why’s she with Demetrius?” all the way through! Some of his other plays were a bit better; my favourite out of all the ones we’ve read so far has been ‘Macbeth’. I’m not the best fan of all the comedies since many Elizabethan jokes aren’t very good and are for grown-ups more than they are for people of my age.
We’re currently half-way-through a production of it, acted in Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, in 2014 (of course, we’re actually watching it on TV). The production, I think, is about the same as reading the play but with some good, more understandable jokes, and the actors are very good too, and it’s easier to get the jokes when it’s performed by actors, and not when you’re reading it on paper. Of course, Shakespeare’s plays were meant to performed on stage. I would love to go to the Globe in person and see it performed.