Kevin Kline's Movie A Midsummer Night's Dream Theatre students are often told what not to prepare for an audition because some pieces have been done so many times they lose their meaning. Of Shakespeare’s entire canon, the two most often forbidden texts are Puck and Helena monologues from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Therefore, the two roles are often the most sought-after and coveted in the play when in production. However, in the 1999 film version, Kevin Kline as Bottom gets top billing. According to the rules of Elizabethan hierarchy, Bottom, being of the merchant class, is literally at the “bottom” of the social spectrum. The Athenians and fairies rank higher on the great chain of being. Kline’s billing is not merely a result …show more content…
The production team also emphasizes Bottom’s singularity though several visual cues. When we first meet Bottom, he is wearing a white suit, unlike that of any of his fellow mechanicals and the color choice stands out against the brown-toned townscape. Furthermore, screen-time-wise, he gets a longer introduction than the other mechanicals, which audiences may or may not recognize from the townscape when they begin their dialogue later. At the end of the film, there is a short scene in-between lines of Puck’s epilogue that reveals Bottom staring into the night, thinking of his Titania tryst, when he sees the fairies. The fact that the scene occurs at the very end of the film, when Bottom has disappeared from the story according to the text, shows the film’s emphasis on his character as the center stone of the plot. Since the audience leaves the story with Bottom, the filmmakers lead us to believe that we were following his point of view all along. Kevin Kline’s performance equally adds to his singularity among the cast. In a movie full of actors who have each starred in their own films, television shows, or stage productions, he leads the pack. Partially, his standing-out can be attributed to that elusive quality sometimes denoted as, “charisma” or “charm.” Kline has a way of making audiences trust him that acting
Bottom makes more remarks to being an ass, but because he is a fool, he never realizes that he is an ass literally. Puck's prank had a bonus when Titania wakes to Bottom's singing and falls instantly in love, due to the potion, with him. Puck's enjoyment in trickery and Bottom's stupidity combine and make bad go to worse in this scene, but then again, this whole scene was to further the action of the
A Misummer Night’s Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare. In this play there are multiple themes however the most evident theme is love. Why is love an evident theme? It is an evident theme because the play commences with two Greek mythology characters─ the Duke of Athens, Theseus and Amazon queen Hippolita planning their marriage. However as Theseus plans his marriage he has to help Egeus persuade his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius. Unfortunately both the Duke and Egeus failed to persuade Hermia into marrying Demetrius so the fairies (another set of characters. The fairies in this play consisted of goddess of chastity and Queen of fairies, Titania and King of fairies Oberon and his assistance Robin Goodfellow) decide
The story of A Midsummer Night's Dream was mainly about love and its abnormal dealings. In the play, Shakespeare tried to show that love is unpredictable, unreasonable, and at times is blind. The theme of love was constantly used during the play and basically everything that was said and done was related to the concept of love and its unpredictable ness. Shakespeare made all of the characters interact their lives to be based on each other’s. At first, everything was very confusing, and the characters were faced with many different problems. In the end, however, they were still able to persevere and win their true love, the love they were searching for in the first place.
In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as in many of Shakespeare's plays the main theme is love. Shakespeare presents many different aspects of love in the play. He shows how love can affect your vision of reality and make you behave in irrational ways. He presents many ways in which your behavior is affected by the different types and aspects of love. The main types of love he presents are; true love, unrequited love, sisterly love, jealous love, forced love, and parental love. Shakespeare tries to show what kinds of trouble, problems and confusion, love can get you into.
Hermia’s speech in Act 2, Scene 2, of Shakespeare 's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, contains an abundance of dream imagery. She has awoken from a terrible dream after falling asleep in the forest with Lysander. They were lost and tired so they decided to rest. Lysander wanted to sleep beside her but, she refused since they are not yet married and while they slept Puck applied a love potion on Lysander’s eyes thinking he was Demetrius. Lysander wakes and is repulsed by the sight of Hermia and never wants to see her again because he is now in love with Helena. Hermia awakes from her terrible dream and retells it thinking that Lysander is nearby listening. Then she realizes that he is not there and she does not see him anywhere. Hermia expresses the sentiment that she will find Lysander or she will surely die. She stated,
The world of A Midsummer Night dream is constructed of three different social classes, these being, royalty, nobility and commoners. As well as social classes there are also two being types- humans and fairies. Bottom and puck are two characters of different class and Being -type, Bottom a commoner and Puck a fairy. Although it doesn't seem like it there are many similarities and differences between the two. There are also many instances where Shakespeare uses this to enhance the comic nature of the play, which can be seen when Puck turns Bottom into an Ass.
After he came back from the fairy world, where he was an ass, he could not explain his experience in words but thought it was all a fantastical dream. In Bottom’s dream speech he says, “Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was—there is no man can tell what.” (Mid. 4. 1. 220-225). He being at a loss for words is not like Bottom’s character. He is eager to talk and do all things in his power to be the center attention be it every character in the play within the play. He has to think rather than not because of his unspeakable experience with Titania, the Fairy Queen. His visit in the fairy world brought him many pleasantries as he was pampered by the bewitched Titania and her aids hand and foot. If not for Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck, removing the asses head Bottom would have still been
Nick Bottom is a weaver who is acting in the play Pyrumus and Thisbe for Theseus and Hippolyta’s wedding celebration. From the very first presence of him in Act I, Scene II (Shakespeare 1188), the audience is given the impression that Bottom is an overly-confident guy who likes to be in authority. He says to Peter Quince, “First, say what the play treats on, then read the names of the actors, and grow to a point” (Shakespeare, 1189, Sc II Act ii Ln 7-8). He also expresses his confidence and declares that he should play all the roles in the production because he thinks he is the best actor. Based off of this dialogue, we can affirm that Bottom is usually a bossy person. Even Peter Quince understands that this is a normal aspect of his personality based off of how he casually and calmly responds to Bottom (Ln
Shakespeare’s usage of metaphor and simile in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is best understood as an attempt to provide some useful context for relationships and emotions, most often love and friendship, or the lack thereof. One example of such a usage is in Act 3, Scene 2 of the play. Here, the two Athenian couples wake up in the forest and fall under the effects of the flower, thus confusing the romantic relationships between them. Hermia comes to find her Lysander has fallen for Helena. Hermia suspects that the two have both conspired against her in some cruel joke, and begins lashing out against Helena. She says “We, Hermia, like two artificial gods, / Have with our needles created both one flower, / Both one sampler sitting on one cushion, / Both warbling of one song, both in one key; / As if our hands, our sides, voices, and minds, / Had been incorporate. So we grew together, / Like a double cherry, seeming parted; / But yet a 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.” (Shakespeare 2.3.206-13). Shakespeare writes this list of vibrant metaphors to establish the prior relationship between these two characters and to make it evident how affected Helena is by this unexpected turn of events, as well as to add a greater range of emotion to the comedy, thereby lending it more literary and popular appeal.
Within A Midsummer Night’s Dream there are many different similes and metaphors that are themselves within another simile or metaphor. What stuck out to me was the meaning of that, the multi-layered symbolism. From the title of the play to the ending speech, the possibility of this being a dream is clearly stated. Inside of that the woods are a dreamlike state that are outside of Athens in what could be called a purgatory between the reality of Athens and the fiction of the play within the play. Through the changes in setting, Helena’s idea of love being able to take different forms is constantly recycled. The various viewpoints of love within the play are all individually described in the differing settings, which culminates in an outside perspective that is hindsight. To be able to look back and see that the various metaphors of love are unable to stand alone and must be combined in order to see love objectively.
Within Act I we are introduced to Bottom and the rest of the Mechanicals selecting roles for their performance of Pyramus and Thisbe for the Duke’s royal wedding. The specific scene in which we are properly introduced to the Mechanicals is Scene ii of Act I. The supposed “director” of the play happens to be Peter Quince. In the introductory lines of the second scene, there is a conversation among Nick Bottom and Peter Quince. After being given the part of Pyramus for the play, Peter Quince then goes on to list what the other Mechanicals’ roles will be for the play. It is when Francis Flute, the bellows-mender, is given his part that we truly begin to see the character comedy that is
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play about four Athenian lovers. Theseus listens to both Hermia and her father’s request and he tells her to bend to her father’s will or die due to the old Athenian law. Hermia and Lysander flee Athens, into the domain of the fairy kingdom. At this time, Oberon is in a fight with Titania. This fight is over a human child of Titania’s friend. Oberon tells Puck, one of his loyal servants, to get a flower hit by Cupid’s arrow, and drop the oil into Demetrius’s and Titania’s eyes. However, Puck drops the oil into Lysander’s eyes due to Oberon’s vague description, making him fall in love with Helena and despise Hermia. Titania falls in love Bottom, who has the head of an ass, after Oberon places the oil
The rise of tension between characters is another characteristic of comedic plays. After Oberon sees the way that Helena has been treated by Demetrius, he orders Puck to apply the juice to the eyes of Demetrius. Puck accidentally applies the juice to Lysander’s eye, which causes him to fall in love with Helena. After the mistake had been caught, Oberon sends Puck to watch Helena and Oberon applies the juice to Demetrius’ eyes. This causes both men to fall for Helena and now the battle is for Helena and not Hermia. Helena is convinced that this is a joke or prank because neither of the two men loved her before. Now because of Puck’s mistakes the four decide to find a
Mandy Conway Mrs. Guynes English 12 16 March 2000 A Critical Analysis of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" William Shakespeare, born in 1594, is one of the greatest writers in literature. He dies in 1616 after completing many sonnets and plays. One of which is "A Midsummer Night's Dream." They say that this play is the most purely romantic of Shakespeare's comedies. The themes of the play are dreams and reality, love and magic. This extraordinary play is a play-with-in-a-play, which master writers only write successfully. Shakespeare proves here to be a master writer. Critics find it a task to explain the intricateness of the play, audiences find it very pleasing to read and watch. "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is a
Throughout history literature has changed into many different forms and styles, it has also stayed the same in many different ways, literary techniques and elements are key to a good piece of writing, a perfect example that shows us just this is in, A Midsummer Nights Dream, where we will further explore the different literary elements that were used most notably the plot. The plot of a story lays out the foundation and the background for the entire play to come, we'll compare and contrast this element and look at the different sub elements which are produced. We will define similarities and difference in these elements form both the play o the film. Taking a look at things such as climax, play incidents, and the conflict will all give us