Speech Adaptation from "A Midsummer Night’s Dream"

The year is 1969...

Titania, Oberon, and all the other fairies are at Woodstock music festival.

First Image: One of the stages at the Polish Woodstock festival, present day.Second Image: Santana on stage at Woodstock 1969 Credit: Bill Eppridge/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

All of the characters are on at least one type of drug.

Popular drugs used at Woodstock include acid, opium, psychedelic mushrooms, and cocaine (Kent). We can imagine that the characters of A Midsummer Night's Dream were high on marijuana or LSD, since those were most commonly used at Woodstock. This would explain their fanciful dialogue and imaginative talk of spirits or other-worldly forces.

Consider Oberon's conversation with Puck, in which he explains his plan to poison Titania (Act II, Scene 1, Lines 246-258):

Oberon: "Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer."

Puck: "Ay, there it is."

Oberon: "I pray thee, give it me. /... / There sleeps Titania sometime of the night, / Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight; / And there the snake throws her enameled skin, /... / And with the juice of this I'll streak her eyes, / And make her full of hateful fantasies."

Basically, Oberon is planning to drug Titania. In the context of the music festival, this could be something like LSD, which would make her see "fantasies," or hallucinations.

The singing & dancing fairies are mystical hippies.

Hippies were the main festival-goers at Woodstock, bringing their free spirits (and drugs) with them to enjoy the music. The fairies in A Midsummer Night's Dream would fit in perfectly here.

There's one activity that was very prevalent at Woodstock: dancing. This is also popular among the fairies; it was believed that their dancing controlled the seasons and other natural occurrences.

In Act II, Scene 2, Titania asks her fairies to sing her a song to put her to sleep:

Titania: "Come, now a roundel [dancing in a ring] and a fairy song; /... / Some war with reremice [bats] for their leathern wings /... / At our quaint spirits. Sing me now asleep."

Fairies: "You spotted snakes with double tongue, / Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen; / Newts and blindworms, do no wrong, / Come not near our Fairy Queen. / Philomele, with sweet melody / Sing in our sweet lullaby;"

Rather than setting the play in a forest, the characters would be in in a large, open field. The fairies' lively song would accompany a free-moving and passionate dance, mimicking those of the hippies in 1969.

Man dances at Woodstock, lesfillesdujardin.blogspot.com

What does this say about humans' relationship to the natural world?

As Professor Lupton stated in her lecture about the "Animated Woods" of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the fairies in the play represent the rhythm of life. Shakespeare combined the "holiday" aspect of fairies and turned it into poetry. They were also considered some sort of folk etiology, in which the fairies' actions explained some natural events. For example, their dances controlled the weather and the seasons.

Hippies in the 1960's and 1970's were focused on peace, love, and harmony with all living creatures. They "rejected established institutions, ...and championed liberation" (Hippie - Wikipedia). The hippies sought a deep connection with the natural world, which leads me to connect them to the fairies in Shakespeare's play. While fairies are technically nonhuman, mystical creatures, they have a sense of reason and the ability to speak. These two characteristics are what set apart humans from animals, so fairies could be considered half-human. Thus, they represent a relationship of coexistence between humans and the natural world.

C. Wilhelm, Four Fairy Costumes for "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Manchester, 1896-1903

Reflection:

I chose this setting because it seemed very natural to place Titania, Oberon, and the fairies in the setting of Woodstock music festival. The general fun and wild nature of that event reminded me of the fairies' playfulness. I also thought that a lot of the characters' actions and dialogue could be explained within a modern context through hallucinogenic drugs, thus establishing another connection to the music festival and the time period of the late-60's / early 70's.

The animal references also reminded me of the influence of drugs on one's mind. Oberon, Titania, and the fairies spoke using vivid animal imagery, which I think could be similar to how a human could speak if they were on acid or some other drug. Shakespeare's characters in this play are very imaginative creatures, which I find to be similar to the hippies from this time period. Consider LSD, for example, which could "expand" the mind and bring in new, creative thoughts for people using it. Thus, the characters' references to animals reminded me of someone high on drugs, which is why I found Woodstock to be a perfect adaptation to the staging of this play.

Sources:

Kent, Ryan, "Drugs at Woodstock." Drugs at Woodstock. Lehigh University.
Wikipedia contributors, "Hippie." Wikipedia - The Free Encyclopedia.
"Woodstock Festival." Les filles du Jardin. 22 May 2012.

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