A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM:

AN EXPERIMENT IN ALLEGORICAL STAGING

byJ.A. HUDSONSubmitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Shakespeare and Theatreof the University of BirminghamThe Shakespeare InstituteApril, 2008

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2008John HudsonAll Rights Reserved

TABLE OF CONTENTS

pageINTRODUCTION

PART 1. AN ALLEGORICAL READING OF

DREAM

The Overall Allegorical plot

The Lovers and their Crosses

Mechanicals; Peter Quince and the ScrollPuck as the DevilCrowning with Flowers

Titus and TitaniaJealous Oberon and the War

Fetching the allegorical ‘Flower’The Dark Side; Philomel and Spotted SnakesMechanicals Rehearsal and Bottom’s TranslationThe Identity of the BeesPuck’s BarberingBottom’s Letter to the CorinthiansWormwood; Death and Resurrection of TitaniaAthens; Theseus and the Sport Stretched with Cruel Pain

Wall Collapses and the Apocalypse

Passion of Pyramus/JesusApocalypse and EpiloguePART 2. DEMONSTRATING THE ALLEGORY IN PRODUCTIONTextual AdaptationsMeta-theatrical conventionsBuilding a CompanyWorkshop ProcessRehearsalsRoles and CharactersGesture and Music

Putting on the showCONCLUSIONPHOTOGRAPHSNOTESBIBLIOGRAPHY

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INTRODUCTION

Allegory was an established feature of Elizabethan life, and was mentioned by a range of contemporary literary commentators.

As Sir John Harington emphasised in theintroduction to his translation of

Orlando Furioso

(1591), the honeyed sweetness of theverse is not where the underlying meaning of an Elizabethan text is to be found, andthose of stronger stomachs should look beneath the surface to digest the allegory.

Traces of allegories being employed on the English Renaissance stage include the playsof John Lyly, personified figures such as Rumour in the plays of Shakespeare, the stagedirections in Wilson’s plays, the administrative papers that describe the symbolism of

Gorbudoc

, and occasional accounts of audience reactions to plays like

The Cradle of Security

or the political allegory in

The Game at Chess

The morality plays had alsotaught audiences to appreciate religious allegory, although due to the blasphemy laws,overt religious figures could no longer appear on the Elizabethan stage. They thereforere-appeared in covert fashion, the Vice became re-created as the fool,

a typical moralitystruggle between a good and evil angel for the soul of man was re-created as

Dr Faustus

and the traditional dramatic Christological theme of the harrowing of hell wasallegorically re-created as the porter’s scene in

Macbeth

On a larger scale, the wholeof

Hamlet

has been interpreted as a covert religious allegory.

This paper examines one particular play

A Midsummer Night’s Dream,

and focuses not on the contemporary/ political allegory, which has already been well explored, but upon how covert allegory isused to convey radical religious meanings.