Beşliu Maria

Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University of Bucharest

English Literature
Seminar Tutor: Mădălina Nicolaescu

THE MECHANICALS’ PLAY IN “A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM”,

by William Shakespeare
The fifth act of Shakespeare’s play, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” focuses on the mechanicals’
play, namely, “Pyramus and Thisbe”, a comedy designed for the celebration of the three
weddings which take place at the end of the play. Out of all the pastime suggestions presented to
Theseus, “Pyramus and Thisbe” is the play chosen by the Duke of Athens to provide the guests
with the entertainment they all desired.
Shakespeare uses the technique of “the play within a play” in order to convey a powerful and
significant message to the audience, challenging the spectators to reflect on the lovers’ story
presented before. Therefore, one of the play’s crucial meanings implies the idea that Pyramus
and Thisbe’s tragical love story is actually a warning regarding how the four lovers in the main
play might have ended were it not for the fairies’ intervention. One can easily observe the play’s
resemblance to the probably most famous Shakespeare’s play, “Romeo and Juliet”. The essence
of the two plays lays in the fact that the source of the two tragedies is represented by the lovers’
selfish, possessive parents who are guided only by their own interests. Thus, Egeus symbolizes
the type of father who try to control his daughter by imposing her to marry someone she does not
love, being ready to punish her if she does not submit to his authority. Fortunately, in “A
Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the denouement is in the favor of Hermia and Demetrius’ love.
However, Pyramus and Thisbe tragic end points to the fatal consequences that the parents’ life
and death assumed right over their children might have.
With respect to the play’s structure, “Pyramus and Thisbe” makes reference to the typical plays
performed in the medieval theatre period. “For Quince and his company are complete amateurs
performing a type of classical play unlike anything their Elizabethan counterparts seem to have
played.” Thus, this play, performed by simple workers at a refined event in the aristocracy life,
contains a significant number of elements specific to the traditional former medieval play in
contrast with the new emerging Elizabethan theatre. Firstly, the play starts with a past, lost ritual
which becomes a source of comedy in the present time, namely, the self-presentation of the
actors: “I, one Snout by name, present a wall”; “All that I have to say is to tell you that the
lantern is the moon, I the man I’th’moon, this thorn bush my thorn bush, and this dog my dog”, a
technique widely spread and used in the medieval theatre, called “the presentational approach”.
This technique comes into contrast with the “representational approach” developed with the
beginning of the Elizabethan theatre which aimed at creating the illusion of reality. Secondly, the
presence of the prologue at the start of the play is another important element, reminding of the
morality plays which used prologues and epilogues with a didactic purpose.
In closing, after having examined the role of the mechanicals’ play in “A Midsummer Night’s
Dream”, we can conclude by stating that this play within a play is both a comment on the lovers’
previous adventures, as well as an important reference to certain aspects specific to the medieval
theatre. ‘“Pyramus and Thisbe” has come to be associated with the forms of threat and social
disruption which strongly marked artisan discontent in the 1590s. Underlining the potential
threats in the play and the workers’ sharp awareness of the dangers they were running in
presenting a lion and a drawn sword, such an approach sees their search for dignity in tension
with their desire to accommodate themselves to aristocratic demands.’ (Peter Holland)

Bibliography:
Peter Holland. „Introduction” The Oxford shakespeare A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Oxford :
Oxford University Press, 1994, pages 90, 94