COMPARE AND CONTRAST VIDEO VERSIONS OF A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM CONCENTRATING ON THEIR PORTRAYAL
OF TITANIA IN ACT 2 SCENE 1, ACT 3 SCENE 1
In A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare intertwines farce, fancy, fantasy and romance to create a play, which as its title suggests, is reminiscent of a midsummer night's dream. The play remains accessible, 400 years after it was written, because the audience can relate to the play's themes; the complexities and absurdities of love, and the relationship between fantasy and reality are issues still relevant today.
Unlike Othello and Macbeth, where the themes of jealousy and ambition drive the plot, A Midsummer Night's Dream is driven by action. The play was therefore ideal for adaptation into the 1998 Hollywood feature film, directed by Michel Hoffman, as action generally attracts audiences. The RSC also produced a filmed version of their highly acclaimed theatre production in 1996.
Scholars believe that Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream to celebrate one or more aristocratic marriages. His chief objective, therefore, was to please the bride and groom who commissioned the play and entertain their guests, (the wedding in A Midsummer Night's Dream is between important people in order to flatter the bride and groom). Michael Hoffman produced a film that would attract a large audience, and thus generate a large profit for the Hollywood company that "commissioned" him. The RSC claim to have produced the play "to keep people in touch with Shakespeare." The three different purposes for the play have produced three different versions; the two adaptations have been specifically tailored to meet the needs of their target audience; different tones, costumes, lighting effects, body language, music and general presentation styles have been adopted.
In this essay, the differences in these versions, in particular, the portray...