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A Midsummer Night's Dream Play Analysis

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In Michael Hoffman 's 1999 film version of A Midsummer Night 's Dream he moves the drama 's action from Athens, Greece to a fictional Italian village named Monte Athena at the change of the nineteenth century. In this portrayal of the play, Duke Theseus is not a conquering hero, he is a tired and seemingly inadequate bureaucrat. Similarly, Hippolyta, his bride-to-be, is not a shrew, but a tedious, yet beautiful, Victorian feminist. In carrying over the play 's action, Hoffman seems to have eliminated the drama 's magic and exhilaration, leaving a bland film, overloaded with Victorian technology. Even the rambunctious Bottom, the erratic Weaver, and the enchanted fairy kingdom have lost their charm. This interpretation of the play manages to disband even Bottom 's free flowing high spirits. While Shakespeare 's Bottom is a good hearted clown, Hoffman presents an embarrassed, easily disappointed Bottom. Kevin Kline 's rendition of …show more content…

Similarly, Hoffman 's rendition of the fairy realm voids its levity and good humor. Rather than the free spirited lovers of life presented in the text, the fairies in the film are sniveling, petty, irritable party animals. This is especially true of Puck who has been transformed from a boyish charmer into a crass, middle-aged lounge lizard who revels in peeing in the woods after drinking too much wine. Similarly, Titania loses much of her psychological complexity in the film. The text emphasizes that the strong bonds of an ancient female friendship keep Titania from relinquishing the Indian boy, she wants to care for a dead friend 's son, providing a link with the other female characters in the play, whose lives are also marked by strong friendships. Hermia and Helena are like "double cherries" on a single stem; and Hippolyta was once the leader of the Amazons, an all-female society. Hoffman eradicates this emphasis on female friendship, presenting Titania as a selfish and shrewish wife, bent on keeping the Indian boy mainly to

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