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Midsummer Night's Dream part 2
Oberon is a bastard. Discuss.
It seems to me that one's view of Oberon has to hinge to a large extent on what age Titania's Indian boy is. In this version, he's young enough for Titania to be carrying him everywhere. So, Oberon is seeking to take an infant away from the only mother figure he has...
Now, admittedly, Titania for all her love of the boy's mother, still stole him away from the boy's father, but she still clearly loves him.
However, the original text, as far as I can tell, gives no clue as to the boy's age. Is he old enough for Oberon to be jealous? His behaviour to Titania (making her fall in love with someone else) would seem to make a bit more sense in this regard - or at least to cast Oberon in a slightly better light.
This vindictiveness of Oberon's stands in odd contrast to his desire to help the young lovers (and also to bless Theseus's household on the day of his wedding).
Puck, who is cheerfully mischevious, is far more consistent in his approach to life. Indeed, I caught myself wondering if he deliberately found the wrong Athenian - certainly, it didn't distress him when he found out.
Oberon, in this production, has the feel of a Red Indian to him. Probably the hair style and something about his costume. He feels close to nature, far more so than Titania. When he talks about knowing a bank where the wild primrose grows, it feels very right.
I wasn't so keen on the children used for the other fairies - they felt rather static and emotionally neutral.
The 'rude mechanicals' and their play were excellent. Indeed, the best scene in the play was probably the last one where the wedding guests are watching the play, with the reaction of the guests nicely woven in; though when the actors danced a 'bergomask' - an Italian dance - what they actually did was a morris (Cotswold style - you really wanted to know that, didn't you...).
Overall, this was good production, although the scenes in the forest felt short compared with those at the end in the palace.
As always, the folklorist in me is intrigued by the man in the moon with his dog and his thornbush (a combination which also appears in The Tempest). I did a quick bit of hunting around (a lot of the links on Google are simply the same bit of text copied around), but there are apparently references to the thornbush as far back as 1157 and this reference places both dog and thornbush back in the reign of Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377) well before Shakespeare's time.
So, I can't tell you what the dog means, but he's certainly been around for a long time!
Maybe, if you use your imagination, you can see a man carrying a bundle of sticks with a dog chasing round his feet?
It seems to me that one's view of Oberon has to hinge to a large extent on what age Titania's Indian boy is. In this version, he's young enough for Titania to be carrying him everywhere. So, Oberon is seeking to take an infant away from the only mother figure he has...
Now, admittedly, Titania for all her love of the boy's mother, still stole him away from the boy's father, but she still clearly loves him.
However, the original text, as far as I can tell, gives no clue as to the boy's age. Is he old enough for Oberon to be jealous? His behaviour to Titania (making her fall in love with someone else) would seem to make a bit more sense in this regard - or at least to cast Oberon in a slightly better light.
This vindictiveness of Oberon's stands in odd contrast to his desire to help the young lovers (and also to bless Theseus's household on the day of his wedding).
Puck, who is cheerfully mischevious, is far more consistent in his approach to life. Indeed, I caught myself wondering if he deliberately found the wrong Athenian - certainly, it didn't distress him when he found out.
Oberon, in this production, has the feel of a Red Indian to him. Probably the hair style and something about his costume. He feels close to nature, far more so than Titania. When he talks about knowing a bank where the wild primrose grows, it feels very right.
I wasn't so keen on the children used for the other fairies - they felt rather static and emotionally neutral.
The 'rude mechanicals' and their play were excellent. Indeed, the best scene in the play was probably the last one where the wedding guests are watching the play, with the reaction of the guests nicely woven in; though when the actors danced a 'bergomask' - an Italian dance - what they actually did was a morris (Cotswold style - you really wanted to know that, didn't you...).
Overall, this was good production, although the scenes in the forest felt short compared with those at the end in the palace.
As always, the folklorist in me is intrigued by the man in the moon with his dog and his thornbush (a combination which also appears in The Tempest). I did a quick bit of hunting around (a lot of the links on Google are simply the same bit of text copied around), but there are apparently references to the thornbush as far back as 1157 and this reference places both dog and thornbush back in the reign of Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377) well before Shakespeare's time.
So, I can't tell you what the dog means, but he's certainly been around for a long time!
Maybe, if you use your imagination, you can see a man carrying a bundle of sticks with a dog chasing round his feet?