After two successfully staged Shakespeare plays in recent years, 20 accadis ISB Theater Club students brought Shakespeare’s comedy "A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on stage at the end of May. The young actors had rehearsed almost daily after class with their teachers Bonnie Friedmann and Daniel Elliott and supported by the Parent Teacher Association (PTA).
Impressive light show
The actors from the Grade 4 to 7 presented the comedy in Shakespearean English. They also impressed the audience with a stage show with changing lighting, a soap bubble and fog machine.
Enchanted stage design
Creativity also had no boundaries when it came to costumes. With the help of parents and teachers, the actors had made homemade tunics and Roman sandals. Accessories such as crowns, flowers, daggers and a donkey mask as well as ivy vines and a scenery of ancient Athens completed the mythical-mystical stage.
Who loves whom?
The young men Demetrius and Lysander as well as the women Hermia and Helena are at the center of the Shakespearean comedy. In the Athenian forest, they become victims of a dispute between the fairy king Oberon and the fairy queen Titania. After their quarrel, Oberon drips enchanted nectar on the eyes of the sleeping Titania. Through the nectar, she will fall in love with the first being she sees after waking up. Puck, Oberon's servant, is supposed to also drip nectar into Demetrius’ eyes, who is also sleeping in the woods. Puck confuses him with Lysander and an amusing game about love begins.
With his comedy set in the May days before Walpugis Night, Shakespeare thematizes the popular beliefs of his time, which combined "Walpurgis Night" with magic events.