Hermia loves Lysander. But she is promised to Demetrius.

Lysander and Hermia decide to meet in the woods and get married.

But Helena, who loves Demetrius, finds out about the lover’s plan and tells him in her desperation for his affection. An amateur theatre troupe rehearses a play, a love story, for a big upcoming event in the town.

They make plans to rehearse the next night in secret in the woods, so the show will be a surprise to all.

Meet a warring couple from a fairy world - Oberon and Titania.

He accuses her of infidelity and she accuses him of exaggerating and being possessive.

Tired of her ways, Oberon talks to Puck, his aid and slave- Puck is to find a purple flower that had been struck by Cupid's arrow.

The juice of it, if put upon someone's eyes, will make that person fall in love with the next person that he or she sees.

Oberon wants to put it on Titania's eyes & teach her a lesson- he hopes that when she wakes up she would see a bear or lion or some other animal, which she will immediately fall madly in love with.

Puck returns with the juice. It is poured on her eyes. 

The lovers are in the forest too by now, chasing and running away from one another.

Demtrius has come in looking for Hermia and Helena has followed Demetrius.

Meanwhile, Lysander and Hermia rest awhile.

Mistaking Lysander for Demetrius and taking pity on Helena, Puck hopes to resolve this messy foursome and pours some juice on Lysanders eyes.

But when Lysander wakes, he sees Helena first and has a change of heart adding to the confusion. He chases Helena and leaves Hermia behind.

The theatre troupe debates roles, discusses and fights over each other’s lines and characters.

Puck watches them play terribly and decides to have some fun.

He transforms Bottom, into a half-donkey.

Bottom is unaware and comes upon Titania who wakes up, looks at this donkey, and falls in love with him.

He is confused but quite enamoured by Titania. They make love.

The lovers re-enter & Demetrius falls asleep for a moment, exhausted from chasing Hermia.

Puck aims to set things right and pours some of the juice on Demetrius eyes.

But when Demetrius spots Helena, both the men woo her and Hermia is abandoned.

It leads to big chaotic fight. Seeing no way out, Oberon decides that they must all be put back to sleep in order to meet their rightful lovers and stop the madness. Puck obliges.

The theatre troupe is now readying in a panic for their show in front of the town, but Bottom, one of the main actors isn't there yet.

He arrives at the last moment and they scramble onto stage.

The players perform the love story, a tragic tale of Peramus & Thesbe

Of shadows, love and fickle dreams.

Director’s quote:

“We cannot know whose dream this is..........

Perhaps, Quince dreamt of Titania, and Titania imagined lovers, while lovers dreamt of Puck, and Puck conjured up a donkey.

In dreams there are no anchors; images and sounds waft in and out of the mind. Often becoming so real, so under the skin that a dreamer could fall or fly or even remain suspended mid-air, all the while cocooned in the warmth of a blanket.

Inspired by the bizarre and extraordinary quality of a human dream, The Company Theatre presents an ensemble of 16 dancers, actors, singers and musicians, all weaving together a landscape of Shakespeare’s fantastical vision, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

Bodies and voices drift from real to unreal, moving like a daze or even a possession might move.

Sometimes slowly and sometimes suddenly, the performers create and attempt to transport the

audience into other realms of experience, led by song, words, music and dance.

The show was originally commissioned by Kham Theatre in Taipei, Taiwan where it opened in August 2016.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the most performed play of Shakespeare. It has also been played in many different art forms like ballet, opera, contemporary performance forms, and of course film and theatre. In our version, we decided to depict the three worlds within this play in three different forms: The Lovers do not talk at all. They explore their journeys through contemporary dance, movement and gesture. The actors talk, but they talk in Gibberish that has a semblance to Hindi. The fairies who communicate operatically through song. All of this is set to original musical score using both western and Indian compositions.

As for the play’s form, and as usual, we do not play this straight, and have turned Shakespeare’s script on its head.

We play around with chronology of events in the play. We render key scenes in song and dance. Sometimes we have introduced scenes that don’t exist in the play. We improvise a lot and also keep it audience-interactive. Most of all, we have dared to jump into experimenting with Western Electronic Music with a lot of layering, sampling, looping and mixing. And it’s live!”

Playwright: Shakespeare

Language/s: Gibberish

Duration: 110 mins

Interval: No

Director of the play: Atul Kumar

Name of theatre group: The Company Theatre