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Shakespeare is best known fior his historical tragedieds and romances. 'Midsummer Night's Dream' stands out as an almost surealistic play. The chief low comic character, Bottom, wakes up to find that he has been transformed through magic while asleep into a part-donkey. The Queen of the Fairies, Titania, also as a result of magic, falls in love with him, and there is a wonderful scene where we seen Titania stroking his face and ears to her delight, his delight, and everyone else's delight. It is the sort of play that might well have appealed to children. The point of the scene involving Bottom and Titania in Shakespeare, of course, is the strange combination of grossness (there is a pun on Bottom's name of course) with delicacy (the fairy queen). The tradition behind these irrational, dream-like transformations goes back to Ovid, the classical poet of "The Metamorphoses", a work in which all sorts of transformations occur--i.e., human beings being turned into animals, trees, flowers, and the like.There are many small parts for children in "asyou like it". The most important is Puck (Robin Goodfellow) who is usually played as an elf-like character. The most famous Puck was Mickey Rooney in a 1930s movie production.
English poet and playwright William Shakespeare is generally considered to be the greatest writer in the English language and perhaps the most important dramatist. He played a major role in the development of the English language. A vast number of modern words and phrases first appeared in his 38 known plays in addition to 2 long narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems. He was born and raised in Stratford-upon-Avon. There are lots of speculations about Shakespeare's childhood in Stratford-upon-Avon, but there are no documentable facts beyond his baptism. We know that his father, John Shakespeare, was a glover and Alderman from Snitterfield and the family lived in comfortable circumstances. His mother was Mary Arden, the daughter of an affluent landowning family. William was the eldest surviving son. We assume that the young William went to the local grammar school--the King Edward VI Grammar School in Stratford. King Edward was known for supporting education. Historians believe that the young William almost certainly was educated there. Given his father's status in the community and his literary accomplishments, he clearly had an education and the local grammar is the only place that he would have gotten his education. William lived close to the school and there were no other schools in that Warwickshire town. Shakesperian scholars speculate as to John's loss of possition as Alderman. Some believe it was because of Catholic sympathies and this would have significantly colored William's prospects. Our first documented knowledge of Shakespeare concerns his marriage to Anne Hathaway and his early career in London in connection with the theatre. He had three children, but these stayed behind with his wife in Stratford while Shakespeare lived a single life in London. Ironically, the great writer made no provision for his daughter's education. HBC has done some work on his plays in our Renaissance drama section.
The chief low comic character, Bottom, wakes up to find that he has been transformed through magic while asleep into a part-donkey. The Queen of the Fairies, Titania, also as a result of magic, falls in love with him,
The donkey head was used in a Shakespeare play. And there is a wonderful scene where we seen Titania stroking his face and ears to her delight, his delight, and everyone else's delight. It is the sort of play that might well have appealed to children. But I do not understand why the boy with the donkey head is on the floor with his legs around a pole. The point of the scene involving Bottom and Titania in Shakespeare, of course, is the strange combination of grossness (there is a pun on Bottom's name of course) with delicacy (the fairy queen). The tradition behind these irrational, dream-like transformations goes back to Ovid, the classical poet of "The Metamorphoses", a work in which all sorts of transformations occur--i.e., human beings being turned into animals, trees, flowers, and the like. There are also important references to moonlight.
There are many small parts for children in "Midsummer night's dream". The most important is Puck (Robin Goodfellow) who is usually played as an elf-like character. The most famous Puck was Mickey Rooney in a 1930s movie production.
There are many film versions of 'Midsummer's Night's Dream'.
Shakespearrian plays are difficult for younger children to do. We do note British preparatory schools attempting them, usually the historical tragedies. More commonly we note bits and pieces of Shakes[eare's plays appearing in children's plays. We notice a number of examples of this in the school plays German children staged. Drama was a popular activity in German schools and teachers put together imaginative productionsd wsith all sorts of different characters to give large numbers of children a chance to perform and to appeal to a child's gift of fancy. There was a lot to chose from in 'Midsummer night's dream'. We note a character with a donkey head in one German production. The play does not seem to incorporate the Bottom character, but we see the man eith the donkey head. We also note another unknown stage production with a boy sitting on the crescent moon with stars in the background might also be from a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" because there are important references to moonlight. The might conceivably be the Puck character.
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