Shakespeare's Dream, in this time of global threats that weigh heavily on our unique geographical coordinates, reminds us that the theatre must dream.
His Midsummer Night's Dream offers us the illusions we crave: love, laughter, mockery, intrigues, the natural and the supernatural. In this play, the world of magic and fantastic events intertwines and merges with the real lives of our characters, exploring the boundaries between these two worlds by employing elements of dreams, fantasy, and art. The lines between dream and reality, between the real and the imaginary, are fluid, and their interplay creates an intriguing dynamic that highlights the importance of these elements in our lives, crafting a complex and often fantastical image of human existence.
We recognize A Midsummer Night's Dream as an escape route that allows us to evade unrelenting reality and finally rest in the dreamlike. It becomes our secret passage to freedom—a proverbial emergency exit leading to a Utopia that, given our current state of affairs, has been denied to us.
Thus, the enchanted forest in the play becomes, for us, the theatre itself. The theatre gives us a space, time, and opportunity for this escape from the material world. A place where transformations are legitimate and expected, a place that creates and articulates that reality by abandoning reality each night. Or so we believe. That fleeting moment in which drama unfolds—whether it lasts two hours, four days, or merely one night—is when different planes of existence unite. The wedding at the beginning of the play mirrors the wedding at the end, and in between lies the space of unfulfilled desires. Thus, the theatre becomes a space of unfulfilled desires, of dreamt images. This relative treatment of time ("The wedding hour" is announced in the first scene to be four days away but takes place in just one night) is a defining feature of the play. It points to dual perceptions, the existence of different layers of reality. The question is: which governs which? That's why the same actors play Theseus and Oberon, Hippolyta and Titania, Philostrate and Puck, the fairies and the court... But who is dreaming of whom? Or is it just a matter of different perspectives? If so, it's undeniable that everyone dreams of everyone else, and it's clear that everyone lives better in their dreams than in their waking life. As a gathering place, theatre is offered to those who desire it, just as Titania offers herself to the donkey.
That's why, during rehearsals, we heard echoes of Pirandello, Terence, Ovid, and even Beckett. Why was that? Because the theme is the absurdity of existence. Shakespeare already asserted this: reality is irreparable, just like Beckett. While Beckett, through his literature, seeks out spaces beyond death, Shakespeare flees to the cosmos. He revolves around the moon.
Only the laborers, our craftsmen, remain the same. With tough hands and the same mindset, whether in the forest or court. But even they have another face—a performance. They, too, strive and wish to be someone else. Their play within a play, that well-known Shakespearean motif, amplifies the reality of theatrical illusion by breaking it. They, the only artists within the story, create an additional dimension within the already fantastical world of the play. The craftsmen's performance highlights the power of art to shape and reinterpret reality, emphasizing the absurdity of human relationships and emotions.
The fact that the craftsmen and workers do not partake in the dreams of the courtly and fairy worlds is a consequence of their historical role in participating only in collective dreams. Historically, they have been manipulated by various forms of "real" politics. Whenever the workers began to dream, someone interrupted them and planted a donkey's head on them.
Today, A Midsummer Night's Dream is highly relevant because its political message can be summed up in one sentence: Stop the world; I want to get off. Shakespeare offers us an entry into an intellectual oasis, a different mental space. We return, just as in the play, to the beginning, and we can say—he teaches us how to escape—into art, into the active creation and shaping of our own reality, into the theatre.
Željka Udovičić Pleština
AWARDS:
The "Golden Studio" Award by Jutarnji List for Best Theatre Production of the Season.