The important thing to understand about this project is that it’s creator doesn’t get enough sleep. Once you are able to contextualize what I’ve created as the sleep deprived ravings of an existentially depressed high school student, you get a better understanding of what’s really going on. I wanted everyone to be able to share in the comfortingly fluid existence of dreams that I spend so little time in, and to realize that, as far as any of us know, dreams are just as real as reality is. I also wanted to confront the notion that that which is real should take precedence, and that the creations of minds aren’t as important as the creations of hands. I feel that this notion has left our society dreary and unimaginative, and I, for one, don’t like it. I have spent too many of my best moments locked away inside my own head to believe that it is bad to simply dream. So here I am, trying desperately to communicate an incommunicable message, a message that, when described by words loses its true meaning. The music does a better job than words ever could. Listen to it, and I hope you’ll hear a glimpse of a glimmer of the raw feelings I wish to share with you.
Special thanks to Zach Goldman, Theo Devinney, and Benjamin Colton for peer review, and to Victor Wall, Theo Devinney, and Siggy Alden for working to develop the same adaptation and coordinating score elements.
So without further ado,
Ian Smith Holt Senior Seminar Colon The Bard 10 December, 2019
A Quest to Adapt Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream Into a Bard Text That Subverts the Capitalist-Realist Propaganda Paradigm
One of the central themes of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is the blurred line between dreams and reality. However, because that theme is interspersed with so many others, no lasting statement is made about humanity, and no assumptions of the viewer are necessarily questioned. Basically, it is a gag, meant to allow for humorous lines, such as Robin Goodfellow’s final speech (Shakespeare 5.1.440). A Midsummer Night’s Dream also does not attempt to reinforce the cultural prerogatives of the time in which it was made. Because it fails to do one of these two things, A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not a Bard text. On the other hand, the score I have created, while not a bard text by itself (as it is not a work that uses language), is meant to accompany a film adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that would be a bard text, were it created. This adaptation would take the theme of dreams versus reality and would make it fundamental to the work. It would be impossible to view without questioning how we really tell the difference between the material world, and the constructions of the mind. This would be a direct critique of the part of our culture that tells us that what is real is real, and what isn’t isn’t. Because this adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream would also meet all other requirements in the definition of a bard text (such as using language, being artistic, and inviting audience engagement) its creators, Theo Devinney, Viktor Wall, Ian Smith, and Sigourney Dubois Alden, would be, by definition, bards. To begin, we must break down why the original Shakespeare play is not a bard text, even though it was created by a bard (in fact THE bard). A Midsummer Night’s Dream, like all Shakespeare plays, is a work of art created through language. It also does invite audience engagement, through enjoyment and consideration of the themes involved. However, it fails to critique or change culture, Preserve history, or support the sociopolitical status quo. Beginning with preserving history, while it is set in ancient Athens, A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not depict it in a historically accurate manner, in fact it does not even attempt to. The play also fails to critique or support culture, as it fails to comment on the lives of the people watching it in any significant way. The characters do not have the emotional depth necessary to make a statement about human emotion and interaction, in fact most of them are defined by only one aspect of their personality. For the four lovers, this aspect is their romantic interest. For the rude mechanicals, this aspect is their comical inability to act and perform. For Robin Goodfellow, it is simply his mischievousness. The one dimensionality of these characters does not allow them to make statements about the lives of real, inherently multidimensional people. A Midsummer Night’s Dream also does not make any statements about the larger, less personal cultural tropes that it touches on, specifically royalty and the patriarchy. If A Midsummer Night’s Dream wanted to either support or discredit the monarchical system of England in the 1600s, it would need to portray the royal characters in the play, namely Theseus, Hippolyta, Oberon, and Titania, as either in the right or in the wrong. It does not present any of these characters in a positive or negative light, and mostly uses them as plot devices to further the stories of the other characters. Because A Midsummer Night’s Dream does not take a stance for or against the royal characters in the story, it cannot be commenting in a meaningful way on the English monarchy. The plot of the play also hinges on the patriarchy. The central conflict of the play occurs because Hermia’s father Egeus has control over her, and can force her to marry a suitor that he deems worthy (Shakespeare 1.1.23). Although on the surface, this seems to be a statement against the patriarchy, its meaning is taken away by the fact that, by the end of the play, the conflict is also solved within the patriarchal structure, as Theseus allows Hermia and Lysander to marry, with no Protest from Egeus(Shakespeare 4.1.184). A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not making any sort of statement on the English patriarchy because the patriarchy has no positive or negative outcome on the story. With the lack of both personal and political meaning in the play, it becomes clear that A Midsummer Night’s Dream is not a bard text, despite the fact that its author is a well renowned bard. In order to turn A Midsummer Night’s Dream into a bard text, it must either critique culture, preserve history, or maintain the sociopolitical status quo. The adaptation for which I have composed a score is intended for will go the route of critiquing culture. Specifically, it will critique the idea of a clear distinction between dreams and reality. In our modern culture, as well as in the time of Shakespeare, the attempt by society to enforce and solidify this distinction results in at worst, social isolation of those who seek to accept dreams as reality, to, at worst, the removal of the freedoms of those people in mental health institutions, subsequently frightening the rest of the population into realist submission. This attitude toward reality suppresses the imaginations of the majority of the population, thus allowing the capitalist system to run through an endless stream of workers who are literally incapable of dreaming of a better life. This cultural attitude, dubbed the capitalist-realist propaganda paradigm, is insidious in our modern society. It convinces us we should devalue dreams, and by extension the surreal, which plays directly into the hands of the wealthiest and most powerful members of our society, who are happy to prop themselves up on the backs of workers who are incapable of imagining any other system. A work, like our adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, that subverts the clear distinction between dream and reality, is thus subversive to this paradigm, and therefore subverts the core of capitalist culture. But how does our adaptation force the audience to consider the distinction between dreams and reality? One way is by developing this theme where it already exists. For example, a recurring motif called Moondust is used to emphasize the dreamlike qualities of a scene. This motif does not occur until act 2 scene 2, when the first person actually falls asleep on stage, however it appears throughout the adaptation after that point, even at times where it appears that everyone is awake (Shakespeare 2.2.32). It also plays once the film has ended, after it appears that all action has ceased, in order to give one last reminder to the viewer that they can never be certain what’s real. On the directorial side, the existing dream elements are developed through the introduction of visual surreality. For example, in the final scene, when Robin Goodfellow is explaining to the audience to think of the entire experience as a dream, the Athenian walls around him melt away and are replaced with natural plant life, which then grows and reforms back into the city of Athens (Shakespeare 5.1.440). This visual, far from being symbolic, is meant specifically to not make sense, thus emphasizing Robin’s speech about how it was all a dream. Another way in which the line between dreams and reality is blurred in our adaptation involves the actions of human beings. Because of the modern variety of media we consume, subversion of physical laws is mundane to us. However, our modern media fail to represent subversion of expectations of human behavior. Because of our lack of exposure, manipulating human behavior instantly unsettles viewers, and appears to be even more nonsensical, despite the fact that nothing impossible is happening. In our adaptation, one of the main ways we subvert behavioral expectations is by removing the reactions of characters to events. For example, when Titania summons her 4 fairies Mote, Cobweb, Peaseblossom, and Mustardseed, they form from their titular item into creatures one might find in a horror film: a swarm of insects, a shambling mass of cobwebs, and two bug like creature constructed from plants (Shakespeare 4.1.1). The two main characters in that scene, Titania and Bottom, do not acknowledge that these characters are in any way disgusting or frightening, and instead converse with them, despite the fact that they can only respond with buzzing or groaning. Scenes like this one increase the dreamlike qualities of the adaptation by changing and manipulating human behavior, an aspect of life whose constancy we are accustomed to. Despite these complicated manipulations of the world around the viewer, dreams are one of the few times in which the world within us is affected as well. In dreams, our emotions are often not what we expect them to be, as they don’t fit the situation we are perceiving. Sometimes a dream that should be a nightmare based on its content makes us happy, while other times a light hearted dream leaves us shivering with fear. The latter aspect is the focus of another two motifs in the score of our adaptation: Deception, and Forebode. These motifs are the themes of the character Robin Goodfellow, also known as Puck. In the original text, Puck is a fun loving fairy who plays mostly harmless pranks on the other characters, and because the plot of the play is unchanged, he factually still is. However, his motifs are both written in the key of C# minor. This key is used in pieces such as Listz’s Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 and Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, pieces meant to evoke emotions of sorrow or fear. By accompanying the character Puck with a piece that evokes emotions contrary to his actions, the adaptations creates the illusion that one’s emotions do not line up with reality, thus increasing the feeling of surreality presented to the audience. This Adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream builds on the existing dream like aspects created by Shakespeare, while also introducing subversion of expectations of human behavior, and contradictions between the emotions evoked in the viewer and the actual plot. All of these aspects of the adaptation make it impossible to watch without truly questioning how we know what is real and what isn’t, and why that matters so much to us. By forcing that consideration, our adaptation critiques the aspect of our culture that tells us that the division between dream and reality is solid, and must not be tested. Unlike the original Shakespeare play, this adaptation should be considered a Bard text, because it meets the one criteria that the original lacked: its commentary, in some manner, on culture or politics. Were this text actually created, it is clear that its four creators would qualify as bards, and should live on in the history books as great adapters of, and thus successors to, Shakespeare.
References
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A Mowat, and Paul Werstine. A Midsummer Night's Dream. New York: Washington Square Press, 1993. Print