A Midsummer Night's Dream

The tiring house facade in an Elizabethan public playhouse would have provided a background ornate, formal and symmetrical enough to suggest a ducal palace to any contemporary spectator concerned about location, as would the hall screen in one of the great houses postulated as the play's original venue by supporters of the theory that it was first staged as part of a private marriage ceremony. 1.1 Theseus, duke of Athens, is planning the festivities for his upcoming wedding to the newly captured Amazon, Hippolyta. THESEUS: Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour OF all the commentators on Shakespeare, perhaps the oddest is Ulrich Braker, a Swiss weaver, who in 1780 finished writing his thoughts on the plays under the title A Few Words about William Shakespeare's Play by a poor ignorant citizen of the world who had the good fortune to read him. Thanks, good Egeus. What's the news with thee? When Samuel Pepys saw A Midsummer Night's Dream in September 1662, he remarked that he had never seen it before - 'nor shall ever again, for it is the most insipid ridiculous play that ever I saw in my life'. Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour