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Night’s Dream

Many of the outlier performances that I am analyzing contain some aspect of the real

world imposing itself on the play, radically separating these particular performances from

the rest of the production run. The production to which I will now turn, the Stratford

Festival’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1999, directed by Richard Monette, offers a

clear example of the outside world permeating the play. On 28 July, 1999, the Festival

Theatre was packed with a 94% capacity, and the performance of Dream seemed to end

as it had on all previous nights of the run. However, one audience member — “Peter” —

future wife. Records on this event are scarce, but it is clear that long before the 28 July

performance, Peter must have approached the theatre and requested permission to

propose to his girlfriend, Maggie, at the performance of Dream they were attending that

summer.

Theatre reviews usually mark only one particular performance. If the play

changes dramatically from the opening night or the designated press night (when most

reviewers attend) there will often be no public record of the modifications. The stage

manager’s prompt copy, on the other hand, will generally show a production’s

transformation over the entire run. Certainly if major edits or emendations are introduced,

the prompt copy will list those edits, occasionally making note of how or why the

production changed. But nightly hiccups and slight deviations from the scheduled course

of events will often only be noted in the stage manager’s show reports. Depending on the

stage manager, these reports might be highly detailed or exceedingly sparse. These notes

reflect the liveness of the event — its ability to change on a nightly basis — and chart the

history of any particular production. It is here that remarkable performances can be

found. Without show reports, a production is only knowable through its ideal state, what

the prompt copy says it should be, and in single performances, either through reviews of

a certain night or a video recording of one night’s performance. Because the engagement

of Peter and Maggie was a one-off event that occurred midway through Dream’s run, it was not noted in any stage reviews, and this added ending is absent from the stage

manager’s prompt copy. There are only three physical traces in the Stratford archives that

make note of this event: a stage manager’s note to the cast, a poem, and the stage

manager’s show report from that evening. But the three of them together demonstrate just

The proposal was the explicit subject of a letter from stage manager, Stephen M.

Grasset, to the rest of the company for that night’s performance. In it, Grasset outlines

how the marriage proposal will be staged. The letter is worth reproducing in full:

Dream Company,

Tonight is the proposal night.

Immediately following this evenings [sic] company bow Jordan, Seanna, and Juan

will recite a short verse to “intro” the event. At this same time those of you that do

not wish to be part of this, can exit as per the regular ending.

Those that want to stay are asked to move UR & UL, Fairies in the gutter are

asked to sit down on the third step.

Peter will enter from UC.

David & Jackie will go up aisle #7 to escort his girl friend to the stage.

Lighting will X-Cross fade [sic] into a nice cue on stage.

The proposal will take only a matter of a minute.

Once she says “I do” the company will exit and the houselights will come up.

Both Peter and his fiancee will also exit up centre.

If you have any questions, please ask me.

Thanks,

Stephen. (Grasset, “Dream Company”)3

It is clear from this letter that some forethought went into planning the proposal event,

both from the groom-to-be and from the Stratford Company.

The language of this note provides clues about how the scripted ending was

supplemented by the marriage proposal. The note suggests that the poem, spoken by cast

members, will “intro” the event. The word “event” indicates, of course, the proposal

itself. But by suggesting that the event has an introduction, the letter separates the

proposal from the play. It implies that the performance of the play was one event, while

Peter’s marriage proposal was another. Yet the very next line merges the two events into

a single overarching episode by stating that “those of you that do not wish to be part of

this, can exit as per the regular ending.” By suggesting that cast members can leave at the

“regular ending,” Grasset implies that the proposal is an “irregular ending.” To put it another way, this moment represents a different or an extended ending. Thus, the

proposal is not simply a separate event but rather an added section to the whole.

The production’s standard ending followed the text of Shakespeare’s play. All of

the final lines are accounted for, Oberon sings his closing song, and Puck bids the

audience good night. Furthermore, there was no doubling of characters or unusual casting

choices in this production. Later productions by the Stratford Company would double

Oberon and Theseus, and Titania and Hippolyta (2004) and cast a female Lysander and a

male Titania (2014). Director Richard Monette, on the other hand, set out to create a

production to compete with the much-beloved 1993 production starring Colm Feore and

Lucy Peacock. Reviewer Melissa Fox was quick to compare them, stating that “The

current production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream ... is quite good, even stacked up

against the delightful 1993 production with Lucy Peacock and the much-missed Colm

Feore as Titania and Oberon” (Fox, “Midsummer Night’s Dream”).

Of course, this production was not merely the written page come to life. The score

that ran throughout the staging: “Richard Monette uses this popular classic to showcase

his impish sense of humor, and his big-budget production provides strong visual appeal in

costuming, lighting and the theatricalized forest scenes. Melodic original music and

original songs create effective fantasy scenes to this highly-entertaining production”

(Raeburn, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”). Yet, for some critics, this was not enough to

wholly recommend the production:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream was effectively designed and competently acted,

though it had few surprises, apart from some of the comic business in the

Pyramus and Thisbe play-within-a-play. Brian Bedford gave the audience what it

came for with his enthusiastic Bottom-Pyramus, and Michael Therriault

performed hilariously as Flute-Thisbe. Juan Chioran’s Oberon looked suitably

dominant in his blue-feathered costume but neither he nor Seanna McKenna as

Titania could spark any fire into their conflicts. This Dream worked like a clever

machine without a soul. (Brady 269)

But the proposal night played differently from the rest of the run. It brought a new

dimension to the production, deepening the way that love was interpreted. Regardless of

whether or not the proposal was intended to reflect on the play itself, the nature of this

event alongside a play full of marriages insists that the actual proposal and fictional

marriages would be read against each other. Often such “happenings” — or unexpected

live events — are welcome additions for an audience. A marriage proposal at the

conclusion of a play about love seems like a perfect fit. It is entirely probable that the

request to stage the proposal was accepted because it helped reaffirm the theatre as a

place where love (both fictional and actual) flourishes, and because it would create a

Furthermore, because of its placement at the end of the performance, the staging of the

proposal is aligned with the ending of the play. For one night only, Dream had five

couples come together by the play’s end, not only four, with the promise of one wedding

still to come: Peter and Maggie’s.

The stage manager’s note also reveals that not all of the actors were required to

participate in this event. There is no information on whether any actors declined to

participate but it is probable that, because the proposal was a request from an outside

source, it had to be put before the cast to see if they would be a part of the event. Their

compliance was outside of the realm of the play (and perhaps their contracts). The

comment might suggest there was some initial hesitation on the part of the cast or crew

when the idea was presented to them. However, this remark could also simply recognize

that some of the actors would be tired from the evening on stage, especially those who

feature heavily in the final scene. Again, there is no way to determine who stayed or left

before the proposal, but it does insist that this extra ending has a formal separation from

the production.

There are a number of clear divisions created between the world of A Midsummer

Night’s Dream and that of Peter and Maggie’s engagement. Notably, the proposal

occurred after the curtain call, which seems to separate these two events. As noted earlier

with the productions of Hamlet and Merchant of Venice, the curtain call generally signals

the end of the narrative, but elements of the play can bleed through well past the curtain

call. Furthermore, while the production may have given cues to suggest that the play is

over, there were many elements built into the proposal which connected it back to the

First, the house lights had not yet been lit. Without the houselights, the audience

have not been given their silent cue to exit the theatre. Typically, the house lights will be

lit three times throughout any production: they will be on when the audience enters the

theatre before the play begins, they will turn on for the duration of the intermission, and,

finally, the houselights will be turned on once the production has fully ended. The cueing

of the houselights provides a clear signal to the audience that they are no longer bound by

the production.4 The absence of the houselights insists that even if some of the actors

leave the stage, the audience is asked to remain connected to the events in front of them.

More than this alone, the proposal was given its own lighting cues. The letter notes that

“Lighting will X-Cross fade into a nice cue on stage” (Grasset, “Dream Company”). By giving the proposal event its own stage lighting and scripted cues, the proposal edges

closer towards the world of the play, merging it with the performance.

The actual proposal itself contained a number of major connections to the world

of the play, especially in the poem created for the event, the second remnant from this

performance. Not only is the tone and language of the poem allied to that of the play, but

the characters who speak the poem — Oberon, Titania, and Puck — were clearly

deliberately chosen (or requested) to provide a magical setting. Using the fairy characters

helps unite the two worlds: the world of Athens in the play, and the real world of the

4 Martin Revermann notes the unlikely but occasional occurrence where audience members may not wait for their cue from the houselights: “Spectators may, to begin with, withhold from the actors their individual contribution to a curtain call by taking the opportunity to sneak out of the theatre at the beginning of the curtain call or well before its completion ... it sheds light on the power that an audience potentially wields over the actors at this particular stage” (197). However, even Revermann notes this is a rarity and often perceived in a negative light by the rest of the audience.

audience in Stratford, Ontario. The fairies are unconnected to either group and so can

serve as an intermediary without fully destroying the fourth wall. Puck has already

addressed the audience in his epilogue, showing that he is fully aware of the audience’s

existence, at least by the play’s end.

The poem was given the title “Verses For A Proposal,” and follows a simple

ABAB rhyme structure in iambic tetrameter. This irregular verse form might link the text

to the fairies, who also use non-pentameter verse, further merging the real world and the

play. But the lines themselves — especially the bride-to-be’s name which appears in the

final line — insist that there was little chance the audience would have mistook these

lines for Shakespeare’s. The poem does, however, encourage the audience to understand

that a part of the play (or a part of the world of the play) continues. The speaking

characters have stepped outside of their world in order to momentarily enter the

audience’s, or they have invited the audience into their world. Even if the poem’s

structure is not Shakespeare’s, the style and theme resonate with the play and the lines are

not out of character for these three fairies. Indeed, Puck’s opening word “gentles” clearly

mimics his own address to the audience moments before. The poem was as follows:

Puck: Gentles,

Before you walk into the night

Young Cupid has one more delight. *cue for Peter?

Titania: A couple who first courted here

Have come to Stratford every year.

Oberon: Tonight they’ve seen her favourite play

And he has something he must say

In calling Maggie La Branche? to the stage. (“Verses for A Proposal”)

The poem harkens back to the play in a number of ways, and its language insists that this

proposal is a continuation of the world of the play.

Echoing Puck’s epilogue through the word “Gentles” maintains that the figure on

stage is still Puck and not actor Jordan Pettle, despite the fact that he has completed his

curtain call. Puck’s second line, “Before you walk into the night” (2), further supports the

notion that the audience is not yet released from the production, showing a determined

connection between this proposal and the play. His final line states that, “Young Cupid

has one more delight” (3). In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cupid is referenced eight

times. This specific allusion to Cupid most likely harkens back to Oberon’s account in

2.1 of Cupid’s arrow missing and hitting a flower that pulses with love’s wound

(2.1.155–174). These lines, with their mention of “the imperial vot’ress” who, unstruck

by Cupid’s arrow, “passèd on, / In maiden meditation, fancy free,” are often glossed as a

potential allusion to Queen Elizabeth I. It has even been suggested that they were written

to flatter her. In his edition of the play, R. A. Foakes suggests that, “In political accounts

of the play Oberon’s allusion to … an ‘imperial votaress’ … no doubt may be understood

as a complimentary allusion to Queen Elizabeth” (44). Since these lines already reference

a world beyond the play, the love potion (or the flower) might be understood to exist both

inside and outside of the play. Titania’s next line likewise connects the fantasy world to

that of the festival, merging the fictional and the real. The final lines, calling Maggie to

the stage, effectively ask her to fully enter the world of the play. The question mark

beside her last name suggests that the poem was written by someone in the company

rather than her fiancé, and shows the theatre’s involvement in staging this event. There

all to say that the lines of the poem and the speakers chosen for the poem insist that the

proposal is an extension of the play’s world. It is a new ending. It takes two individuals

from the audience and, through the (theatrical) magic of Oberon and his fairies, transports

them into the world of the play.

This transition is made clear by the couple’s exit off stage. The stage manger’s

note states that Peter and his fiancée Maggie will “exit upstage,” rather than return to the

audience. Having the two lovers exit with the cast suggests they have become a part of

the world of the play. Instead of returning to the audience, through their active presence

on the stage they have become akin to the players, while the proposal has become play-

like. The proposal itself was performative since the poem was written ahead of time and

it is probable that the actors rehearsed it. One can presume that the would-be groom

would have also rehearsed his proposal speech. So while this was the first (and last) time

that this event was staged, the proposal has a number of notable performance qualities.

What does a real marriage (or a proposal) add to the experience of watching

Dream? The play focuses on a few different kinds of love: matches made from the

subjection of one partner to another (both Oberon and Titania, and Theseus and

Hippolyta), the match made by means of the drug, love-in-idleness (which Demetrius

remains under the effects of), and the match of true love (Hermia and Lysander). Each of

these matches is tested to some extent throughout the play. The marriages that are made

(and remade) all occur at the very end. Adding an actual marriage proposal makes the

magic seem as though it has seeped out of the play and into the real world, as though

Peter was inspired by the play and the fairies to propose. In this production, the love

potion spreads out from the confines of the stage and into the audience’s seats. It is an

It is possible that the magic of the play imparts upon the audience a similar kind

of magic. However, the reality of the proposal might also accentuate the artifice of the

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