‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ – All The World Is A Stage Project

This video is part of the ‘All the World is a Stage’ project, initiated by Wysinfo in order to encourage international cooperation through culture.

To watch other performances that are part of this project, follow this link
Wysinfo – ‘All the World is a Stage Project’ Front Page.

Puck’s Monologue from ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ – By William Shakespeare
Performed by David Milton Jones

Full text of  the monologue

If we shadows have offended, 
Think but this, and all is mended,
That you have but slumbered here....


While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend:
If you pardon, we will mend:
And, as I am an honest Puck,
If we have unearned luck
Now to ‘scape the serpent’s tongue,
We will make amends ere long;
Else the Puck a liar call;
So, good night unto you all.
Give me your hands, if we be friends,
And Robin shall restore amends. 

About the monologue

Midsummer Night’s Dream  – is a romantic comedy written in 1595/6 by William Shakespeare. It is one of his most popular plays performed around the world. The play takes place in a forest beside Athens on a summer night under the moon light. It portrays the events around the marriage of Theseus, the Duke of Athens, to Hippolyta the former queen of the Amazons. The play contains three interconnected stories of four young Athenians that are interrelated with complicated love relationships, of fairies that live in the forest and of six amateur actors who are controlled and manipulated by the fairies.

Puck, the character in the video (also called ‘Robin Good fellow’) is from the fairies kingdom. He is a naughty fellow full with plots and tricks, most of which are a result of his joyfulness and his affection for human beings. The video and the text above contain his last monologue that ends the play.

Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing circa 1786 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by Alfred A. de Pass in memory of his wife Ethel 1910 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N02686
Oberon, Titania and Puck with Fairies Dancing circa 1786 William Blake 1757-1827 Presented by Alfred A. de Pass in memory of his wife Ethel 1910 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N02686

About the author

William Shakespeare (1564 – 1616) was a poet, playwright and actor born in Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire England, and is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language. His work consists of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems and more. His plays, translated into most languages, are studied and performed widely all over the world.

Shakespeare wrote most of his known work between 1589 and 1613. His early plays were primarily comedies and historical plays, and regarded as some of the best work ever written in these genres. Later he focused more on tragedies, among them Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. In his last years he wrote tragicomedies and collaborated with other playwrights.

 

About the location

The video above was recorded in Rosh-Pina, a small town in the upper Galilee in the north of Israel. The town is located in an important junction that, in ancient periods, connected Lebanon in the north to Tiberias and the Jordan valley in the south, Damascus and the Golan Heights in the east, and Safed (Tzfat) in the west. Running beside the town is the Waddi of the Rosh-Pina stream with magnificent old olive trees growing along the banks.

The city was created in 1882 as an agricultural village, due to the relatively fertile land around it. However, owing to it’s location and topographical virtues, there has been a shift and today it serves more as a tourist center. Among other attractions Rosh-Pina sits on the slopes of the mountains facing the Jordan valley and the Golan heights, and lies under a bird migration path, enabling enthusiast to follow flocks of migratory birds during their annual journey.