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    A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play on Shakespeare
    Unavailable
    A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play on Shakespeare
    Unavailable
    A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play on Shakespeare
    Audiobook16 minutes

    A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play on Shakespeare

    Written by Luke Daniel Paiva

    Narrated by Henrietta Meire

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Come along as four young adventurers go exploring in a magical meadow, only to find out that there is more mischief afoot in this Fairy Wood than they might have expected. Hilarious mayhem abounds in this introduction to Shakespeare's classic comedy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDreamscape Media Audio
    Release dateApr 30, 2018
    ISBN9781520097718
    Unavailable
    A Midsummer Night's Dream: A Play on Shakespeare
    Author

    Luke Daniel Paiva

    Luke Daniel Paiva, M. Ed., is a teacher and a children's author. A lover of Shakespeare, he appreciates the bard's clever observations about people and his ability to subtly (or not so subtly) mix them with humor. He lives with his wife and two boys in Franklin, Tennessee.

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    Reviews for A Midsummer Night's Dream

    4/5

    3,936 ratings65 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      My favorite Shakespearean comedy, a miracle.
    • 4/5
      " The course of true love never did run smooth."This is one of Shakespeare's most performed comedies and as such probably one of his best known. Consequently I'm not going to going to say anything about the plot. I personally studied this whilst at school as part of an English Literature course and despite my callow years I remember enjoying. However, I haven't read it since.Now, far too many decades later, I read Bernard Cornwell's novel 'Fools and Mortals' which centres around a speculative and fictional première of the play. Having really enjoyed reading that book decided to revisit the original. Once again I found it a highly enjoyable read which made me smile and a piece of true genius.
    • 3/5
      I've been meaning to catch up on various Shakespeare plays that "everyone" has read, and after finishing a book and having no immediate plans for what to read next, A Midsummer Night's Dream was conveniently waiting for me on my Kindle.In short, I didn't really like reading it much. I can see how it would probably work much better on stage, but read as a book it didn't really do much for me.If I ever get the opportunity to see it on stage I probably will, and I'll be prepared to be pleasantly surprised at how well it can work as a play.That said, I do enjoy poems, and I found the lyrical nature of the dialogue, the rhythm and the rhyme, to be quite fun. But as a story I just didn't really appreciate it as much as I had expected.
    • 5/5
      Read it in high school. Loved it, it was funny
    • 4/5
      A reasonably mild edition of a great play, but one that will be eminently suitable for highschool students and actors.
    • 5/5
      Perfect comedy.
    • 4/5
      Lyrical and mesmerizing! I got a dramatized audio copy of this book. It really brings this story to life!

      A very different love story for the ages. Couplings, love triangles, love quads, and love chases. It is all here. Thank you fantasy forest for all this wonderful chaos. Some parts a whimsical, others near tragic, some comedy. You never know what the next scene will hold.

      When just listening to this, it can take a bit to follow the story at first. I had no idea who anyone was and names are not mentioned enough to quickly catch on. The only indication to the setting is the sounds you here. It really is just like listening to a play. They even have a full cast for the audio so each character is voiced by someone new. While it makes it far more enjoyable it just made things take a little longer.

      I finally got to learn where several famous quotes and expressions came from. Hearing certain lines brought a smile to my face. Now I just need to read the print version of this book so I can be sure I didn't miss anything. I now have a mental soundtrack to go with it.
    • 4/5
      ** spoiler alert ** This is a very dramatic lovestory about two men, one named Demetrius, one named Lysander, and two girls, one named Helena, and one named Hermia. Hermia loves Lysander, and wants to marry him, even though her father doesn't like him and wants her to marry Demetrius. Helena loves Demetrus, but is jealous of Hermia because he loves her and not Helena. The fairies cast chaotic love spells that cause much trouble, as well as trouble for the fairies, not just Lysander and Demetrius and Helena and Hermia.
    • 5/5
      It's no Twelfth Night (my favorite comedy), but it's still one of Shakespeare's better plays. I especially laughed at the 4 lovers' tendencies to follow each other around like puppydogs. I was interested to notice a difference in the speech between the mechanicals and everyone else (fairies, noblemen/women). In their everyday speech, the mechanicals did not use pentameter, while everyone else did.
    • 4/5
      I like teaching A Midsummer Night's Dream to the 8th graders because a lot of it is written in prose (plain language instead of poetry) so it's easy to read. It also keeps the students' attention because it is full of love spells and people falling in love with the wrong people. It's kind of like a soap opera... and it's FUNNY!!
    • 4/5
      I wish I could have been more fair with my grade for this book. The concept of condensing and rewording Shakespeare's plays into a format that a much younger audience could understand is certainly valuable. This series serves the laudable purpose of introducing the Bard to an elementary age audience, the benefit of which is an even earlier exposure to good literature. I will say that this would be a middle school audience would be too old for this book as they would be ready for the real thing, or at least an unabridged translation. I would also add that the book, understandably so, didn't deal very much in nuance, or interpretations. I know that the main action in the story centers upon the young lovers in the forest, and Titania and her being bewitched to fall for Bottom by Oberon's machinations, however, there are glaring thematic omissions. The biggest of these missteps would have to be the (author's? editors?) decision not to focus upon the forest itself, specifically the fact that this isn't an ordinary forest, but rather a magical realm of fae beings. Instead of presenting the woods as being a separate world (Shakespeare's intent) its presentation was rather mundane. Furthermore, there is something to be said about promoting Puck. In this version, Puck is presented as mixing up the lovers due to carelessness rather than out of the agency of mischief. Still, the book was solid and I would recommend it to elementary classes.
    • 5/5
      Every read of this classic reveals another tongue in cheek pun. This humorous comedy of errors deals with love, romance, fairies in an enchanted forest, a traveling actors' troupe that passes itself as professional, but offers comic relief, mistaken identity, and of course parents at the crux who will not let true love have its way. Just a simple, straightforward Shakespearean tale. Enjoy!
    • 5/5
      I love sharing Shakespeare with my 5 year old. This is a very good children's version of one of my favorites. She loved it and was scolding Puck for being such a bad boy!
    • 4/5
      "If we shadows have offended,/Thing but this--and all is mended--/That you have but slumber'd 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'm 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"

      By ending the play with this quote, Shakespeare seems to leave it for us to decide whether the events that occurred in the woods, or if they were dreams. Perhaps this play is what inspired Louis Carroll and Frank L. Baum to do the same in their famous stories.

      Everything that happens in the woods is somewhat confusing--for the characters at least. We know more-or-less what is going on, being party to Puck and Oberon's doings, but, as will sometimes happen in a dream, the characters are buffeted by abrupt changes to themselves, and those they care about. One moment Demetrius is cruel to Helena, the next he loves her. At one time Lysander loves Hermia, then claims to despise her, then back again. No wonder the characters were confused. These kind of character changes only happen in dreams, or if a person is crazy.

      Every character in the play is victim to Oberon's whims, including Puck, and every character is the subject of Puck's gaffe or impishness. Oberon wants Titania's changeling. A child to whom she is attached because she was friends with his mother, and so Oberon devises a cruel game to trick Titania into giving the child to him. Along the way he decides to help Helena, but tells Puck only to find a man in Athenian clothing to enchant into love with Helena, so Puck finds Lysander, who then upsets Helena by claiming to love her, and breaks Hermia's heart. Demetrius and Lysander could have hurt one another--therefore further breaking their lady's hearts--in the turmoil that followed.

      Bottom is the subject of Titania's manipulated love and Puck's parody on the two of them. Through that the rest of Bottom's troupe is also victim, being frightened, and having their practice interrupted (maybe their play wouldn't have been so painful to read if they had been able to practice more).

      A Midsummer Night's Dream has got to be the most popular Shakespearean play there is. It's one of the one's that I became familiar with through Jim Weiss (though this is my first time reading the actual play) and it has been brought into books and movies, it has been adapted into movies. It has become a ballet via Felix Mendelssohn (part of which is a violinist's nightmare,) an opera by Benjamin Britten, and has shorter pieces written for it by Henry Purcell and Ralph Vaughn-Williams.

      (Please note that this review was written as a discussion post in an online Shakespeare class.)
    • 5/5
      It's Shakespeare. Wonderful story but I prefer his tragedies.
    • 4/5
      Still one of my favorites, but I am reminded that some plays can be read and some are better watched. This is one that is better on the stage, but that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be experienced in some way or another. I got a little twisted up a couple times because some of the names are similar & I wasn't paying complete attention to who was supposed to be reading.
    • 5/5
      "The course of true love never did run smooth"; but oh my friends and neighbours, when was love ever "true"? This is the jolly cynic's Romeo and Juliet, with English country faire elements displaced to Theseus's Athens (itself a place that hardly did exist) and the mythological, metaphysical backdrop, the ridiculous-but-still-great-and-terrible Olympians, disinvited from the party in favour of the fairies, magnificent and dreadful but still ridiculous (it sounds like the same thing as the gods but it's actually the opposite): Oberon, equal parts virile intensity and cat-chasing-his-tail; Titania, majestic and intoxicating and yet you also just want to pat her on the head; Puck, with all the mystique of a trickster spirit and all the bathos of a cigar-smoking baby. Lord, what fools these immortals be!They elevate the humans as the humans drag them into the mundane, to the benefit of the action in both cases. Just a quartet of pretty young goofballs bouncing through the sacred groves on a wave of hormonal exuberance, as the rules get mixed up and upside-downed and love-potion-number-nined till it's all reduced to the lowest common denominator. Bucolic rumpus--pratfalls and sex. They seem too quick and alive for the law to catch up with them, and indeed Theseus and Hippolyta do present a fairly mellow or enlightened face on disciplining authority, as the king reassures us that EVEN IF things fall over the precipice and go all two-households-both-alike-in-dignity on us, Hermia can choose forcible cloisterment over death--but is this really such a comfort? We see Demetrius and Lysander play fistfights for laughs and never think about how close either of them is to braining himself on a rock, the other being strung up. Skulking around somewhere in the background is always the deeply unfunny Egeus, the patriarch with filicide in his fist.The estimable Bottom and his bunch of goony players (special shout out to Wall--I see you, Wall!) bring it all home by staging the tragic romance of Pyramus and Thisbe farcically for a bunch of complacent chuckleheads who don't know that they're in a play themselves, and that comedy and tragedy are a mere knife-edge apart. And ever if we manage to keep it light and nobody falls on a dagger, love fades and everyone you know will one day still certainly die. The comic dignity of the man with the donkey's head sums up the message quite nicely: The play's an ass, and it is a matter of life and death that we keep it that way. Laugh at that! No, I mean it!
    • 5/5
      A hilarious masterpiece. A great romp in the woods. Having the characters stage a play seems unique to me.
    • 4/5
      Some decades ago we couldn't marry fleely.Sometimes we forced to marry who didn't want to marry.I think it is very sad.This book has many characters.So it's story is little complicated.But I felt happy to be all the people became happy at the end of the story.
    • 4/5
      A Midsummer Night's Deam is the story of four couples. Theseus and Hippolyta are about to get married, after Theseus captures the Queen of the Amazons (and presumably some sort of courtship, since she seems to be amenable to getting married). Hermia wants to marry Lysander, despite her father's objections. Helena wants to marry Demetrius, if only he weren't in love with Hermia. And Oberon and Titania, king and queen of the fairies, are having a tiff about household help. After an evening wandering around the woods, with a little enchantment, humor and chaos, they get it all sorted out.The only happy ending I dislike is Oberon and Titania. Oberon gets his way by making his wife ridiculous, about which she doesn't seem the slightest bit upset. I doubt Queen Elizabeth would have put up with that kind of treatment.
    • 5/5
      I have read this book twice and I really like it, it even might be my favorite among Shakespear books, for some reason the song "Strange And Beautiful (I'll Put A Spell On You)" Lyrics by Aqualung always reminds me of this book:

      I've been watching your world from afar
      I've been trying to be where you are
      And I've been secretly falling apart... Unseen
      To me, you're strange and you're beautiful
      You'd be so perfect with me
      But you just can't see
      You turn every head but you don't see me

      I'll put a spell on you
      You'll fall asleep
      When I put a spell on you
      And when I wake you I'll be the first thing you see
      And you'll realize that you love me

      Sometimes the last thing you want comes in first
      Sometimes the first thing you want never comes
      But I know that waiting is all you can do
      Sometimes

      I'll put a spell on you
      You'll fall asleep
      When I put a spell on you
      And when I wake you I'll be the first thing you see
      And you'll realise that you love me

      I'll put a spell on you
      You'll fall asleep
      Cause I put a spell on you
      And when I wake you I'll be the first thing you see
      And you'll realize that you love me
    • 5/5
      great!! I love this show!
    • 5/5
      Beautiful copy of Shakespeare's play, with the text written out by hand and Arthur Rackham's gorgeous illustrations and decorations. Gave away my copy of this to my niece one Christmas, and recently found this replacement. I'm not sure it's the same size.
    • 4/5
      While I am not a huge Shakespeare fan I did find this particular play to be pretty darn good. I enjoyed the fact that there was this mix of fantasy with ideas that we can all relate to with unrequited love. It was fascinating to see how Shakespeare made fun of his own play "Romeo and Juliet" within the story as well. There is such a great woven story here that anyone that enjoys reading plays should read this. This was another book that I had to read for my Theatre course.
    • 5/5
      Nothing is funnier than the reversal of social degrees, is it?

      C'mon, the mighty Titania falls in love with a working class sod who has the head of an ass! AND his name is Bottom!

      Shakespeare, you cheeky bastard.
    • 4/5
      Hermia's father brings her before Theseus to be judged, as Hermia refuses to marry her father's choice, Demetrius. Instead she loves Lysander, who loves her back. With the threat of death if Hermia doesn't follow her father's wishes, the couple run into the woods, but are pursued by Demetrius and the girl who loves him, Helena. Also in the woods are the King and Queen of the Fairies and their followers. When the King attempts to smooth love's way for the mortals, he makes things much worse.Not one of my favorites from Shakespeare, but I can see where it would be a great choice for the stage. Romance in the forest and fairies would be difficult to resist
    • 2/5
      Far too contrived for my reading enjoyment. I'm certain that it is charming when performed on stage, but the premise wore thin upon reading. I really had no feel for the characters and cared little for their fate.
    • 4/5
      Fast and fun. I liked the characters and comedy alike.
    • 4/5
      One of my favorite Shakespeare tales that give me a new laugh every time. I've re-read it and love the characters of Helena and Hermia more every time.
    • 5/5
      Great romantic comedy.