Appreciation: Pennington on Dream

Michael Pennington's "User's Guide" to Midsummer Night's Dream, didn't read as easily as his guide to Hamlet. Perhaps inevitably: Dream is a wonderful play but it isn't as rich or complex as Hamlet--what is? Also, Dream has some scenes of elegant near-choreography which require (and from Pennington, receive) the kind of careful explication that Pennington provides, and that may leave the non-techie reader a bit short of breath. Still, it is a rewarding book that offers any number of useful insights on the play likely to have escaped the eye of even repeat viewers.

Pennington also offers an instructive account of Dream spinoffs, from Mendelssohn through Britten to Kevin Kline (to whom Pennington is a good deal more charitable than I am). Through it all, Pennington leaves no doubt that Dream deserves recognition as Shakespeare's first masterpiece. But he ends with this tantalizing suggestion:

[T]he play remains a little remote and complete to itself. This is not the Shakespeare from which people quote a therapeutic line in daily life ... . In the Shakespearian community, Hamlet can be imagined having an interesting talk about life and death with Feste; Queen Margaret might discuss with Cleopatra how to reconcile love and power; Gertrude could advice Romeo. but there is realy no character in Dream who could sustain such a conversation. ... However, the play is very good for the health. Best of course to watch it among strangers in the special intimacy of a theatre; but it is also possible to sit by an open window, watching a honeysuckle circling an elm tree, and marvel at what Shakespeare made of such things in this play.