A Midsummer night's dream.?

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Question:

My sister is in the play 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'!. As I have absolutely no idea what the play is about, I'd like to read a brief summary on the play because I'm not too good with old english!. I need it before tonight, because her performance is at 7pm!.

Please don't copy stuff from wiki, I'd just like a basic summary!. Emphasis on the word basic!. Www@QuestionHome@Com

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker:

Honey, it's Shakespeare, there's no such thing!. I'll do what I can, though!.

King Theseus kidnapped Hippolyta, but now he's trying to woo her properly before marrying her!. Hermia's dad is pissed that she wants to marry Lysander instead of Demetrius, even though Lysander is just as rich!. Both Lysander and Demetrius love Hermia, but Helena loves Demetrius, because they used to have a "thing" before he caught sight of Hermia!. Well, Hermia and Lysander decide to elope, and they tell Helena, because she's Hermia's BFF!. They head into the woods!. Helena tells Demetrius what they're doing to try to win his affection, and he goes after them!. Helena follows him into the woods!.

Meanwhile, Oberon and Titania, the King and Queen of the faeries, are fighting!. Titania has a little boy, Oberon wants him, and she won't give him up!. Oberon asks Puck, his faerie servant, to put a love potion on Titania's eyes!. Since he's spotted Demetrius and Helena fighting in the woods, he also asks Puck to make Demetrius fall in love with Helena!.

These dudes are in the woods, working on a play to present at Theseus and Hippolyta's wedding, and are rehearsing near where Titania is sleeping!. Puck puts the love potion on her, and gives one of the men a donkey's head!. He was the first thing Titania saw when she awoke, so she fell in love with him and swept him away!.

Puck found Lysander and Hermia sleeping, and mistook Lysander's identity, so put the love potion on him!. Helena came through and woke him up, so Lysander fell in love with Helena!. Realising his mistake, Puck later put the potion on Demetrius, as well!.
When both men go after Helena, she's pissed because she thinks they and Hermia are making fun of her!. Hermia is hurt because her BFF betrayed her and is now stealing her fiancee, who says he never loved her!.

Titania gave the boy to Oberon!. Oberon got angry that Puck screwed up, and made him administer the remedy to Lysander, as well!. Theseus, Hippolyta, and Hermia's dad came upon the four young ones in the woods, and Theseus announced that Helena and Demetrius and Hermia and Lysander would wed that day as well, against her father's wishes!.

The dudes performed at the wedding after the donkey's head was removed, and were absolutely terrible!. As it came time for the lovers to go to bed, the faeries came, happily reunited at last, to bless the house!.Www@QuestionHome@Com

Well A midsummer nights dream is by Shakesphere!.

And it was written in around 1500 hundreds!.

And so A Midsummer Night's Dream begins in the city that was, to the Renaissance imagination, the center of ancient Greek civilization!. (Romanticized) Athens stands as a testament to what human beings know and are able to know!. But throughout this play, Shakespeare delights in decentering the world mortals take for granted; soon the audience learns that the dark forest is the center of the play's world, relegating Athens, center of the civilized Greek world, to the periphery!. Day gives way to night, and mortal rulers leave the stage to be replaced by fairies!. Night-and nighttime in, of all places, a forest-with its darkness and unseen horrors, seems a strange setting for a comedy!. But in the world the play constructs, the special properties of night make it the perfect vehicle for the four lovers to set out on a project of self-discovery!. Shakespeare plays on the same tensions as the trans-cultural phenomenon of the blind fortune teller: a belief that in darkness, reliance on senses other than eyesight leads to true seeing!. In A Midsummer Night's Dream, the nighttime forest, by disrupting and transforming vision, forces introspection and improvisation that help the four lovers on their way to self-understandingWww@QuestionHome@Com

There are basically three separate plot lines that all intertwine!.

Plot one:
Hermia is in love with Lysander, and he with her!.
Demetrius is in love with Hermia
Helena is in love with Demetrius, and he's kind of a jerk to her!.
Helena and Hermia and friends!.
Because her father won't let her be with Lysander, they run away to the woods!. In order to get Demetrius to liker her, Helena tells him, and Demetrius goes in to the woods after them!. Helena follows!.

Plot two:
Because the Duke (Theseus) is getting married (to Hypolita), there is a contest going on, and some regular old blue collar workers decide to present a play for the wedding!. They go in to the woods to rehearse!.

Plot three:
In the woods are two warring fairies, who are the king (Oberon) and queen (Titania)!. Each has their own posse (Oberon has Puck, Titania has a whole league of faires)!.

SO!. In order to get some revenge on Titania, Oberon has Puck get a special flower for him that will make her fall in love with the first thing she sees!. FIRST, however, he gives one of the laborers (Bottom) a donkey's head!. Then he puts the potion on her eyes!. When she wakes up, she thinks Bottom is the most attractive thing she's ever seen!.

Because he's seen Helena fawning all over Demetrius, he tells Puck to also put the potion on a young man in the woods!. Puck mistakes Lysander for Demetrius, and puts the potion on HIS eyes!. He wakes up and falls for Helena, and leaves Hermia!. Realizing his mistake, Puck also puts his potion on Demetrius!. Now the two boys chase after Helena, and ignore hermia!.

Eventually it all gets sorted out, Oberon and Titania reconcile, Demetrius and Helena, Hermia and Lysander, and Hypollita and Theseus all wed!. At their wedding, the laborers perform the play they were rehearsing!. It's usually the funniest fifteen minutes of the play!. Www@QuestionHome@Com