What Dreams May Come “There is no such figure of the first chaos [where from] the world was [derived] as our dreams in the night. In them, all states, all sexes, all places are confounded and meet together.” —THOMAS NASHE, ON THE TERRORS OF THE NIGHT, 1594
Although historians call the forty-five year reign of Elizabeth I a “Golden Age,” the era was not without its confusions and strife. As the medieval gave way to the modern, old and new lines of division emerged: Protestant or Catholic; science or superstition; urban or rural; male or female. Many of these oppositions played out not only during her reign but upon the person of Elizabeth herself. After more than 700 years of almost exclusively male rule, Elizabeth I became England’s second recognized female ruler, succeeding her half-sister Mary in 1558. To legitimize her rule, Parliament had to declare that a monarch has two bodies—one natural, the other political. While Elizabeth was biologically a woman, in government she was a king. Elizabeth used this tension to her advantage. Throughout her reign, she styled herself as a courtly ingénue, a chivalric heroine, a general, a prince, and even classical deities, like the chaste goddess of the Moon, Diana, and king of the gods, Jupiter. Such allusions to old supernatural forces still held sway during the English Renaissance. What’s more, despite the era’s predominantly Christian worldview and emphasis on humanist philosophy and early scientific analysis, ancient pagan beliefs in magic persisted. Nighttime was still considered the domain of malevolent forces—incubi, succubi, fairies, witches, hobgoblins, and spirits—who visited harm upon humans, asleep or awake. The era’s thinkers viewed sleep as an attenuated form of death, a vulnerable time in which the body and the spirit separate. Cut off from external stimuli and the five senses, the mind becomes a playground for the imagination. Sleep liberates deep-seated fantasies, which merge with more quotidian concerns to create a sublime blend of the real and the astonishing in the slumbering mind. In the words of the mischievous Puck, “Night and silence. Who is here?” Is it an unruly spirit looking to do us harm? Or is it our wildest dreams, come out to play before the pacifying light of day?
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S
DREAM
Thursday, February 23 at 4PM Friday, February 24 at 4PM and 8PM Saturday, February 25 at 4PM Iseman Theater, 1156 Chapel Street
—CHAD KINSMAN, PRODUCTION DRAMATURG
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The Studio Series productions are designed to be learning experiences that complement classroom work, providing a medium for students at Yale School of Drama to combine their individual talents and energies toward the staging of collaboratively created works. Your attendance meaningfully completes this process.
2016–17 SEASON