Director's Notes
By Ms. Doris L. W. Chang
Home

Plot Summary

The Story

Cast

Our Staff

Media

Specail Thanks

The English Dept.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

 
If we shadows have offended,/Think of 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[.]”
(Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, epilogue)
In dreams, life’s bitterness and joy become reality;
Yet awakened, all happenings are but seen 
As passing reminiscences of a Cosmic Comedy.
(夢裡明明有六趣,覺後空空無大千, Buddhist saying)
      What happens if Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night’s Dream (hereafter, Dream) is set in a Chinese context, perceived from a Buddhist perspective?  The 1999 Senior Play of the English department at Fu Jen sets Shakespeare’s Dream in Chang-an (長安) in Tang, China (唐) around the 8th Century, when the empire was conquering all its barbarian neighbors, when Buddhist arts and culture were flourishing, as illustrated in the Tun-huang (敦煌) wall paintings.

      The play is interpreted in Buddhist terms and staged with abundant Tung-huang icons in hope to bring fresh theatrical experiences to the audience and demonstrate how the seniors, as English majors with abundant Chinese/Taiwanese cultural heritage, fuse these two/multiple fascinating treasures in their graduation presentation. 

      The dialectics between dream and reality and the illusory nature of dreams, passions and poetic/theatrical imagination have been significant themes in Shakespeare’s Dream in addition to the play’s festive celebration of marriage and fertility of life it promises to bring about, both key elements of a comedy.  “[If imagination] would but apprehend some joy, it comprehends some bringer of that joy” (V i 19-20).  As is suggested in Theseus’ response to Hippolyta’s doubts about the lovers’ reports of their strange encounter in the woods, there is such natural tendency in lovers, lunatics and poets especially to turn dreams and imagination into reality in the wildest consumption of their passions.  When the imaginary is taken as real, like Bottom’s assumed lordship that is realized by Titania’s adoration for him, when the dream is taken as real, like Hermia’s nightmare of Lysander’s betrayal, then the imaginary becomes the real and dreams, nightmares become reality.  Even if it seems that one is awakened from a dream, the transient and thus illusionary nature of all happenings in life makes it hard to distinguish between dreams and reality.  And such a question is well put in the scene when the lovers are trying to tell if they are still dreaming.  Awakened by Theseus, the four lovers are yet uncertain if they are awake or dreaming, “Are you sure that we are awake?  It seems to me that yet we sleep, we dream” (IV, i line 192-94).   However, the perception of life/dream as transient and illusionary does not necessarily bring about tragic despair.  In Puck’s epilogue at the end of the play, Shakespeare not only highlights the illusory nature of dreams but also suggests how the perception of life’s transient nature as passing visions help dismiss dissatisfaction and unhappiness and create a comic release from irritations: “If we shadows have offended,/Think of 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[.]”  Taken as dreams, no serious harm could be done when one wakes up from the illusionary dreams.  And such a gesture brings about the possibility of a comedy of spiritual liberation.  Given the immense possibilities of life with its abundant mysteries, it seems impossible for misery to linger for long.  And all happenings in the universe, be it in the court or the woods such as in the play, perceived with the vast scope of all life’s possibilities and its carnival spectrum, can be seen as units of a cosmic comedy.  It is in the wonderful mixture of the dreams’/Dream’s illusory nature and the play’s festivity that I see the possibility to engage Shakespeare in a dialogue with the Buddhist perception of the transient nature of all happenings and its theory of ultimate liberation.  The result of such an imaginary dialogue is a transcendental comedy that helps individuals see that, when ultimate liberation from the bondage of passions/obsessions with any love objects is achieved, life is a blissful and precious performance orchestrated with a series of polyphonic transient happenings, a comedy of liberation. 

     Basing on such a reading, in staging the Dream, I play down on the “mid-summer night” quality and highlight the dream quality of the play while striving to add a Tun-huang flavor to it in hope to match the Buddhist tone in the play.  It is said that a lot of things happen on this longest night of the year.  However, obsessed as real, it does not matter that much as whether the dream/obsession is long or short, or when or where the dream is set to happen.  Thus it serves or my cause to set the play in an imaginary royal city of Chang-an in Tang with some woods out there near city for the Dream to take place.  The characters are costumed in Tang style while Oberon, Titania, Puck and the fairies, free to take any form as they are spirits in the fairyland, are clothed in icons associated with bodhisattvas and flying fairies on Tun-huang wall paintings. 

     My cultural and contextual justification for setting the play in the imaginary Tang Chang-an is as follows.  It would be more likely to have women like Helen/Hermia to walk out on the street and get involved in romances at that time.  And women, like Hermia, could have been obliged to follow the patriarchal order to marry according to the “Father's” will or she has to endure the life of a nun without men’s company, a traditional predicament for women until modern China. 

     Besides, it makes sense that Theseus is transformed into a legendary royal ruler of the empire who woos and conquests Hippolyta, a “barbarian” female warrior of a non-Han race.  Such translation is justified since back at that time, there would always be historical legends in which a beautiful princess of a barbarian tribe, a princess who was pairless in her martial arts skills and military maneuver was conquered by her love for the Han (the civilized) conqueror.  Her wills to fight were often overwhelmed by her passion for the handsome and charming Han conqueror (kind of Chinese imagination and colonization of the barbarian “other”).  Hippolyta can well be associated with that barbarian princess to be conquered in this dream. 

     It has been my dream to stage Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream ever since I completed a paper on the music variations of “lullaby” in the play in September, 1997.  Numerous productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream have been made so far and the play seems especially popular among theater (and even movie) lovers in Taiwan this year.  And it is especially challenging to present the play to a group of audiences who have been so well acquainted with such rich collections of Shakespeare’s Dream.  And we are especially grateful for all those who have helped us make the dream come true: faculty, parents, volunteer backstage crew, sponsors and friends who show support by coming to the play.  The 1999 seniors of the English department at Fu Jen are talented, daring and hardworking.  We have had fun in our labor to stage 

     Shakespeare in Tang, and here we invite you to join us and have a fun evening with this dream.  And may blessings and bliss be with you always.
 
 

Works Cited & Consulted

Shakespeare, William.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Ed. Harold E. Brooks.  Bristol: Methuen, 1979.  [Arden edition]
Shakespeare, William.  A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ed. Linda Buckle and Paul Kelley.  Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1996.
朱生豪譯。 《仲夏夜之夢》。 台北﹕世界,1997。 
 
 

Plays Directed by Ms. Doris L. W. Chang

1997 Best Performance Award, English Play Contest, English Dept.
Evening Division, Fu Jen Catholic Univ. (A Dream Play) 
1996 Best Performance Award, English Play Contest, English Dept.
Evening Division, Fu Jen Catholic Univ. 
(A Christmas Carol) 
1995 Best Performance Award, English Play Contest, English Dept.
Evening Division, Fu Jen Catholic Univ. (Madusa's Tale capturing the style & spirit of a Greek play) 
1994 Best Performance Award, English Play Contest, English Dept. Evening Division, Fu Jen Catholic Univ. 
(When Shakespeares Ladies Meet --after the manner of a Renaissance play)