A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S NAP
__________________________
A one-act comedy by
David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap © 2012 David J. LeMaster
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CAST OF CHARACTERS
NARRATOR 1, male or female.
NARRATOR 2, male or female.
NARRATOR 3, male or female.
THESEUS, male.
EGEUS, male.
HIPPLYTA, female.
HELENA, female.
HERMIA, female.
OBERON, male.
PUCK, male or female.
TITANIA, female.
PYRAMUS, male.
THISBE, male or female.
LION, male or female.
MOONSHINE, male or female.
WALL, male or female.
FAIRIES, male or female; number dependent upon director.
SET
Bare stage.
NOTES
Double and triple-casting is possible. Most of the roles may be
cast by either gender.
Originally produced by San Jacinto College Central in
Pasadena, Texas as part of the college's Fiftieth Anniversary
Celebration.
6
David J. LeMaster
(A bare stage. Enter three NARRATORS, 1, 2, and 3, who
control the evening.)
1: So we've got this job.
2: It's not a job.
3: It's an adventure.
1: It's a job.
3: We're doing A Midsummer Night's Dream.
2: In thirty-five minutes.
1: Told you it was a job.
2: How do you do anything in thirty-five minutes?
3: My dad once did his taxes in thirty-five minutes... But he
got audited.
2: It's impossible.
1: No, it's not. You put it on light speed.
2: Ingenious!
3: Let's try it.
1: Curtain rises.
2: Enter Duke Theseus and his girlfriend Hippolyta.
1: Girlfriend? How 21st century of you.
2: Fiancée?
1: Betrothed.
2: Huh?
3: They're getting married. How cute!
2: Marriage is not cute.
3: How'd he win her heart?
© David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap
7
1: By killing her soldiers and stealing her from her family.
She's the Queen of the Amazons.
3: Now that's romantic!
2: Are you kidding? He wiped out her whole family.
3: Like I say, that's great!
2: What's next?
1: An old man's complaint about his daughter.
2: Why not?
1: He doesn't like her boyfriend. Take it, Theseus.
EGEUS: Full of vexation come I, with complaint against my
child, my daughter Hermia. Stand forth, Demetrius—my
noble lord, this man hath my consent to marry her. Stand
forth, Lysander—this man hath bewitched the bosom of my
child. (To Hermia:) I beg the ancient privilege of Athens; as she
is mine, I may dispose of her, which shall be either to this
gentleman, or to her death.
2: Dude. That is seriously messed up!
1: Shhhh.
2: I mean it. Marry the dude I want you to or I'll kill you?
That is so wrong...
3: Don't give my parents any ideas.
2: So what's Lysander got that Demetrius doesn't?
1: Ask Hermia.
2: Hernia? Sounds painful.
3: Read Lear. There's a character named Goneril in that one.
2: Oh, yeah? There's one—
1: May I finish the story?
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David J. LeMaster
2: Sorry.
1: So why Lysander over Demetrius? Tell us, Hermia.
HERMIA: I would my father look'd but with my eyes. But I
beseech your grace that I may know the worst that may befall
me in this case, if I refuse to wed Demetrius.
DUKE THESEUS: Either to die the death, or to abjure forever
the society of men.
HERMIA: Oh, hell to choose love by another's eyes.
2: (Pulls out dictionary:) Abjure... abjure...
3: Dude, it means she can't marry and has to become a nun.
1: But it gets worse. Hermia's friend, Helena, loves Demetrius.
HELENA: O, teach me how you look, and with what art you
sway the motion of Demetrius' heart.
HERMIA: I frown upon him, yet he loves me still.
HELENA: O that your frowns would teach my smiles such
skill.
HERMIA: I give him curses, yet he gives me love.
HELENA: Oh, that my prayers could such affection move.
3: So I get it. There's this pair of lovers that needs some help.
What's next?
1: The help. Enter Oberon, the King of the Fairies, minion,
Puck.
3: You have got to be kidding.
2: Give me five minutes for fairy jokes.
1: No.
2: Four minutes.
3: What's a minion?
© David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap
9
1: His homeboy.
2: Three minutes!!!!!!!
1: Oberon the king and his wife, Titania, the Queen, are having
domestic dispute.
2: A minute and a half!
1: Sit down and be quiet!
OBERON: Why should Titania cross her Oberon? I do but
beg a little changeling boy to be my henchman.
TITANIA: Set your heart at rest; the fairy land buys not the
child of me. His mother was a vot'ress of my order. But she,
being mortal, of that boy did die, and for her sake I do rear up
the boy; and for her sake, I will not part with him.
3: Dude, a changeling boy?
2: Thirty seconds! Oh, please, please, please!
1: Oh, all right. One fairy joke. But make it count.
2: (As child:) Mommy, Mommy, how come all fairy tales begin
with once upon a time? (As mother:) They don't. Your father's
usually begin with, "I had to work late at the office..."
1: May we get on with the story?
2: No problem.
OBERON: (To Puck:) My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou
rememb'rest since once I sat up on a promontory and heard a
mermaid on a dolphin's back?
PUCK: I remember.
OBERON: That very time I saw (but thou couldst not), flying
between the cold moon and the earth, Cupid all arm'd. A
certain aim he took at a fair vestal, and loos'd his love shaft
smartly from his bow, yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid
© David J. LeMaster
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David J. LeMaster
fell. It fell upon a little western flower, before milk white, now
purple with love's wound. Fetch me that flower. The juice of
it on sleeping eyelids laid will make or man or woman madly
dote upon the next live creature that it sees.
3: Oh, I can see where this is going! Puck finds the flower,
squirts it on the lovers' eyes, and instantly fixes everything.
Conflict, resolution, curtain down, happy ever after, end of
story—thank you!
1: You wish. Puck gets a little confused.
PUCK: Night and silence. —Who is here?
Weeds of Athens he doth wear:
This is he, my master said,
Despised the Athenian maid;
And here the maiden, sleeping sound,
On the dank and dirty ground.
Pretty soul! she durst not lie
Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.
Churl, upon thy eyes I throw
All the power this charm doth owe.
When thou wakest, let love forbid
Sleep his seat on thy eyelid:
So awake when I am gone;
For I must now to Oberon.
3: He put the juice on the wrong person.
1: Bingo.
LYSANDER: Content with Hermia! No; I do repent
The tedious minutes I with her have spent.
Not Hermia but Helena I love:
Who will not change a raven for a dove?
2: What about Demetrius loving Hermia?
DEMETRIUS: (Awaking:) O Helena, goddess, nymph, perfect,
© David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap
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divine!
To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?
Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe in show
Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!
2: Uh oh. What about Hermia?
DEMETRIUS: I love thee not, therefore pursue me not.
LYSANDER: Get you gone, you dwarf;
You minimus, of hindering knot-grass made;
You bead, you acorn.
2: Situation beyond control!!!
1: Exactly.
3: Dude. Puck pucked up.
1: And now in that same forest came a bunch of rude
mechanicals—
3: Huh?
1: Community theater actors.
3: Oh, right.
1: Rehearsing a show for the Duke's wedding day at night.
(Enter the players.)
QUINCE: Marry, our play is, the most lamentable comedy,
and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe. Answer as I call
you. Nick Bottom, the weaver. You, Nick Bottom, are set
down for Pyramus.
BOTTOM: What is Pyramus? A lover, or a tyrant?
QUINCE: A lover, that kills himself most gallant for love.
3: He seems like a nice chap.
1: He's an ass.
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David J. LeMaster
QUINCE: Francis Flute, the bellows-mender. Flute, you must
take Thisbe on you.
FLUTE: What is Thisbe? A wandering knight?
QUINCE: It is the lady that Pyramus must love.
FLUTE: Nay, faith, let me not play a woman; I have a beard
coming.
QUINCE: You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as
small as you will.
BOTTOM: And I may hide my face! Let me play Thisbe too.
I'll speak in a monstrous little voice. "Thisne, Thisne;" "Ah,
Pyramus, lover dear! Thy Thisbe dear, and lady dear!"
QUINCE: No, no; you must play Pyramus: and, Flute, you
Thisbe. Snug, the joiner; you, the lion's part: and, I hope, here
is a play fitted.
SNUG: Have you the lion's part written? Pray you, if it be,
give it me, for I am slow of study.
BOTTOM: Let me play the lion too: I will roar, that I will do
any man's heart good to hear me; I will roar, that I will make
the duke say "Let him roar again, let him roar again."
2: Oh. He is an ass.
1: Puck thinks so too.
PUCK: What hempen home-spuns have we swag'ring here, so
near the cradle of the Fairy Queen? What, a play toward? I'll
be an auditor, an actor too perhaps, if I see cause.
3: Dude. A man gets turned into an ass, huh? Not much of a
stretch. Sounds like some of my ex-boyfriends.
1: Not that kind of ass. A donkey. He's acting like a donkey,
so Puck turns him into one.
OBERON: (Standing over a sleeping Titania:) What thou seest
© David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap
13
when thou dost wake,
Do it for thy true-love take,
Love and languish for his sake:
Be it ounce, or cat, or bear,
Pard, or boar with bristled hair,
In thy eye that shall appear
When thou wakest, it is thy dear:
Wake when some vile thing is near.
(Enter Bottom with ass's head.)
TITANIA: Come, sit thee down upon this flowery bed,
While I thy amiable cheeks do coy
And stick muskroses in thy sleek, smooth head,
And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy.
3: Let me get this straight. We've got a love triangle with
Helena and Lysander and Hermia and Demetrius.
1: But we've also got Pyramus and Thisbe, Theseus and
Hippolyta, Oberon and Titania, and Oberon and Bottom.
2: Sounds more like a love octagon.
3: What do you know? Shakespeare's not boring after all.
1: So, in short, we present the entire play before the play. In
mime.
2: Go for it.
(Actors mime out the action as 1 describes it.)
1: We're in an enchanted forest. With fairies. Domestic
dispute between the king and queen. Lovers in the woods.
Angry father in law. Forsaken love. Cupid's potion. Put on
the wrong eyes. And another wrong eye. Lovers wronged.
Affairs messed up. And one group of community actors. So
what happens? Oberon plays a joke on Titania, while Hermia
chases Lysander and Demetrius chases Helena, who chases
Lysander, who doesn't love her but loves Hermia. Fairy plan.
© David J. LeMaster
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David J. LeMaster
Love potion. Pain and suffering. Love for love. Ass.
Corrected lovers. All is fair in love and war. The duke gets
married. Felix Mendelsohn writes an opera version. Millions
of people use his wedding march music, and they all live
happily ever after in the literature book, the end.
2: Hmmmm. We've got ten minutes left.
1: Holy mother of pearl.
3: But wait! The show.
1: Egad. Ladies and gentlemen. The players!
(Enter Prologue with court and lovers watching.)
PROLOGUE: If we offend, it is with our good will.
That you should think, we come not to offend,
But with good will. To show our simple skill,
That is the true beginning of our end.
Consider then we come but in despite.
We do not come as minding to contest you,
Our true intent is. All for your delight
We are not here. That you should here repent you,
The actors are at hand and by their show
You shall know all that you are like to know.
(Enter Pyramus and Thisbe, Wall, Moonshine, and Lion with
Prologue. The players act out Prologue's words.)
PROLOGUE: Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show;
But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.
This man is Pyramus, if you would know;
This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.
This man, with lime and rough-cast, doth present
Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder;
And through Wall's chink, poor souls, they are content
To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.
This man, with lanthorn, dog, and bush of thorn,
© David J. LeMaster
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A Midsummer Night’s Nap
15
Presenteth Moonshine; for, if you will know,
By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn
To meet at Ninus' tomb, there, there to woo.
This grisly beast, which Lion hight by name,
The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night,
Did scare away, or rather did affright;
And, as she fled, her mantle she did fall,
Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.
Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,
And finds his trusty Thisbe's mantle slain:
Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,
He bravely broach'd is boiling bloody breast;
And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,
His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,
Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain
At large discourse, while here they do remain.
(Exit Prologue, Thisbe, Lion, and Moonshine.)
WALL: In this same interlude it doth befall
That I, one Snout by name, present a wall;
And such a wall, as I would have you think,
That had in it a crannied hole or chink,
Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,
Did whisper often very secretly.
This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show
That I am that same wall; the truth is so:
And this the cranny is, right and sinister,
Through which the fearful lovers are to whisper.
THESEUS: Would you desire lime and hair to speak better?
2: Say what?
1: It means Shakespeare is smarter than you and you laugh
and pretend you get the joke so you don't look stupid.
2: Oh, okay.
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David J. LeMaster
(The three Narrators laugh.)
THESEUS: Pyramus draws near the wall: silence!
PYRAMUS: O grim-look'd night! O night with hue so black!
O night, which ever art when day is not!
O night, O night! Alack, alack, alack,
I fear my Thisbe's promise is forgot!
And thou, O wall, O sweet, O lovely wall,
That stand'st between her father's ground and mine!
Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,
Show me thy chink, to blink through with mine eyne!
(Wall holds up his fingers.)
Thanks, courteous wall: Jove shield thee well for this!
But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.
O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!
Cursed be thy stones for thus deceiving me!
THESEUS: The wall, methinks, being sensible, should curse
again.
(The three Narrators laugh.)
PYRAMUS: No, in truth, sir, he should not. "Deceiving me"
is Thisbe's cue: she is to enter now, and I am to spy her
through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat as I told you.
Yonder she comes.
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