Casting Actors to Play Helena and Hermia from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

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Casting Actors to Play Helena and Hermia from William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream

A Midsummer Night’s Dream examines the theme of love in all its

aspects. When Act one scene One opens we are at the court of Duke

Theseus and he is swearing his undying love for Hippolyta so at the

very start we are introduced to love and its deep emotional impact.

The declaration of love between the Ducal pair is shortened by the

arrival of Egeus with his disobedient daughter Hermia. The mood

immediately changes and we discover that Hermia rather than being

filled with filial love is determined to marry Lysander rather than

her father’s choice for her. And so the love theme is made more

complex as we have the wrathful love of her father confronted by the

love of her daughter for the man who is not her fathers’ choice. The

love theme is further complicated by the arrival of Helena. Here we

see the platonic love of two friends. Undermined by sexual attraction

when we discover that Helena is in love with Demetrius, the suitor

that Egeus has chosen for his daughter Hermia to marry. All these

complexities of the love theme I will have to reveal both as a

director and in the performance of the two young women, Hermia and

Helena.

Hermias’ costume is quite simplistic but very feminine. It is pink

Elizabethan linen with purple lining and a gold rim at the bottom. It

has puffy sleeves and it cuts across her shoulders with gold lace also

around the rim. She wears a headdress with a band around her forehead

with a diamond attached to it and jewellery to reflect her wealth.

She also wears elegant purple slippers. The whole costume portrays...

... middle of paper ...

...uke pronounces that Athenian law calls for the death

sentence, Hermia bravely decides to die rather than yield to man whom

she does not love. When Lysander suggests that the two of them run

away and get married, she does not hesitate to accept his offer. In

the first scene of the play, we are also introduced to Helena's

problem, which is that she desperately loves Demetrius, but he is in

love with her friend Hermia. Both Lysander and Helena herself reveal

that Demetrius was at one time involved with Helena. Lysander tells

Theseus that Demetrius "Made love to … Helena, And won her soul.”

Helena says that before Demetrius looked upon Hermia, "He hail'd down

oaths that he was only mine.” In an attempt to win back some of

Demetrius's affection, Helena tells him of Hermia's plan to meet in

the wood and elope with Lysander.

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