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Hamlet, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Home | A Midsummer Night's Dream: Staging choices | The world of the play

Staging choices

Stage design
Costume
Make-up and transformation
Doing the fairies
Puppetry: the
changeling boy

The world of the play

Who's this? Stephen Brimson Lewis is the designer.

Context: In shape the play is like a sandwich. It travels 'there and back again'. As we travel through day and night returning to a new day, we go from the court to the forest and return to the court. This gives the shape of a classic journey of self-discovery. Like the hero figures of fairytale, characters go 'elsewhere' to go through a process of finding themselves in order to return to their normal lives as better people. These changes and extremes of town and country are a challenge for the designer. He needs to create both a real human world and a wild world of spirits and fairies.

Stage design

The design process
Creating a night sky
The world of the play
The detail of the forest
See the stage designs
Detail on other RSC productions
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