Date with Will Shakespeare

My friend and I decided it was time to do something meaningful with our lives. We tossed several ideas about, but nothing stuck until suddenly it occurred to me, one rainy evening, that she and I both fancied the splendid Mr William Shakespeare and as such, we ought to invest our time heavily in the reading of his work together, and culminate in discussing and analysing the various aspects of interest. The pieces suddenly seemed to fall together: We planned a nine-hour session of unadulterated Shakespeare, wherein we would immerse ourselves in a single Shakespeare play and eat cheese and fried potatoes, while sipping Portello out of large wine glasses, just for effect. Turns out, it wasn't such a bad idea.

My friend, who kept losing her way to my house and calling for directions, finally made it, and the session officially commenced. More out of necessity than choice, we settled on reading a Midsummer Night's Dream – one of the 'lesser' comedies of Shakespeare. Upon reading it however, and digesting it, with it's many layers and angles, we both came to realise it was actually a very suitable play for us to have read at this particular juncture in our lives: We are two young college graduates, 'in between' in more ways than one, especially in terms of our relationships. It seems we, like the star-crossed couples in the play, are wandering in our very own 'woods' of life. Shakespeare was not so lofty as to ignore the little facets of crazy human relationships that take place in our world. Both my friend and I took home a unique interpretation of the play, and unanimously decided that Shakespeare understood exactly where we are right now in life.

The play portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, and more significantly, their interactions with the fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest just outside of Athens. Of course there have been some profound interpretations of the play, put forward by scholars over the years, but to us – the ordinary youth, the message is simple and is worth sharing here.

Primarily, Shakespeare reminds us, in the Midsummer Night's Dream, of how small we are and how there are much mightier forces at work behind the scenes. A simple truth we often forget, especially in matters of the heart. We never really know what the forces are up to. The love affair between Oberon and Titania, invisible King and Queen of the forest, is ultimately the backdrop against which all the drama in the 'woods' unfold. The King, wanting to quench his flames of jealousy, devises a plan, and then extends it to include mere mortals. It was only by-the-by – by some cosmic consequence – that the two sets of lovers and the unassuming Nick Bottom were, together with Queen Titania, enmeshed in Oberon's plan.

In such an enmeshment, the experiences of the various players were not always pleasant: In the woods, Hermia lost the man she loved, Lysander betrayed the woman he loved, and blatantly professed his love for someone he cared nothing for, and Helena felt ridiculed all throughout her time in the woods. Queen Titania made a fool of herself and Nick Bottom was loved absolutely blindly, which is a tragedy in its own right, because in terms of love, the blind always regain their sight and then begin to hate what they see.

This is precisely what happened, and what often happens in our lives, as young people. We lose, we betray, we feel ridiculed, realise we have been blind; and sometimes, often by default, we even feel loved. More often than not, however, we find ourselves confused, and the thought of making sense of anything seems impossible. Such is our experience in the woodlands of our lives.

Some come out of it entirely changed; some come out with an ever-more confirmed love; and some forget love happened at all. This is ultimately the message the play conveyed to me and my friend: all these experiences which have taken place in the dimness of the woods – how ever hard, confusing, hurtful, shameful, difficult or embarrassing they have been – they are in the larger picture, only a midsummer night's dream; just the embryonic beginnings of the life that we will live, when we finally step out of the wood and into the light of day.