E X T E N S I O N THE FORTUNE OF THE PLAY A Midsummer Night s Dream has always been very popular with audiences. Over the centuries there have been many different adaptations of the play. During the Puritan Republic (1642-1660) when the theatres were closed down, the comic subplot1 of Nick Bottom and his companions was performed as a droll , or little comical play. Acrobats and clowns used drolls to entertain the spectators during their performances and in this way circumvented2 the law against drama. After 1660, the theatres re-opened and companies acted A Midsummer Night s Dream in adapted form, excluding some episodes. In the Victorian Age (1832-1903), the tendency was to insert musical sequences (the most famous was Felix Mendelssohn s Ouverture) and balletdances. At the close of the century special effects were constructed for the play. The tradition of women playing the roles of Oberon and Puck started in 1840 and continued for another twenty years. In the early twentieth century, director H. Granville-Barker introduced a modern way of staging A Midsummer Night s Dream (1914). He abolished large casts3, complex sets4 and Mendelssohn s music, and instead used Elizabethan folk music and a system of curtains5 with drawings6. Later, stage directors introduced revolving7 sets or organized outdoor8 performances; in short, they used all their imagination. Peter Brook s production of The Dream (1970) 1. subplot: minor part of the story in a film or book. 2. circumvented: eluded. 3. cast: group of actors in a play. 4. set: stage scenery. 5. curtains: 6. drawing: picture. 7. revolving: moring in a circle around a central point. 8. outdoor: outside. 46