Unreality in A Midsummer Night's Dream Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream is a play that encompasses three worlds: the world romance of aristocratic lovers, the working world of crude mechanics and the fairy. world of Titania and Oberon. And while the three worlds intertwine and intertwine over the course of the play, it is the world of the fairies that has the greatest impact, as the lovers and mechanics are transformed by their contact with the "children of Pan ". it is to bring these worlds to life in the theater - directors, decorators, actors - that the first questions that must be answered are: what do fairies look like and how is their world different from ours? As our world has become increasingly scientific, technological, and separated from nature, artists' answers to these two questions have changed significantly. As cities have engulfed our landscape and the “unreality of moonlight” has been erased by the very real glow of street lamps; As "the whispers of the leaves, the sighs of the winds and the dull, sad moan of the waves" were gradually replaced by the noise of traffic and small arms fire, the gentle voices of the fairies were drowned out in the cacophony . of the metropolis. In this brave new world of concrete and glass, Shakespeare's “children of Pan” resemble more and more the “children of Man”. One hundred and fifty years ago, however, it was very different: the fairy world was an idealized version of our own, filled with supernatural splendor and wonder. Directors and designers rejoiced at the opportunity to create scenes of unprecedented beauty and magnificence. In a sumptuous production created by Madame Vestris a...... middle of paper ......natural. To emphasize this, Longworth sets the play in the Victorian era with its rigid social codes, which served to cut off the human soul from any emotion or thought hinting at a lack of reason and control; and with his confidence that Man could dominate nature and convert it to human ends. Fairies, of course, are proof that humans are deeply mistaken on both counts. And even if at the end of the play the lovers still cannot see the fairies, they nevertheless begin to feel their presence a little more. In our noisy, frenetic world, full of sound and fury that too often seems to mean nothing, Longworth's film The Fairies seems to encourage us to listen again, to seek the mysteries of "another similar but distinct kind of life of [ours],” and to hear again the voices of Pan’s children as they whisper the secrets of their lives. world.