I read the summary for "A Midsummer's Nights Dream" and decided that I wanted to do this play as I thought it was very clever and I know the play fairly well so actually understand what it is about! I then skim read through the entire play to find a suitable scene. I have chosen a duologue scene between Demetrius and Helena (where Helena is still deeply in love with Demetrius and will not leave him alone, whilst Demetrius wants nothing to do with her). I chose this scene as I actually understood it(!) but also because I thought Dan and Toby would be hilarious in this scene. Dan and Toby are also in a production of "Rent" at the moment playing a gay couple - with Toby as the more masculine gay (Collins) and Dan as a transsexual (Angel) - and work really well together.However, I have decided to switch it round a little bit so Toby will be playing the feminine character whilst Dan plays the man. Although this scene would work well, I needed to include three people (Dan, Toby and Lewis) as there are four of us who haven't done this unit before - but I don't need to include myself as I will be directing (and women at this time would not act, they would have boys to play women). As I need to include to Lewis as well I thought of creating a third character who would stick up for both of them at random times - I would be able to do this by changing some lines from first person to third person (for example, instead of Demetrius saying "Do I entice you? do I speak you fair? Or, rather, do I not in plainest truth..." the third character could say "Does he entice you? does he speak you fair? Or, rather, does he not in plainest truth..."). I thought this could be quite funny as Lewis would stick up for one character, then the other character look at him as if to say what is he doing and then he'd go back to their side and keep switching and eventually just give up. To make this scene appeal to a modern audience, I have decided to get rid of the typical exaggerated gestures from this era and make the scene more natural and conversational.
I then thought of having the scene set as if it was a Skype call conversation. I would have two of the characters actually say their lines on a group Skype call and record the screen and then project this video on to the back wall. In front of the projection would be the third character sitting at a desk, facing the audience, with a laptop in front of them, saying their lines as if they were actually live in this Skype call. For this idea, I would use the idea of changing certain lines to third person for Lewis's character to jump between different sides.
Another idea I came up with was having Helena too upset to speak to Demetrius that she says quietly (but loud enough for the audience to hear) what she wants to say to Lewis's character to then say to Demetrius. However, instead of repeating exactly what Helena says, Lewis's character would translate and summarise in modern English. Then Demetrius would just reply directly (in Shakespearean language).
