watching the play

 R. (2013). "A Midsummer Night's Dream" presented by Rice University Department of Visual and Dramatic Arts. Retrieved April 14, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0P-bJjrVOtI

I watched "A Midsummer Night's Dream" performed by the theater department at Rice University. It was fairly easy to follow, only after reading the play. If I hadn't read the play before watching it, it would be much more difficult to understand. I think that is because in this video they talk extremely fast and sometimes they don't pronunciate enough. If I were used to hearing people still use this type of language, it would be no problem, but I'm not. This is not how we typically hear people converse in this time period. So, with the language being harder to follow, I would definitely recommend reading the play before watching it and using that time to also find a resource that will translate the language into sentences that you would more commonly hear today. I used sparknotes in order to do this. They break down the entire play in this way.

Other than the language barrier difference between reading the play and watching it, I found it very helpful to watch the play in order to distinguish the characters. Putting faces to names helped make the play more fun to watch and I think that if I went back and re-read the play now I would use the images that I can recall from watching the play to help me re-enact the play in my mind while I was reading it.