This is really up to your own interpretation. If you want
to go the traditional route, you can dress the characters as Elizabethan. However if you
want to stage the play differently, it has been done modern or with a more "magical"
theme. Because there are the supernatural characters as well as human characters, some
costumers have chosen to clothe the supernatural characters different than the
humans.
The Athenians are often dressed in medieval
clothes, with the women in gowns with empire waist and lots of trims, using rich fabrics
like velvets and headdresses with flowing scarves. The men can be costumed in tights and
tops with puffy sleeves using jewel tone colors such as deep royal blue, a forest green,
purple, or maroon.
For the supernatural
characters, Titania, the Queen of Fairies could be dressed in a flowing gown with
gossamer fabric, wings, and flowers in her hair. Oberon, the King, can also have fairy
clothing, dark woodsy greens and browns, wearing a
crown.
Puck should be dressed in a whimsical outfit with
tights and a tunic of sorts, perhaps with a jagged hem, and maybe some vines trailing
around his body. He is an earthy, whimsical character, and is often portrayed wearing a
sprite-ish style costume.
All of the fairies could be
clothed in flowing, light fabrics, earth tones and light colors, and earthy accessories
like flowers and leaves.
Nick Bottom should wear a donkey
head or donkey ears, which could be papier mache over a helmet of sorts or could simply
be a pair of fabric donkey ears on a headband; the fabric could be a stiff felt or some
fake fur over cardboard.
These are common ideas that are
usually used to costume the characters in "A Midsummer Night's Dream." But as this is a
play, and open to artistic interpretation, nothing is set in stone. It might be fun to
do an interpretation where the humans are Elizabethan and the fairies are modern, or
anything you can think of!
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