The mechanicals are six characters in A Midsummer Night's Dream who perform the play-within-a-play Pyramus and Thisbe. They are a group of amateur and mostly incompetent actors from around Athens, looking to make names for themselves by having their production chosen among several acts as the courtly entertainment for the royal wedding party of Theseus and Hippolyta. The servant-spirit Puck describes them as "rude mechanicals" in Act III, Scene 2 of the play, in reference to their occupations as skilled manual laborers.
Robin Starveling as Moonshine (second from right), with thorn-bush and dog, in a 1907 student production
Snug playing the Lion in the play-within-the-play Pyramus and Thisbe, within William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. Illustration by Louis Rhead for an edition of Charles and Mary Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare (1918).
Titania adoring the Ass-headed Bottom. Oil on canvas by Henry Fuseli, c. 1790
Nick Bottom (left), Francis Flute (right), and Tom Snout (background) playing Pyramus, Thisbe, and Wall in a 1978 Riverside Shakespeare Company production
A Midsummer Night's Dream
A Midsummer Night's Dream is a comedy play written by William Shakespeare in about 1595 or 1596. The play is set in Athens, and consists of several subplots that revolve around the marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta. One subplot involves a conflict among four Athenian lovers. Another follows a group of six amateur actors rehearsing the play which they are to perform before the wedding. Both groups find themselves in a forest inhabited by fairies who manipulate the humans and are engaged in their own domestic intrigue. A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most popular and widely performed plays.
Titania sleeping in the moonlight protected by her fairies (unknown date) by John Simmons
Hermia and Helena by Washington Allston, 1818
The Quarrel of Oberon and Titania by Joseph Noel Paton, 1849
A drawing of Puck, Titania and Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream from Act III, Scene II by Charles Buchel, 1905
