Midsummer Nights Dream British Adelphi Strand Program

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Warner Brothers, 1935).

Max Reinhardt staged A Midsummer Night’s Dream thirteen times between 1905 and 1934, introducing a revolving set. After he fled Germany, he devised a more spectacular outdoor version at the Hollywood Bowl in September 1934. The shell was removed and replaced by a “forest” planted in tons of dirt hauled in, especially for the event, and a trestle was constructed from the hills to the stage. The cast included John Davis Lodge, William Farnum, Sterling Holloway, 18-year-old Olivia de Havilland, and Mickey Rooney, with Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s orchestrations of Mendelssohn. On the strength of this production, Warner Brothers signed Reinhardt to direct a filmed version, Hollywood’s first Shakespeare event since Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford’s Taming of the Shrew (1929).