Cullwick identified strongly with the play's heroine.

On the whole, everything Catholic is represented as bad, everything Protestant is represented as good: " The play's popularity 1592 has to be seen against the backdrop of an extraordinary efflorescence of interest in political history in the last two decades of the sixteenth century fed by self-conscious patriotic Protestantism's fascination with its own biography in history.

Working within the social conventions of late Victorian London, the play's major themes are the triviality with which it treats institutions as serious as marriage, and the resulting satire of Victorian ways.

However, the award's advisory board — the trustees of Columbia University — objected to the play's then-controversial use of profanity and sexual themes, and overruled the award's advisory committee, awarding no Pulitzer Prize for drama in 1963.

However, the committee's selection was overruled by the award's advisory board, the trustees of Columbia University, because of the play's then-controversial use of profanity and sexual themes.

( Critics have speculated that the play's themes were considered too negative and critical for wartime British audiences ).

Up until the late nineteenth century the play's themes were considered far too gruesome to be studied and appreciated.

" As such, the play's primary interest for critics has tended to lie in relation to what it reveals about Shakespeare's conception of certain themes before he became an accomplished playwright.

The play's themes of popular discontent with government have been connected by scholars with the Midland Revolt, a series of peasant riots in 1607 that would have affected Shakespeare as an owner of land in Stratford-upon-Avon ; and the debates over the charter for the City of London, which Shakespeare would have been aware of, as it affected the legal status of the area surrounding the Blackfriars Theatre.

The play's main themes deal with the changing role of women during this time period, describing both Heidi's ardent feminism during the 1970s and her eventual sense of betrayal during the 1980s.

One of the play's clear recurring themes is the idea that Nemov's honesty is worthless in the face of the realities of camp life.

One of the play's central themes is challenging notions of gender, as each of the two protagonists has a problemmatic relationship with the way they enact their gender, and the ways they pretend to be a different gender.

None of the early texts of Hamlet, however, were arranged this way, and the play's division into acts and scenes derives from a 1676 quarto.

Contemporary reviews all praised the play's humour, though some were cautious about its explicit lack of social messages, while others foresaw the modern consensus that it was the culmination of Wilde's artistic career so far.

The four lovers are then made to believe that they were dreaming what took place in the forest ( hence the play's title A Midsummer Night's Dream ).

Scenes from the play's performance were featured in the April 1963 issue of Theatre World magazine.

The film was adapted by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, but the play's storyline and the characters ' names were almost completely changed for the movie, so much so in fact that Kaufman joked the film should be called " Screen Door ".

Among the original cast were John Normington as Fitz-Oblong, Michael Jayston as the play's narrator, Bolt perennial Leo McKern as the title character, and Terence Rigby and a young Malcolm McDowell in supporting roles.

However in the 2002 film version which starred Judi Dench, Colin Firth, Rupert Everett and Reese Witherspoon-the lines were dropped even though this film re-incorporated episodes and characters in an earlier version of the play that Wilde had been encouraged to drop before the play's first performance.

Eileen McKenney, the inspiration for the title character, and her husband, novelist and screenwriter Nathanael West, were killed in a car accident four days before the Broadway opening, as they traveled to New York to attend the play's premiere.

Contrary to later legend, the words " virgin ," " mistress ," and " pregnant ," all of which had been in the original play's dialogue, were not singled out as objectionable.

The libretto, by Lorenzo da Ponte, follows the play's plot fairly closely, though some characters were renamed.

Debates into its meaning were intense and relentless ; the play's most vocal critic complained not only of the play's nonsensical phrasing but also its frequent use of semicolons.

The reviews were excellent, and, after a few slow weeks after which the play was partially rewritten with a new opening song, " Comedy Tonight ," which became the play's most popular piece, the show became a great commercial success, running 964 performances and conferring on Mostel a star status ( he also won a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for this role ).

Thus references to Mömpelgard's earlier visit and his not being in Windsor were jokes intended for the play's first audience, and appear in the First Folio edition of the play, taken from the first private performance, but not in the 1602 Quarto derived from public theatrical production.

It was only to comfort his wife Olga Knipper, who was recovering from a miscarriage, that he finally let her in on the play's title, whispering it to her despite the fact that the two were alone.

Rehearsals for the play's debut on the London stage began in 1892, but were halted when the Lord Chamberlain's licensor of plays banned Salomé on the basis that it was illegal to depict Biblical characters on the stage.

Similarities between the play and the James Joyce novel Finnegans Wake were noted in the Saturday Review during the play's run on Broadway.

The lawyers who were the subject of the play's satire did not enjoy the work ; Sir Edward Coke, the Lord Chief Justice, believed that he was a target of some of the barbs.

The scenic design, which included a large metal grid that moved into different positions for the play's different scenes, was by Ian MacNeil, costumes were by Clare Mitchell, lighting design was by Rick Fisher, with music by Stephen Warbeck.

" The play's endless stunts are just as brilliantly executed and breathtaking as they were before.

The costumes, as well as the play's symbolism, are relics of an ancient and obscure original-perhaps the earliest performers were clad in leaves or skins, symbolizing the death and rebirth of nature.

In Seattle, the mayor declared " Power Week " in honor of the week-long run of Power, recognizing the timeliness of the play's subject matter: With the public Bonneville hydroelectric project on the horizon, private and public power companies were vying for support in the city.

It was felt by Ibsen's German agent that the original ending would not play well in German theatres ; therefore, for the play's German debut, Ibsen was forced to write an alternative ending for it to be considered acceptable.

Remarkably, it still works well enough in the theatre: audiences at the reconstruction of ' Shakespeare's Globe ' in London, many of whom have never been to the theatre before, let alone to a play by Shakespeare, seem to have little difficulty grasping the play's action.

Similarly, 1933's La femme en blanc Woman in White uses a then-new technique of recreating for the audience events as they are being described by the play's characters.

The play's respectability was assured in 1946 when a charity performance was attended by King George VI.

Despite facing many obstacles, the Lovers are always united by the play's close.

Hall's approach attempted to unify the play's diversity by means of a fairy-tale topos.

A play related to The Spanish Tragedy called The First Part of Hieronimo ( surviving in a quarto of 1605 ) may be a bad quarto or memorial reconstruction of a play by Kyd, or it may be an inferior writer's burlesque of The Spanish Tragedy inspired by that play's popularity.

The film accommodated Newton-John's Australian accent by recasting her character from the play's original American Sandy Dumbrowski to Sandy Olsson, an Australian who vacations and then moves with her family to the United States.

( Kaufman also performed in the play's original Broadway cast in the role of a frustrated playwright hired by Hollywood.

The play's plot, or major elements from it, have frequently been used by film makers.

The film is described, by scholar Tony Howard, as the first adaptation to confront the play's disturbing sexual dimensions.

The play's set features a large table, which is used by the characters in both past and present.

The play's success and reputation has been boosted in recent years by a successful revival by English director Stephen Daldry for the National Theatre in 1992., and a tour of the UK in 2011-2012.

Miss Field has added stature to the role of the foreman's wife by relieving her of the play's box-office-conscious order that she behave like a hoyden.

Efforts to establish the play's date of composition and genesis have been complicated by its uncertain relationship with another Elizabethan play with an almost identical plot but different wording and character names, A Pleasant Conceited Historie, called the taming of a Shrew, which is often theorised to be a reported text of a performance of The Shrew, a source for The Shrew, or an early draft ( possibly reported ) of The Shrew.

Others have defended the play by highlighting the ( frequently unstaged ) Induction as evidence that the play's sentiments are not meant to be taken at face value, that the entire play is, in fact, a farce.

Dana Aspinall also suggests that an Elizabethan audience would have been similarly taken aback by the play's harsh, misogynistic language: " Since its first appearance, some time between 1588 and 1594, Shrew has elicited a panoply of heartily supportive, ethically uneasy, or altogether disgusted responses to its rough-and-tumble treatment of the ' taming ' of the ' curst shrew ' Katherina, and obviously, of all potentially unruly wives.

Some see The Shrew as novel because, although it does promote male dominance, it does not condone violence towards women per se ; the " play's attitude was characteristically Elizabethan and was expressed more humanly by Shakespeare than by some of his sources.