Showing his usual dexterity in creating coherent dramatic frameworks, Shakespeare here interweaves four separate plots and four groups of characters. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons and Theseus' fiancée, are the first characters introduced. Theseus is a voice of law and reason in the play, as shown by Egeus' entrance into the drama: Egeus needs Theseus to adjudicate a dispute he is having with his daughter, Hermia. The second plot features Hermia and her three friends, Helena, Demetrius, and Lysander. These young lovers stand on the boundaries of the law; like many adolescents, Lysander and Hermia rebel against authority, in this case, by refusing to accept Theseus' laws and, instead, planning to escape from Athenian tyranny. Although the lovers have one foot in the conventional world of Athens, the play forces them to confront their own irrational and erotic sides as they move temporarily into the forest outside of Athens. By the end of the play, though, they return to the safety of Athens, perhaps still remembering some of the poetry and chaos of their night in the forest. This irrational, magical world is the realm of the play's third group of characters: the fairies. Ruled by Titania and Oberon, the enchanted inhabitants of the forest celebrate the erotic, the poetic, and the beautiful. While this world provides an enticing sojourn for the lovers, it is also dangerous. All of the traditional boundaries break down when the lovers are lost in the woods. Finally, the adventures of Quince, Bottom, and the other amateur actors compose the play's fourth plot layer.
Shakespeare dexterously weaves these four worlds together, by having characters wandering in and out of each other's world, by creating echoes and parallels among the different groups. For example, the themes of love and transformation reverberate through all levels of the play, creating coherence and complexity. Coherence is also produced by the play's emphasis on time. The action is associated with two traditional festivals — Midsummer Eve and May Day — both allied with magic, mayhem, and merriment. To emphasize further the connections between the different groups, many modern directors of the play cast the same actor for the roles of Theseus and Oberon, and for those of Hippolyta and Titania.
