Theseus: Demetrius and Egeus, you get to organise my stag night! (1.1.122-7) #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare

Posted on 15 January 202614 January 2026 by Hester Lees-Jeffries

THESEUS Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?

Demetrius and Egeus, go along.

I must employ you in some business

Against our nuptial, and confer with you

Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.

EGEUS With duty and desire we follow you.

(Exeunt [all but] Lysander and Hermia.) (1.1.122-127)

Theseus expedites what is effectively a scene change: come, my Hippolyta. I’m in charge here, as you see. What cheer, my love? it very readily gets a laugh in performance, especially if she’s been obviously taking Hermia’s side, even comforting her, eye-rolling. And it can sometimes sound sinister, coercive: we’re getting married, yay! how are you feeling about that? full of joyful anticipation, huh, can’t wait to get down that aisle?? But the men remain his focus; perhaps they’re hanging back, still squaring off with Lysander: Demetrius and Egeus, go along; come on, now! I must employ you in some business against our nuptial—they’re going to organise his stag night!!*—and confer with you of something nearly that concerns yourselves. Clever politicking from Theseus, suggesting that they’re in his inner circle, part of the wedding preparations, to sweeten the more bitter pill of, perhaps, being told to get a grip and find a way out of this apparent impasse over Hermia’s marriage (And also, an early modern audience might infer, to ascertain the precise nature of Demetrius’s relationship with Helena. Is there anything that might be interpreted as a pre-contract, or suggest that they’re betrothed? Because that’s another layer of potential complication.) Egeus, not impossibly through gritted teeth, and concerned about such complications, nevertheless complies: with duty and desire we follow you. (Although Demetrius might have to be dragged away, looking daggers at Lysander, thumb-biting and other threatening gestures etc.)

*no, wait a minute, that’s Merry Wives

View 4 comments on “Theseus: Demetrius and Egeus, you get to organise my stag night! (1.1.122-7) #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare”

Mark Culham says:

15 January 2026 at 14:28

‘Of something nearly that concerns yourselves.’
Again, as with the ‘schooling’, this is strange. Both comments give us the expectation that we will hear later the outcome of their meeting – as if there might have been a scene that’s now missing.
If it is just to get Demetrius and Egeus out of the room for the next scene then it is poorly done as it creates an expectation in the audience that the playwright had no intention of resolving.

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1. Hester Lees-Jeffries says:
  
  15 January 2026 at 22:41
  
  that’s very scrupulous but I think probably the audience overlooks it – if the action were to return to Theseus and Hippolyta and Egeus periodically (as is the case a bit in As You Like It, for instance, or R&J) then these details might stick more – but I do mostly thing it’s to get them off the stage, both to allow the lovers to talk, and to create a smoother structure. In the equivalent in R&J it’s never detailed what the Prince has said to Montague and Capulet, either.
  
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Sunil Malapati says:

21 January 2026 at 20:31

‘Midsummer’ has the least number of scenes for a Shakespeare play, a distinction it shares with ‘Love’s Labor’s Lost’ and ‘The Tempest’. All three have only 9 scenes. LLL and Tempest are set in one location and relatively few plot strands. The brilliance of Midsummer is in how many separate plotlines there are and the hilarious/surprising ways they bounce off each other. At times, it does feel like a young playwright showing off as he tries to manage stage traffic to serve all the plots.
The transition to Hermia-Lysander scene right after the crowded Egeus’ complaint is reminiscent of the gorgeous Romeo-Benvolio scene after the raucous opening of ‘Romeo & Juliet’, but to me it is a more awkward transition. Will Egeus-Demetrius really want to leave Hermia & Lysander alone, though they cannot really say anything in front of Theseus? It is a good directorial problem to solve and can be used to add more comedy.

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1. Hester Lees-Jeffries says:
  
  21 January 2026 at 22:55
  
  Well, scenes are often editorial, and editors arrive at very different numbers of scenes for all three plays, although there’s a trend at the moment, I think, for stripping it back, so LLL (for instance) has no scene divisions in the final act, and Dream can be very fluid. I think Dream is extremely economical in its writing – he’s thinking about rehearsal and how to manage that, perhaps – this group of plays are written for a stable company and so he has a vested interest in keeping it very efficient! (and the doubling fits with that too).
  
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