How would you direct the opening scenes of a midsummer night's dream and what effects would you like to create for an audience?

In a midsummer night’s dream, the setting of act one scene one is exceptionally significant.  The whole of the scene is set in one room which is useful for a director as it avoids unnecessary set changes and it means the audience can focus on the one setting.  However the play is set in Greece, and this would need to be shown in this room in the beginning.  Some of the audience may not be familiar with the Greek names like Theseus.  Therefore it would be useful for this room to be decorated in a Mediterranean style, with all the walls painted white.  However Lysander does later tell Hermia about his aunt’s house just outside of Athens.   In the room there would be a large lavishly decorated table in the centre, dressed with Greek foods such as olives and wines.  This would show the audience the wealth of Theseus and Hippolyta, as he is the Duke of Athens.  However the table would not take up a large area as the stage as when Theseus hassles Hippolyta with his thoughts of how slowly the preparation time for the weeding is passing, I imagine Hippolyta would not be sitting down at the table, but pacing around the room as she does not agree and he seems slightly irritate her.   There would be space around the room on set for extra actors to stand close to the walls, representing all of their attendants, who would be just waiting to be given an order form Theseus or Hippolyta.  Throughout the scene as other characters entered the room, they wouldn’t sit at the table, but leave it for the Duke and his fiancée as they are approaching them formally, in order to ask their advice.  However the only time when this would change in the scene is when everyone exits the room to follow Theseus and only Lysander and Hermia are left alone.  The whole atmosphere changes in the scene from formal to informal, so they would sit down at the table, because with the attendants gone, they would be chatting easily without the eyes of Hermia’s father.

Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer night’s dream to be a comedy.  There is not much comedy to be found in the first scene, but if you wanted to show the audience the play was a comedy and not a tragedy as it seems at first, it would be possible.  In order to bring out the comedy in this scene, I would direct the two lovers Lysander and Hermia to be very serious when they are having their duologue and very preoccupied with their own feelings.  They have very passionate lines and when read in the play can sometimes seem over exaggerated.  Therefore if the actors over exaggerated the way in which