Jazz, Shakespeare, and Hybridity

A Script Excerpt from Swingin' the Dream

Abstract

This essay examines the contemporary critical assumptions surrounding Swingin' the Dream—the short-lived 1939 swing production of A Midsummer Night's Dream—in light of a recently discovered script excerpt from the "Pyramus and Thisbe" scene. Whereas theater critics generally viewed the play as consisting of two irreconcilable elements, swing and Shakespeare, the excerpt draws attention to the ways in which the production attempted to combine these elements fruitfully. If this scene is at all indicative of the approach taken in the rest of the play, then the critical consensus appears to have been prejudiced by a reluctance to accept the manner in which Swingin' the Dream places swing and Shakespeare on an equal footing.