Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Puck (A Midsummer Night's Dream) Puck, also known as Robin Goodfellow, is a character in William Shakespeare's play "A Midsummer Night's Dream", based on the ancient figure of Puck found in English mythology. Puck is a clever, mischievous fairy, sprite, or jester. He is the first of the main fairy characters to appear, and creates the drama of the human lovers' story by splitting up a young couple lost in an enchanted forest. As a "shrewd and knavish sprite", he is an impish trickster and delights in pranks and practical jokes, like replacing Bottom's head with that of an ass.
A Midsummer Night's Dream he extracted Bottom and his companions and acted the rest, in an adaptation called "The Fairies." Frederic Reynolds produced an operatic version in 1816. In 1840, Madame Vestris at Covent Garden returned the play to the stage with a relatively full text, adding musical sequences and balletic dances. Vestris took the role of Oberon, and for the next seventy years, Oberon and Puck would always be played by women. After the success of Madame Vestris' production, 19th-century theatre continued to stage the "Dream" as a spectacle, often with a cast numbering nearly one hundred. Detailed sets were created for the