The play opens in a drawing room at the manor of a rather mysterious character named Lob—not Mr. Lob, just Lob.

The room itself is dark, but through the French windows at the back of the room one sees Lob's garden bathed in bright moonshine. Into the dark room Lob's guests begin to appear, entering from the adjoining dining room, where they have just finished the evening meal.

Someone finds the light switch and illuminates the room. But the moonlit garden is still predominant. The setting of act 2 is the bright garden, or rather a moonlit wood, which has magically replaced the garden. Here most of the characters appear in their "might-havebeen" lives. In the last act, the dream of the midsummer night is over and the setting is once again the dark drawing room in Lob's house. As the characters return from their midsummer night's...