Are we supposed to learn anything from this, or is it just for fun?

Though there are only 17 days of school left, I decided to go ahead and do A Midsummer Night's Dream with my students like I usually do at the end of each year.  I'm late starting but since I don't go in for a lot of activities when we read a book or play together, so we should have no trouble getting to act five by the end of the year.  We'll probably even have time to watch one  of the movie versions.

At the end of  class, yesterday, a student made one of those comments that make it all worthwhile.  We teachers love comments like that.    

My introduction to the play is one of the few "speeches" I give to my students.  I do a fast paced summary of the plot for acts one, two and three.  It's my view that Midsummer Night's Dream is a very silly play and that's basically how I approach it.  I tell the students the play tries to answer the question "Why do people fall in love with the wrong people?" and ask them if they've ever known anyone who had  a crush on someone who didn't have a crush on them.  I explain the Helena - Demetrius- Lysandar - Hermia situation and how both men want Hermia and then fall under a spell and both want Helena and how Helena chases after Demetrius even after he's rejected her, which basically makes them all perfect guests for the Jerry Springer Show.  I explain how Bottom and company are all regular people who are very bad actors rehearsing a play and how funny it is that a guy named Bottom ends up with the head of an ass.  And, of course, how Oberon and Titania, who are kind of married,  have arrived in Athens for the wedding of Theseus and Hippolyta only to end up with Titania falling in love with a man who has an asshead.  So basically, Shakespeare seems to be saying that people fall in love with the wrong people because they are under an evil spell.   

I go for laughs and yesterday I got lots of them.  I killed, as they say.  I had my students laughing their heads off.  We then  assigned parts for act one, everyone has to read theirs and be ready to perform on Wednesday, and yes, boys can play girls and girls can play boys.  Just use an appropriate voice.  

On her way out after the bell,  one student, who was not exactly thrilled to be reading the play at first, said,  "So are we supposed to learn anything from this, or is it just for fun?"

I told her we'd go with fun.  Shakespeare is fun.  That's what I want them to learn from this.