"Midsummer" is one of Shakespeare's most comedic comedies. Even when he has sad characters, wandering around the forest seeking love, it is still rather madcap and crazy, particularly with Puck getting involved and getting everything even more confused.
However, there is also a certain amount of intensity with the situations between Hermia and Helena, Lysander and Demetrius. If Shakespeare had spent the entire play focused on these four crazy-in-love people, the play would certainly have been bogged down with intense emotion and hurt feelings. I mean, it is actually quite painful to see Helena chasing after Demetrius, and then later, Lysander chasing after Helena when he's had the love-potion accidentally put into his eyes by Puck. So Shakespeare gave us a wonderful subplot about an acting troupe, trying to come up with a great play to perform at court.
The characters of Bottom and his cronies are so over-the-top laughable that they relieve a great deal of the intense emotion we witness with the four lovers in the forest. Thus we're given comic relief by Bottom, Titania's infatuation over him as an ass, and "The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe" (1.2). How's that for a title? :)
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