A Midsummer Night's Dream Act 1 Scene 2

Is everybody here?

You'd best call them generally, one by one, according to the script. (He means 'individually.' 'Generally' means the opposite. This happens constantly.)

Here's the list of everyone considered suitable, in the whole of Athens, to act in our short play before the Duke and Duchess on the night of his wedding.

First, Peter Quince, tell us what the play is about, then read out the actors' names, and so work toward a conclusion.

Well, our play is 'The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisbe.' (A tragic comedy. Nobody notices.)

A very good piece of work, I assure you, and a cheerful one. Now, Peter Quince, call out your actors from the list. — Gentlemen, spread out.

Answer when I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

Here. Say what part I'm down for and carry on.

You, Nick Bottom, are down for

Pyramus.

What's Pyramus — a lover or a tyrant?

A lover, who very gallantly kills himself for love.

That'll need real tears to do it properly. If I play it, the audience had better protect their eyes. I'll stir up storms — I'll grieve to some effect. Now for the others — though my real preference is for a tyrant. I could play Hercules brilliantly, or a part that really rants and brings the house down.

'The raging rocks

and shivering shocks

shall break the locks

of prison gates;

and Phoebus' chariot

shall shine from far

and make and mar

the foolish Fates.' (It scans, it rhymes, and it means nothing whatsoever.)

That was grand! Now name the rest of the cast.

That's the Hercules style, the tyrant style. A lover is more of a weeper.

Francis Flute, the bellows-mender.

Here, Peter Quince.

Flute, you're to take on Thisbe.

What's Thisbe — a knight errant?

She's the lady Pyramus has to love.

No, honestly, don't make me play a woman. I've got a beard coming through.

Doesn't matter. You'll play it in a mask, and you can pitch your voice as high as you like.

If I can hide my face, let me play Thisbe as well! I'll do a monstrously tiny voice. 'Thisne!

Thisne!' — 'Ah, Pyramus, my dear love! Your dear Thisbe, your dear lady!' (He is now trying to play both halves of the love scene.)

No, no — you must play Pyramus. And Flute, you play

Thisbe.

All right, carry on.

Robin Starveling, the tailor.

Here, Peter Quince.

Robin Starveling, you're playing Thisbe's mother.

Tom Snout, the tinker.

Here, Peter Quince.

You're Pyramus's father. I'm Thisbe's father.

Snug the joiner, you're the lion. And I think that's the play cast.

Do you have the lion's part written out? If you do, please give it to me — I'm a slow learner.

You can improvise it. It's nothing but roaring.

Let me play the lion as well! I'll roar so that I'll do any man's heart good to hear me. I'll roar so that I'll make the Duke say 'Let him roar again! Let him roar again!'

If you did it too terrifyingly you'd frighten the Duchess and the ladies into screaming, and that would be enough to get us all hanged.

That would hang us — every last one of us.

I grant you, friends, that if you frightened the ladies out of their wits they'd have no more judgment than to hang us. But I'll aggravate my voice so I roar as gently as any suckling dove. I'll roar for you like a nightingale. ('Aggravate' should be 'moderate.' And a 'sucking dove' is two harmless animals mashed into one that doesn't exist.)

You can't play any part but Pyramus. Pyramus

is a sweet-faced man, as handsome a man as you'd see on a summer's day, a thoroughly lovely, gentlemanly man. So you simply must play Pyramus. (Quince has worked out that flattery is the only way to stop him.)

Very well, I'll take it on. What beard would be best to play it in?

Whichever you like.

I'll perform it in either your straw-coloured beard, your orange-tan beard, your deep-dyed purple beard, or your French-crown-coloured beard — perfect yellow.

Some French crowns have no hair at all, and then you'd play clean-shaven. (A joke about syphilis, which was called the French disease and made your hair fall out.) — But, gentlemen, here are your parts. And I have to beg you, ask you and implore you to learn them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the palace wood, a mile outside town, by moonlight. We'll rehearse there — because if we meet in the city we'll be followed by a crowd and our plans will get out. Meanwhile I'll draw up a list of the props our play needs. Please don't let me down.

We'll be there, and we can rehearse obscenely and courageously. Work hard; be word-perfect. Goodbye. (He means 'unobserved' or possibly 'in a seemly way.' He has said the opposite again.)

We'll meet at the Duke's oak tree.

Enough — keep your word or give up entirely.