Character Study; Bottom

Bottom is part of the Rude Mechanicals is A Midsummer Nights Dream. The Rude Mechanicals are skilled workers from Athens who want to put on a play for Duke Theseus of Athens and Queen Hippolyta of the Amazons. There are six members of this group:

• Peter Quince the Carpenter- The leader of the group who has chosen the play and assigns the roles to the other Mechanicals. Quince has taken the role of the director.
• Snug the Joiner
• Nick Bottom the Weaver
• Francis Flute the Bellows Mender
• Robin Starveling the Tailor
• Tom Snout the Tinker

My Exterior Vision

• He wears a white shirt with a fancy but well worn and torn, long red coat and short trousers. Maybe something he made to make himself look like royalty but  he still had to work in them as at the end of the day he was a weaver, a working class man.?
• Well groomed hair to make him look a handsome, attractive man whilst he has a hairy body and dirty and course hands. A mirage of his ego?

Bottom holds his self esteem very highly and never looks down an opportunity to perform, always believing his acting is superb and above all of the other Rude Mechanicals. Little to his knowledge, his ego betrays him as the other Mechanicals and the audience are instantly shown that this is not the case. The case being that Bottom is actually rather stupid and not very good at all.

'What is Pyramus? Is he a kindly man? Oh hello there, such kindness coming from me...'

I retrieved this evidence from the script from this line here. It's the perfect example of Bottom taking on the role with utter confidence of his abilities and instantly delving into his many interpretations of the character Pyramus whilst not having received any back story of the character what so ever. My opinion of this quote is that from the evidence that Bottom divulges when he dives into the instant characterisation of Pyramus without even reading the part shows he has no idea of what is actually  required by the actor during the rehearsal period of a play therefore showing me that he lacks any theatrical education but also by him participating in something new that he has never done before, it tells me that his confidence is nothing but an eager excitement to start.

Bottom and Peter Quince share a very interesting relationship with each other I have found. Peter Quince is the; yet new and in experienced, director of their play and therefore is in charge of the group. Bottom is an over confident fool who is eager to do everything; including directing. The relationship arises from the first scene of the Mechanicals with Bottom's first line;

'You were best to call them generally, man by man, according to the script'

This shows Bottom is trying to be the director and take over every aspect of the play; a one man band as you will, as his excitement and ego prevent him from restraining from trying all of these new, fun experiences he is finding the theatre to present. Peter Quince is much more subdued and has a much lower self esteem than Bottom and ends up in a scenario where they are trying to be in control but lack any power or presence which leads them to having an awkward and nervous air about them. For example;

'If we offend, it is with our good will. That you should think, we come not to offend, but with good will'

With misplaced punctuation and muddled sentence structure that doesn't really make any sense, I decided to use this muddled mess and make Bottom react to anything that Peter Quince says in an endearing and patronising manor. The relationship here being that during rehearsals I realised that Quince reacts to Bottom in a slightly frustrated and annoyed way as too show them being over shadowed by Bottoms energy and ownership of the directing role due to his confidence.

To conclude the end of my Bottom study, I found Bottom to be an overly excited donkey that wants to do everything and be everywhere and have the most attention whilst at the end of the day, is a simple and un-sophisticated creature. I think Bottom has a ton of energy, confidence and presence who has little to no idea what he is doing when it comes to acting in a theatre. He is totally oblivious to how ridiculous he looks and sounds when he performs his ideas of what his characters might be and overrides the stage with his arrogant presence obscuring the other mechanicals. I think he is a large comedic element of the play and there are times where he is trying to be funny but there are also times, un-aware to him, where the audience are laughing at him and not with him making him a bit of a fool character within A Midsummer Nights Dream.