Bottom

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, Bottom was played by John Ramm.

About John Ramm

John has just returned from New York, where the Globe Theatre Company performed last summer’s production of Cymbeline at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Before touring with Cymbeline, he appeared at the National Theatre with The National Theatre of Brent in The Wonder of Sex. He has appeared in seasons at the RSC, Nottingham Playhouse, and Sheffield Crucible. His film and TV work includes The Bill and Shakespeare in Love.

Click on the numbered links to follow John's journey as he creates and plays the character of Bottom in the Globe Theatre.

John Ramm - Character Notes 1

These comments are the actor’s thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

This is my second season at the Globe; I played Iachimo, Belarus and various other characters in Cymbeline last summer. This is what I like to do as an actor – find a theatre I like and stay there for a while! We have just got back from performing Cymbeline at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York, which was very interesting as we were taking a piece of work designed for the Globe and doing it in a conventional theatre. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy working in other theatres; over Christmas I did a show called "The Wonder of Sex" at the Lyttleton Theatre (part of the National Theatre) with The National Theatre of Brent (a comedy double act I do with my friend Patrick Barlow). Still, the experience of doing Cymbeline somewhere else made me appreciate how distinctive the Globe space is!

I’m far less anxious about working in the space than I was at the same time last year. I see some of the other actors looking very nervous when we’re working in the theatre, but I know the audience are generally friendly here, and as a result it’s a nice place to work.

An interesting thing for me this season is that in Cymbeline, my characters predominantly spoke in verse, whereas Bottom (except when he’s ‘acting’) speaks entirely in prose. That’s something I’m really looking forward to exploring with Giles [Block, Master of the Words] – Shakespearean prose.

This is the third production that I’ve done with Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play], and I’m learning all the time. He won’t let us rush in too early; it would be pointless to arrive on day one with a fully-fledged character. Instead, we start simply with what we know from the play. Each of us had to prepare three lists before rehearsals started to help us understand what information about characters is actually contained in the play. One list contained what our character says about themselves, another what they say about others, and the third list contained what other characters said about them. This helps us to create very clear, specific foundations for the characters.

We then move to the characters’ "objectives" or "intentions". Mike is very keen that we don’t act our characters "emotions" – it is often impossible to mirror your character’s state of mind, for example, to be intensely tired and unhappy after a weekend off! Instead, he encourages us to find our character’s intention in each scene. One way of doing this is to play the scene with the script, then to put the books down and do the scene without them. We haven’t learned the lines yet, so for this second run, you do it in contemporary speech, making up the lines as you go. The point is to remember from the first reading what was important to your character, then use this to shape your approach the second time round. If at the end of the exercise you can state, "This is what I want in the scene", you are closer to understanding both the scene and your character.

Another exercise we did is to masterclass our characters with everybody else in the company using those same three lists. We take it in turn to read our lists to the company, who then have a go at acting your character while you watch. It is very helpful to see what they perceive your character to be like, as it might show you a new perspective, or give you some ideas and clues as to how you might begin to develop your character. We’ve only just started rehearsals, and I always worry about my character at this stage. Sometimes I think "It’s fine, now I can build my character on a clear foundation," but other times I’m thinking, "Help! I have nothing and we’re up in 6 weeks!" We’ll see how it goes.

Activities

What is said about Bottom?

At the beginning of the rehearsal period John read through the play and made lists detailing:

  • everything Bottom says about himself
  • everything Bottom says about other characters in the play
  • everything that other characters say about Bottom

Make these three lists for Bottom. What do you find out about the character by doing this? Send your lists and observations to John so he can compare them with his own.

Character Reactions

In the activity above you made lists of what Bottom says about other characters in the play. Many of these comments are made behind that character’s back. How do you think that character might react if s/he heard what Bottom said about them?

Try improvising this situation in pairs with a) as Bottom and b) as one of the characters he talks about. What do you find out about Bottom from this activity? Send your discoveries to John.

Differences between the Globe and other theatres

What are the differences between the Globe Theatre and other, "proscenium arch" theatres? Make a list of similarities and differences.

Now apply this list to the text of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Take one scene, for example, Act 3 scene 1, (the Mechanicals’ rehearsal). How would you stage this scene in a) The Globe Theatre, b) a "proscenium arch" or "black box" theatre? How could the different locations affect the actors’ interpretation of the text? Use the virtual tour of the Globe theatre on the website (www.shakespeares-globe.org) to help you.

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John Ramm - Character Notes 2

These comments are the actor’s thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.
At the moment, we’re steadily working through the play. I’ve had a few days off to do some TV work with Dom Joly (it’s a spin off from Trigger Happy TV) and I’m playing his agent. That’s been quite fun, but it’s nice to get back.

We’ve started to use extended improvisations to help us with our character work. This morning, we (the mechanicals) all got together and made one improvisation last for a solid two hours! We were imagining what might have happened when the mechanicals meet each other for the first time, and especially what their initial reactions were to each other, which was very useful. We are also improvising the mechanicals’ "rehearsals": we walk into the rehearsal room in character, "rehearse" the play, then come out of character and discuss what we’ve done. Except it doesn’t always work like that – we’re meant to stop after 14 minutes, which is roughly how long the relevant scene from the play takes, but the other day, we went on for over an hour. Improvisation is a useful counterbalance to working with the text. I know my lines now, pretty much, and as we go through individual scenes I keep trying new things, new ways of approaching the lines. Occasionally, I find something that works, a flash of character that seems to fit my idea of Bottom, but other times I am way off the mark. Improvisation throws up even more ideas that I can play with to see if they fit.

We’re having a little time on stage at the moment, and I’m much more comfortable and confident working there than I was at this time last year. It’s nice to have a little rehearsal time there at this point; as an actor, you have to work within the bounds of the theatre space, so it’s good to get used to working there at this point. The rehearsal room is a much more intimate space, which is useful at the moment as we’re concentrating not so much on performance, but on the truth behind the lines, the character themselves. The whole performance is very intimate at the moment, as we’re just performing for ourselves. Of course, the Globe is very different when there’s an audience there. In most theatres, of course, an actor on the stage can’t see beyond the first couple of rows, but here you can see everyone in the audience, and whether they’re interested, bored, tired etc. We’ve done some work in the theatre when there have been tour groups in, and a couple of us tried speaking some lines to them. It feels a bit funny, as they’re only giving us half their attention – they’re still listening to their tour guide, but at the same time, it’s good to get practice in speaking on stage. The worst thing we can do is not speak naturally on that stage, it sounds awful if we force our voices – it sounds like we’re overacting.

Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play] is very keen to encourage us to speak naturally. When you approach performing Shakespeare, you often have all these perceptions about how it should sound. This is often what leads to actors bellowing lines instead of saying them. You need to break all these perceptions down, and find a conversational manner that fits the situation your characters are in. At the same time, the mechanicals are obviously not totally naturalistic characters, and if we play them that way, it doesn’t really work. At the same time, if we play them as clowns, it’s equally inappropriate. Because comic writing is a construct, the way you have to say the lines is also a construct. There’s a rhythm to a joke – you say a punch line in a certain way because you know it’s exactly that, and if you ignore that quality because you’re trying to play it naturalistically, you lose the comedy. The way a character speaks is the end result of how you, the actor, think they should in a particular situation. In many ways, you can’t play a character; you just have to play what you believe to be the truth of a situation.

Activities

1) John mentions that the company improvised the scene when the mechanicals first met.

In small groups, try this exercise yourselves. You might want to consider:

  • What do the characters think of each other, and do their opinions change?
  • How might the characters react to each other?
  • During the course of the improvisation, which aspects of the character you are playing emerge clearly, and which stay hidden from the other mechanicals?

What do you find out about the mechanicals from this exercise? Send your ideas to John.

2) The company has also improvised the mechanicals’ "rehearsals."

In small groups, try this exercise yourselves. Be sure to familiarise yourselves with the story of Pyramus and Thisbe first!

Do you think improvisation is a useful tool when it comes to developing a character? Send your thoughts to John.

3) "Because comic writing is a construct, the way you have to say the lines is also a construct." Discuss.

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John Ramm - Character Notes 3

These comments are the actor’s thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

It’s the technical rehearsals next week, but at the moment, we’re running either the first half, the second half, or both pretty much every day. We ran the first half on the stage a couple of days ago, and Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play], seemed very pleased with it. Yesterday, we ran the second half, which wasn’t so good. Throughout the play, those of us who aren’t directly involved in any particular scene will come on stage as fairies to watch, and at times interact with, the characters on stage at that time, and I think the problem with the second half is that we’re still trying to work out how much the fairies should get involved in certain scenes, such as the lovers’ scene (iii.2). In the end, the best way for us to work this out is through lots of practice. Still, because we’re now only a few weeks away from the first performance, I expect Mike will give us some guidance as to how much the fairies can interfere at particular moments so that we don’t obstruct the characters who are driving the story of the play forward at such points during the play.

Even though we’ve been running the first and second halves on the stage, most of our rehearsals are taking place in the rehearsal room. This makes things slightly difficult, because it’s very tempting this close to the start of the season to pretend that the rehearsal room is the Globe stage itself, and make one’s performance ‘bigger’ as a result. If you do this, there is a danger that, by the time you leave the rehearsal rooms for good, you will be used to giving a performance that is bigger than the space requires. If you continue to do this in the theatre, your performances there will become unnecessarily pantomimic and false. Instead of changing the scale of your performance, it’s important instead in the rehearsal room to concentrate on making eye contact; the communication between actors and audience. Again, it’s impossible to pretend that you’re in the theatre itself; people aren’t watching you from all sides, only from the front. But, as long as you concentrate on making eye contact with your audience without worrying that they’re not in the same positions relative to the stage as a Globe audience would be, the rehearsals are very useful. I always play to the people who are watching me, wherever they are, so the daily venue changes are difficult, but not impossible to cope with.

I’ve been thinking recently about Bottom the actor. He is not an experienced performer, yet the other mechanicals rate him as the best actor of them all, which is why he gets the best parts in their productions. I think that in some of his scenes, the part of Bottom could be said to make fun of actors in general, painting them as rather proud, narcissistic characters. I have been wondering about where I could stand on stage at various points during the play, especially when Bottom is mocking this stereotype or attacking other characters. Some actors have a theory that stage right (the left hand side of the stage for those watching from the front) is a far stronger position for an actor to stand in than stage left. There is a sun painted on the front corner of the heavens that overhangs stage right, and a moon in the corresponding corner stage left that symbolises this difference between the strong and the weak, between fire and water. Personally, I agree that stage right is a more empowering position for an actor to stand in, but I think it might be because an audience would expect a powerful action to come from their left; in many cultures, people read text from left to right. It’s just a thought, but it might be an interesting concept to work with. The pillars can be frightening to work with, but they’re also quite useful, especially for differentiating between indoor and outdoor locations. For example, we [the mechanicals] felt that our first scene (1.2) would probably take place inside somewhere, perhaps in a house, or a barn, whereas our later scenes (iii.1, iv.2) could be set in the forest, and our last scene (v.1) in the Duke’s palace. To emphasise the difference between the indoor and outdoor settings, we’re only using the middle of the stage (the area bordered by the pillars) for act i scene 2., so that when we get outside, we (and hopefully the audience) have a sense that we are in a far larger space than we were before. Even though the Duke’s palace is an interior setting, we are using the whole stage because it would be a far grander space than in i.2, and also because having the lovers sitting around the edge of the space helps bring the audience in towards the action of the play. In the end though, what’s vital to the scene is the situation that each character finds themselves in, not the location in which that situation is taking place, and by far the most difficult situation to act on the Globe stage is when your character finds them in darkness (FINISH)

People have asked me whether I’m going to play Bottom as a comedic character. There are many ways to approach the part; in some ways, I’m treating Bottom as a very serious, very earnest character, and in doing this, I’m trusting that the comedy will come from the text, with its heightened language and extraordinary situations. On the other hand, Bottom is a comedic character and I’m very conscious that he has to be funny. I’ve decided that he is very eccentric, but nevertheless, he is an everyman figure, and I think it’s wrong to go too far down the path of burlesque and vaudeville. I’ve come to the conclusion that I have to approach Bottom as a comedic character, but one with a very strong sense of logic. So, for everything I do that’s funny, whether it’s making a particular action, or saying a line in a particular way, there must be another reason for Bottom to do it besides ‘getting a laugh’, and the text will often help me in finding that reason.

The costumes have now been finished. Eveyone will be wearing pyjamas of some kind or other, and mine are rather old-fashioned blue and white striped ones. I think I’ll also be wearing a string vest underneath my pyjama top. When I’m changed into an ass, I won’t wear a big mask or anything like that. Instead, I’m going to be wearing a pair of shoes, (mules…), for ears and a polystyrene cup for a nose, in keeping with the overall ‘bedtime’ design. I think this is a really good idea, because anything more elaborate would distract the audience from the action of the play. On any stage, and especially on the Globe stage, it’s very hard to say to an audience, "this is real". When Bottom is changed into an ass, by doing it this way, I’m saying "it’s not real; I’m wearing shoes on my head, but do the best you can with that." The audience have to invest more of their imagination in the performance, which will encourage them to follow it more closely and hopefully enjoy it even more.

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John Ramm - Character Notes 4

These comments are the actor’s thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and frequently change as the rehearsal process progresses.

We’ve just finished our last week of rehearsals, and the production has now opened. Last week was very helpful; we started with the technical rehearsal, which took a day and a half, and then spent the rest of the week doing runs of the play on the stage itself, getting fully accustomed to working in that space. Even though we’ve started the run, our rehearsal process will continue until the end of this week, as this week, Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play] has the right to call any of the company to rehearse bits of the show that he feels need a little more work. He will come to every performance this week and take notes, and we will all sit down and discuss each performance as a group.

First performances tend to be a little daunting, but I was very pleased with how it went on Sunday. Audiences at the Globe are generally very supportive, but the audience we had for the first performance was especially appreciative. Because of the nature of the Globe space, each production seems only complete when there’s an audience to play to. The audience are the missing piece of the puzzle, and their presence allows everything else to fall into place. This is true even for actors’ character work; audience interaction helps us to mould our characters and make them as believable as possible. Therefore, we need to ensure that an audience feels encouraged to interact with what’s happening on stage, and the best way to do this is to make our characters’ intentions very clear, thus helping an audience to follow the story easily. I’m thinking hard about the end of iii.1 at the moment, when Bottom meets Titania and several members of her train, Clarity of intention doesn’t solve every problem, however. For example, if an audience isn’t responding, it could be because of the language. As beautiful as Shakespeare’s language is, sometimes the meaning of some lines is lost on a modern audience. That’s not an insurmountable obstacle; you just have to face up to it. For example, Bottom’s song in iii.2 describes the cuckoo, "whose note full many a man doth mark / and dares not answer ‘Nay’" (iii.2.190). No man can be totally sure that he’s never been made a cuckold, as Bottom says; "Who would give the bird the lie, though he cry ‘Cuckoo’ never so?" (iii.2.191-2). Not surprisingly, audiences often don’t understand the meaning of these lines, so I use that fact to encourage them to stay with what’s happening on stage: I address the last line to one of the groundlings, who usually looks at me as if to say "I don’t know what you’re talking about" and we both shrug at one another, causing the rest of the audience to laugh. The fact that neither of us really understands those lines maintains the bond between actors and audience in the face of potential confusion over what those lines actually mean.

One of the reasons that the audience is such a strong shaping force in A Midsummer Night’s Dream is because the comedy encourages an audience to interact more readily with the actors than they would with, say, a tragedy, as their reaction to the play, (hopefully, their laughter), is more spontaneous. Another reason for the audience’s strong influence is the organic nature of this production. There is no blocking; each actor is reliant on their character’s intention to guide them as to when and where on stage they will move. The mechanicals’ play in v.1 was never ‘directed’ by Mike [Alfreds, Master of Play]. Instead, he sent us (the actors playing the mechanicals) away to rehearse our play in character (see Rehearsal Notes 2). Every night, our ‘play’ is different, and occasionally even topical; Paul Trussell [Peter Quince] brought on a set of red and yellow cards one afternoon when England were playing in the World Cup. However, it’s important not to play every scene with the aim of making the audience laugh. I play the death of Pyramus as seriously as possible, and so far, audiences have treated it quasi-seriously and are very sympathetic towards Aled [Pugh, Flute] when he comes on as Thisbe to find me ‘dead’. When an audience is involved like that, living purely in the moment, it’s their interaction that completes the performance.

Activities

1) "… comedy encourages an audience to interact more readily with the actors than they would with… a tragedy". Discuss.

2) John mentions that it is important for the actors to make their characters’ intentions clear to the audience.

Look at the end of Act iii Scene 1, and especially at those lines where Bottom greets individual members of Titania’s train. What effect(s) could Bottom intend his greetings to have: what is the intention behind each line/group of lines?

You may want to consider the following:

  • Bottom’s reaction to Titania.
  • Each character’s status (as perceived by themselves and by others).

Now, in small groups, read the scene several times, each time giving each character a different set of intentions. At the same time, write down potential stage directions for each of the characters. Each direction must be linked to a character’s intention.

Now play the scene.

What effect do the different intentions you have identified have on:

  • How each character says their lines.
  • Each character’s movements on stage.

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