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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 5, Scene 1 Monologue: Peter Quince
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Understanding the Given Circumstances
- This speech is the opening prologue of the play-within-a-play that concludes A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
- Peter Quince, playwright and narrator, is one of the play’s “rude mechanicals,” lower-class laborers who have formed a kind of amateur theatrical troupe under Quince’s direction. The mechanicals perform their play at a gathering at the home of Theseus, Duke of Athens. The people in attendance are of much higher social status than the amateur actors.
- Quince has based his play on the ancient Greek fable of Pyramus and Thisbe, a tale of doomed lovers. In this speech, he introduces all the characters in the play and gives a summary of the plot. These characters include a literal wall, the light of the moon, and a lion, in addition to the lovers themselves.
- The troupe rehearsed the play somewhat sketchily in the forest, with several notable interruptions in the process, including the transformation of the actor playing Pyramus into a donkey-headed creature. For this reason, the play may not be performance-ready.
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. Be sure to show respect and establish trust when working with scene partners. As you prepare to block this scene, ask yourself the following questions:
- This is a speech before an on-stage audience. How confident is Quince in his performance? How does this affect how he moves onstage?
- Quince refers to various other characters in the play the troupe is about to perform. Where are they on stage? How does he make it clear to the audience who is who?
- Quince, as the playwright, has given himself a meaty monologue to begin the play. How in love with his own words is he? Does he enjoy, or struggle with, some parts more than others? How can you show that in your voice and physicality?
- Where in this speech might Quince, as the narrator, break character, and how does that look and sound?
Meaning in Heightened Language
When approaching a piece of Shakespeare for performance or audition, it’s important to closely examine the text so that you have a clear understanding of it. Begin by studying SparkNotes’ No Fear Shakespeare Translation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so you can be sure to know what each unfamiliar word or phrase means.
- Shakespeare’s heightened language can be beautiful and poetic, and it can be thrilling and exact. This writing contains a certain amount of parody. Shakespeare squeezes in phrases like “bush of thorn” to rhyme with “lanthorn.” How can the performer find the comedy in this over-heightened language?
- Quince’s speech is loaded with alliteration. One example is “Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade / He bravely broached his boiling bloody breast.” How does this fusillade of plosive B sound work to drive Quince’s point across?
Historical Context
Shakespeare wrote A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the very end of the 16th century, but the play’s setting and references owe much to antiquity, both Greek and pagan. The setting is Athens, the wellspring of Western theatre and the source of mythological tales that Shakespeare knew and frequently used throughout his work. Shakespeare’s most likely source was the Roman translation of the Greek writer Ovid’s Metamorphoses. This collection of poetic tales of transformation includes the story of Pyramus and Thisbe, which the rude mechanicals unintentionally parody in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (and which Shakespeare had already drawn from for the plot of Romeo and Juliet).
Ancient Athens is not the only inspiration for the style and substance of this play. The English-speaking audience of the time would have known the stories of Ovid in the same way we know about Greek and Roman mythology today. They also would have known (and maybe even believed in) tales of fairies and magical forests, spells, and potions of their own land. For example, A Midsummer Night’s Dream itself descends from a pre-Christian pagan ritual, a celebration of nature, the sun, and the coming harvest. The music and dramatic performance Quince is introducing here call back to that pagan festival of the changing season in England.
Full Act 5, Scene 1 Monologue: Peter Quince
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