QUINCE Robin Starveling, the tailor?
STARVELING Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE Robin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s mother. Tom Snout, the tinker?
SNOUT Here, Peter Quince.
QUINCE You, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisbe’s father; Snug the joiner, you the Lion’s part; and I hope here is a play fitted.
SNUG Have you the Lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.
QUINCE You may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. (1.2.54-65)
Fortunately the others are more compliant than Flute, and indeed Bottom: Robin Starveling the tailor (he may have been played by the actor John Sincklo, apparently cadaverously thin, who also likely played the Apothecary in R&J; tailors are poor because gallants do not pay their bills on time) is ready—Here, Peter Quince—and apparently has no objection to playing Thisbe’s mother, on the grounds of his beard or anything else. (As a tailor, he’s probably the highest status of all the workers, bar Quince himself.) Tom Snout, the tinker, will play Pyramus’ father, and again, no objections, Quince himself will play Thisbe’s father, and finally, Snug the joiner, you the Lion’s part; and I hope here is a play fitted. With the Lion cast, that should be it. Phew, thinks Quince, this impresario actor-manager business is more stressful than he’d imagined. But Snug’s anxious now: have you the Lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study. Snug knows that it takes time to copy actors’ parts, but also he registers that while Flute, Bottom, Starveling, and Snout all seem to have been given scrolls with their lines in them, he hasn’t been given anything at all! Where is Snug’s part? He wants to get on with the line-learning; he knows it’ll take him a while. (LOVE SNUG.) Quince is relieved, a little triumphant even, to be able to say, you may do it extempore, for it is nothing but roaring. Lion is improv! No line-learning needed! ROAR!
