QUINCE          Ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUT            You can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOTTOM        Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him, to signify Wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper.(3.1.54-66)

Quince has another idea about the moon, FAR more artistic and sophisticated than Bottom’s suggestion to leave the window open: ay, or else one must come in with a bush of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure or to present the person of Moonshine. Was this Quince’s plan all along, a slightly out-there element he wants to slip in unnoticed, or is he caught up in the general spirit of creative theatrical problem solving? Whatever, it’s introducing a whole other level of representation, and a different order too, realism be damned, never mind not-a-real-lion and no-one-really-dies. YES. Moonshine shall be a character! (No comment from Bottom or Snout, let alone anxious Starveling, and Flute seems to be unconcerned; perhaps he’s preoccupied with running his lines?)

But there’s another problem: then there is another thing, and this one’s really been bugging Quince (and him a carpenter). We must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall. There has to be a wall! in the hall! of the duke’s palace! with a CHINK in it! otherwise all bets are off, we just can’t do it. Snout thinks they might as well give up now, but one hope remains, and they haven’t been failed yet: what say you, Bottom?

Bottom muses; Snout waits, with bated breath, and Starveling, although surely he’s not afraid of the wall? (Perhaps Quince does too.) Some man or other must present Wall; and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some roughcast about him, to signify Wall; and let him hold his fingers thus, and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper. Basically, make a portable wall, out of actual building materials, stick someone inside it, get him to make a potentially obscene gesture with his fingers (Bottom demonstrates) and we’re good.

Well I walked into that one, with my vaguely expressionist Moonshine, thinks Quince. Ask for the moon, get some perambulating personified masonry flicking a V-sign. But there’s no doubt that it’s a solution…