QUINCE          If that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. Pyramus, you begin. When you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake; and so every one according to his cue.

PUCK  [aside] What hempen homespuns have we swaggering here,

So near the cradle of the Fairy Queen?

What, a play toward? I’ll be an auditor;

An actor too, perhaps, if I see cause.           (3.1.67-75)

If that may be, then all is well, agrees Quince, exhausted. If he’s got to come up with a portable wall, so be it, he’s the one who started this. But it’s time to rehearse, and for him to be unambiguously back in charge: come, sit down every mother’s son, and rehearse your parts. (That is, go over your lines.) Places, everyone! Pyramus, you begin. (Of course he begins, Bottom was operating on that assumption regardless.) And, when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake—yes, that thicket over there, no, THAT one—and so every one according to his cue. This is the moment Quince has been waiting for—his play! You know what you’ve got to do, deliver your speech, and then exit—and everyone else (are you listening?) you do exactly the same. (No warm-ups, no trust games, no table work. Straight in, on your feet: go!)

Puck is invisible: what hempen homespuns have we swaggering here, so near the cradle of the Fairy Queen? Who are these bumpkins, in their workwear? are these … labourers? (Bottom will be swaggering, certainly, Starveling and Flute, not so much.) And what are they doing in the vicinity of Titania’s bower? What, a play toward? Is that’s what in the offing—work in progress? I love a play, I do. I’ll be an auditor—audience of one!—an actor too, perhaps, if I see cause. There’s an opportunity here for mischief…