PROLOGUE TO MY THEATRE STORIES

BOTTOM'S DREAM

by Tom Fulton

"I have had a most rare vision. I have had a dream, past the wit man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. Methought I was - there is no man can tell what. Methought I was, - and me thought I had- But man is but a patched fool if he will offer to say what methought I had.

Bottom - IV,1 Midsummer Night's Dream

As I place these stories I have written on the internet for others to read, I feel myself waking up and remembering my thoughts as if I had put them down in a dream. "What are your stories about?" friends ask me. And I don't want to say. I'm embarrassed somehow. Like Bottom, I think a man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream. I am a patched fool… Methought I had.. what?.. an idea? A piece of advice?

Me thought I was who? .. Why what an ass am I? Well, for the answer: My little collection is a journal of discoveries, discoveries that seem wild and sometimes awesome to me ("most rare visions"), but which I often fear may seem silly and obvious to you - like Bottom's dream Still, even if that's true, I think, what's wrong with stating the obvious now and then?

When Bottom is transformed into an Ass, Titania tries to please him by feeding him "dainties". Bottom could have anything in the world, but he can think of nothing he'd like better than some "good dry oats" and a "bottle of hay".

Titania:

Feed him with apricocks and dewberries,

With purple grapes, green figs and dewberries,

The honey-bags steal from the humblebees,

And for night tapers crop their waxen thighs,

And light them at the fiery glowworm's eyes

Or say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

 

Bottom:

Truly, a peck of provender. I could munch you

good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire

to a bottle of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

 

Titania:

I have a venturous fairy that shall seek

The squirrel's hoard, and fetch the new nuts.

 

Bottom:

I had rather have a handful or two of dried oats…

Even in shadow of apricocks and dewberries - good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow! Let me have Bottom's delusion when I act, when I direct when I write. Let me say "dried peas" to the "dainties". Here I act, I direct - a man, like an ass being offered the world. There are the "dainties" right on the surface- easy pickings! Let me be Bottom-wise. Find me the good dry oats and the bottle of hay at the center of the play and it will be a rare dream indeed. I am Bottom. I am an ass, a simpleton, a child, frightened, foolish, naive, a little quixotic. I choose the hay, the oats and a handful of peas - obvious, simple, necessary, least.

Bottom has the humblest of dreams! His choice is survival, practicality over extravagance, and he is the happier for it. With it, he rises above all the fairies in the forest as the wisest of the enchanted. It is the obvious things, the "Acting 101" things, we keep overlooking while we're rummaging around for daring new concepts. The question I keep asking is "where's the hay?" "where are the characters?" What are these "dainties?"

"What the hell!? Why is Richard dressed like a Hobo with an apricock on his nose?"

 

"Why is Titus Andronicus on the MOON munching dewberries?"

 

"What's that giant vagina doing on the stage hovering over Othello with its waxen ø

thighs?"

I'd rather have a handful or two of dried peas, thank you. Give me peck of provender and let me sleep. Let none of your people stir me. Be gone and be all ways away - with Bottom.

Here I am, waking up from my writing, wanting to compose a ballad of my dream and sing it before you, my Duke. What is my dream about? Mostly about theatre dainties and theatre hay, of the opposite natures of career and art - how they repulse and how they enchant.

My ballad sings to theatre as a life and surviving the choices I have made. (I pray thee gentle mortal, choose again!) My first and most crucial choice was to make theatre a part of my life - which I have done with a vengeance. This has been both the making and breaking of me over and over again - like a wheel. And while the theatre isn't my whole life, it holds a cherished place in my heart because it gives my life meaning - like a good bottle of hay

It has made, as Robert Frost said, "all the difference." So, here is my ballad about my dream. And for better or for worse, "I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid."

copyright (c) 2000 by Tom Fulton

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