The Role of Bottom Chapter 16

I was cast in the role of Bottom in Shakespeare's "A Mid-Summer Night's Dream". Now the role of Bottom was a weaver , which was a working class guy back then. So when Bottom was speaking as himself I made no attempts to cover my New York accent as it seemed to fit the character and as the other actors used their own American accents so why not me.

I studied the play constantly, to know the meaning of everything I was saying and had a good mental image of what I was talking about. There is a great scene in the play when Bottom is acting for the Duke. Now since I as the character was acting I decided to act like I thought I was the best actor in the world and played the play within a play as if I was Richard Burton. Back then , Richard Burton was one of England's most popular actors. He spoke in a deep and what I thought was a pompous voice.

So I study Burton in some of his roles and I must say, I was able to imitate his voice quite well. So when I came out to do the play within a play, uptil this time the audience was accustomed to my Ny accent , my character did Richard Burton, to quote one of the critics, " a wave of hysteria swept thru the audience".