Opening Night

Couldn't have asked for a better opening night - apart from a full house. The cast were stunning, the techs amazing (particularly given they only arrived on Sunday) and of utmost importance - it worked!
It was the production of Macbeth I've always wanted to see, the script worked very well and the effects were great, but really the cast were what made it fly.

If you're in town you have to come and see them!!!!!

Four days to go

Well four days till we have an audience. The cast has done a brilliant job, they're ready to go and I am impressed with them.

The only issue is whether the costumes, lighting, sound and other effects and the cast are working together. Tomorrow we have all the costumes, the smoke, the smells, the props, and the curtains up, but getting the cast and the bits and pieces working together is my big worry.

There is much to do. I spent much of the afternoon hanging curtains, these are the 'set'. I also went to hang the gauze, which was a major effort and I discovered the way we intended to do it won't work.

Tomorrow we are without the stage manager and lighting operator for the morning and various cast have given me ultimatums about when they can start and finish.

What it seems is that it's harder and harder to get actors to rehearsals and to get techs and backstage people at all. Today people are working weekends and evenings and anyone with technical skills wants to be paid. Not having a set seemed to be one way to ensure that we could strike the set each night (as we have to) and save effort and energy.

Well the play looks good.

Macbeth in 90 seconds

http://www.videojug.com/film/macbeth-in-96-seconds

22 days till opening

First full run tonight. Much later than I would have hoped and not in the venue. The first half held together well, the from act 3 it looked much worse.

Still haven't seen any stage blood, don't know about many of the costumes, music .... oh and we still can't get the whole cast in one place at once.

On the plus side - the edits are working, the cast is strong, my flu has nearly passed.

M and Lady M are very strong. The relationships are excellent. The cast are of a very high qaulity all round. We have a new witch which requires bringing her up to speed with the play. But it's all good.

24 days to go

We open in 24 days. That fills me with dread. We've still seen no costumes, no props and have no sound effects.
On the plus side despite another witch pulling out last week and one of the unnamed Lords having to pull out following a car accident as his leg is in plaster we have a full cast and the play is looking good.

We do have a gauze at last and I have resolved the issues around the staging. Also the lighting plan is being developed and same with special effects seem to be on track. Chanel is sorting out the music.

So provided no more problems arise we are on track.

This is almost the time when I wonder why it matters, why it's so hard and why oh why do we do this.

Opening video for show - spoiler

The video has been created to open the show. It's supposed to look like a webvideo ....
http://www.vidcast.co.nz:80/VidCastPodCastProductionbyTandemVoiceBooth/Player/tabid/86/VideoId/202/Default.aspx

thanks to Tandem Studios for the talent and the production, to Scott Koorey for the music and to a distant cousin of William Shakespeare for the script.

Script edits

I know I'm not the person to say this - but the edits rock. If anyone anywhere is looking to do a complete production of Macbeth and wants a 65min script - I have it!

Rehearsal changes

Tuesday June 24 is now all of Act 1 (So witches etc needed now afterall)
Thursday 26 June is now Act 1 Sc4-7
Sunday 29 June - all are called with 2 to 2-20 only Malcolm, Macduff and Ross. 2:20 on a run through the whole play.

Okay I take it back

After all my high sounding commentary in the posts 2 and 3 days ago I spent today's rehearsal simply blocking. There was nothing much else going on.

Rehearsal Sunday 29 June

I'm calling everyone for rehearsal at 2 pm. The rehearsal is at the theatre.

Acting and direction

In the last post I mentioned Meisner, Stanislavsky and method. I'm not wanting to seem to be trendy or throwing around names of acting schools without understanding them so just a little here on what I meant. I know only a little about Strasberg, Meisner, Stansilavsky, Adler and some of the 20th century approaches to acting. And, for example, I'm not keen on apparently repititious meaningless exchanges as a way of learning to react (Meisner is well known for these exercises). At the level of theatre I work at we haven't time for weeks of exploration.
What is clear to me today is that if you are aware of modern theatre you can't help but be influenced by these schools and theories. The alternative is what I grew up with - the first few rehearsals are blocking (Stand here, move there, sit down, stand) followed by rehearsals which are tweaks of the first (sit in the middle of the line, put the gun there, say it with more passion).
What I want to see is something approaching genuine characters with motivations you can understand who move around for convincing reasons.

So I do use the blocking direction I grew up with but I have rudimentary and superficial but useful interpretations of these schools which inform my directorial style. I am drawn to what I understand from Meisner as the idea of trying to get actors in the now (what the repetition exercises are supposed to create). So that there performances are genuine in that they build from the energy and actors around them, and may differ from night to night but are motivations and reactions to others motivations. I think Meisner called this Affective Memory.
In Stanislavskly I like the idea of using imagination to understand where your character is and go with that. I mean for example neither of my actors playing Macbeth or Lady M have murdered or conspired to murder anyone as far as I am aware, so they need to imagine what it is like and go with that. Strasberg on the other hand (again as I understand it) wanted actors to draw on their own souls and psyches and reproduce their reactions to earlier events in their lives, or their psyches (I believe this is called emotion memory).

What I would say is each approach is useful for different actors. In other words where I can't get something out of an actor I may change approach. Some actors need to go back to when their pet rabbit died when they were 8 and use that to power their performance about losing a parent, another actor in the same role might simply imagine having lost his father to an assassin while a third may instead just get in the now and take on the enormity of what is being said.

I'm no expert. But I do like having a range of tools. As I alluded to earlier - our other issue is not having the luxury of spending 8 hours a day, every day, on this and not having necessarily the best material to work with. So when all else fails clever work-arounds (cheats) are really useful, that is if the actor can't stand without waving his hands around - get him to lean on things in every scene.

Progress

One of the goals I set for myself for this production is to make the relationship between the Macbeths and their murder of Duncan plausible. This has been the underlying problem with nearly every production I have seen and most of the movies.

Last night working with the two actors I have for these roles I believe we made huge progress in cracking this dilemma. Both are fantastic actors who can convey subtlety as well as a broad range of emotions and motivations. I was momentarily scared as we worked on Act 1 Scene 5. Lady M was terrifying as these lines came to life:
"Thy letters have transported me beyond This ignorant present, and I feel now The future in the instant."

After we had finished I realised how much I owe to a newsgroup called Act Pro that I used to be a member of and to people, conversations and experiences which have developed my rudimentary understanding of Meisner, Stanislavsky and method. We had both Ms in the moment and alive to the motivation in the script and alive to the intentions of who they were and where they were going. Add to that drawing on their own personal experiences to make the moment alive with genuine emotion and we really were creating.

This is shaping up as the best production I have done. False hope / vaulting ambition? I too as a director am caught in the desire to create something based in authenticity - not just for the actors and the audience but also for me.

Three different witches

The unfortunate exit from the cast of our witches (due to employment reasons) has focussed attention on the need for them to have individual personalities in some way. In other productions (to sound like a broken record) they are usually virtually indistiguishable. In the productions where there is an attempt to make them distinct tThere is often an older leader and a younger initiate. I'll work with Chanel, the AD, to see what we can do to give the 3 of them personalities.

Macduff

One of the many things on my list to try and improve in this production over others I have seen is to make Macduff stand out. Normally he is invisible until he is tested and he leads the attack on the castle and kills Macbeth at the end. Banquo is always easy to spot, but the Malcolm, Macduff, Ross, Angus, Menteith, Lennox distinction is harder to make.

The Court Theatre here in Christchurch did a production set in Japan a few years ago, a tribute to Kurosaka I believe. In that production Macduff was given a ludicrous hat. Even then he didn't stand out that well.

In this production we're opting for Macduff as someone who is sees through the thrall and sees Macbeth for what he is. Maybe his goodness means he isn't (as easily) enchanted. That means he stands apart from all the others, perhaps is more modern in his dress, and at the beginning of the play looks askance at Macbeth. If he is also socially awkward it might explain why he isn't trusted by Malcolm and seems to have missed the victory banquet.

This standing aside positioning and scrutiny of Macbeth combined with a touch of a puritanical view of the world worked today in rehearsals, and the actor playing Macduff seems to be able to use this to make the character of Macduff strong and distinct.

We may still give him some distinct costuming - but no dumb hats.

School resource completed

Chanel and Andre have completed a curriculum school resource which is fantastic and the next step is to get it posted to schools!

It's more comprehensive and interesting than I had ever imagined!

Next rehearsal - Sunday at 10 am

Act 4 Sc 1
Act 2

First rehearsal

It's good when you sit with your cast for the first time and think 'this is going to be fantastic'.

I'm now trying to tune into the way in which people work best. I like to ask actors lots of questions about their characters, their motivations and their feelings at any given time, but this is not best for everyone.

The gold in this play is character motivations, and the decision to go with emphasising the supernatural elements gives a lot of scope for characters to talk about what they see versus what is going on, or what they fear. Not everything is as it seems. Most of the characters are led a merry dance by the main protagonists and characters relationship amd reaction to the evil that pervades the play is a great place to start.

Read through and first cast get-together

I'm looking forward to getting the team together tomorrow - although there are one or two people who can't make it, notably the production co-ordinator Victoria. Although I've read everything and talked through a hell of a lot I still feel under-prepared.

Revised version of poster

Cast selected for the play

With one or two exceptions I have a full cast. The posts now will include production issues and the processes we go through.

The normal story: 8 women capable of playing Lady Macbeth and 3 men capable of Macbeth. All of the witches I've cast could take on the role and I rejected a Lady Macbeth / Macbeth combination of 2 of the finest actors in town. However I am very pleased with the Macbeths have cast.

There were dramas in the auditons made worse as I haven't help proper auditions for 10 years having shoulder tapped since then. By the end of the day my brain was fried and judgement impaired. Also some really basic things about the next steps weren't conveyed to auditionees, by this I mean I forgot among other things to check their availability for the first read through.

Anyway as I like to sign my emails now - it's all good.

Angus is a woman?

The male shortage has led me to think through my earlier idea of having one of the thanes as a woman because, really, she's a modern Scottish army officer. Eg Major Janet Angus. This has an added complication because Angus has taken on being killed by Macbeth in the penultimate scene instead of Young Siward. This creates problems around the 'man born of woman' dialogue. Anyway more thinking to do.

The audition notice in the paper ....

has netted 1 audition enquiry as at 3 pm... more this evening I suspect.

Script

I have the rehearsal copy ready to go!
It will need some changes depending on the actors I get - but it's very close.

Slots for auditions filling up

Anyone wanting an audition time should get in touch! The slots are filling fast.

Meanwhile the curse of Macbeth is my laptop has been crushed losing some vital files for the play in the process. Good news is I have got a copy of 'The Occult philosophy in the Elizabethan Age' by Frances Yates which is a good relevant read.

Audition enquiries suggest excellent auditions

I'm really impressed with some of the people who have contacted me about the auditions. Some because they're experienced, a couple because they're knowledgable, but most because they're keen.

Our production

Auditions are 20 days away. What is good is that I am already impressed with the auditionees! Although I'm not sure we've got all our parts covered yet.

Audition times

Auditions are on 25 May 2008, Elmwood Auditorium, Aikmans Rd, Christchurch.

• Macbeth and Lady Macbeth auditions from 9am
• Other characters 11 am on
• Witches from 2 pm

Anyone that can't make these times should contact me directly.

Macbeth and Lady Macbeth actors will be auditioned together with each actor getting to read with at least two others.

Witches will be auditioned in groups. The witches will be dancing so we’re looking for witches who can move.

The Poster - more or less

Well there was a poll on the site with all of 8 votes ... and it had no impact on the final poster! (what do you expect of website polls?) Anyway courtesy of Julian here is the poster which will be made more modest to keep schools happy.

Teller's advice on bloody heads

This is a useful tip from Teller's Macbeth which I think I will take up for our production

Today we did a conference call about heads. In Shakespeare’s day, you’d go to work and see severed human heads on display on public structures to warn prospective crooks of the consequences of malfeasance.

Shakespeare introduces the dead Macbeth’s head right at the finale of the show. It was natural to Shakespeare. You wanna show a dead butcher? Bring out his head.

But in the modern theater, you don’t see a lot of heads. And for good reason. If the fake head (and, yes, I’m sorry; we’ll probably have to have to fake it, except maybe on the final performance) looks bad, you say, “How lame!” and it takes you out of the story. If it’s good, you say, “Wow, that’s a fine reproduction. I wonder how they cast it,” and you’re right out of the story. It’s a no-win situation.

So we’re looking for a way to get the horror without the distraction. At this point, we’re thinking of establishing the convention that severed heads are carried around in blood-soaked burlap bags. What’s nice about that is that this combines two awful images we’re seeing from the Middle East nowadays. We see terrorist prisoners with their heads in bags, and we see people being beheaded. Put ‘em together and you’ve got Macbeth.

Macbeth becomes a tyrant who rules by terror, so it makes sense he would display the heads (and maybe bodies) of uncooperative subjects.
http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellerspeaks/telleressayheads.html

Audition packs - here they are

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – OVERVIEW

Performance Dates
o 6, 8 & 9 August at 7.30 pm
o 7,12 &13 August at 6.30 pm
o 14 – 16 August 7.30 pm

Auditions
25 May 2008
Elmwood Auditorium
Aikmans Road, Merivale
Times will be booked from 20 May, by appointment

· I will be auditioning Macbeth and Lady Macbeth actors together with each actor getting to read with at least two others.
· The witches will be auditioned in groups.

Above all I want people to give the type of audition that reflects the way they work… you can read up and prepare looking at background and the script OR turn up cold. Part of the audition is to find out how you like to work and what sort of actor you are.

For example I have worked with people who start rehearsals as blank canvasses and others who turn up to the first rehearsal with most of the character in place, with thinkers, intuitive actors, and others who are very physical in how they develop their characters.

Blog and production notes here - http://barcodemacbeth.blogspot.com/

Rehearsal times and dates
These have yet to be set but for principal roles 2 evenings and one session on the weekends during June, and early July moving to 3 evenings and one weekend till late July / early August.

Concept for the production
There is a continuum between performing Shakespeare exactly as written in the time in which it was set, and changing it to make it more accessible.
This production veers towards accessibility. Long scenes with very little information shared are being cut and some attempts are being made at the beginning toward making Macbeth more than just some Scottish guy hundreds of years ago. The audience needs to be with us and long clunky scenes with people questioning each other are not good entertainment.

This production will be reasonably traditional in most of the performance aspects, except that:
- There will be minimum set (chairs and a table), with black curtains, lighting, music and smoke
- There are significant cuts to reduce the performance time to 90 minutes
- Many smaller scenes with minor characters have been pruned
- Some scenes have been turned more into showing, rather than long speeches telling
- Following the ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ themeing the witches are not going to be old hags but good looking and attractive and entirely evil
- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are not going to be truly perfect heroic figures, rather having strengths, as they are often played. As well as the weaknesses of vaulting ambition –
o Macbeth is a great warrior but off the battlefield he is easily led and perhaps really doesn’t get how court politics work. This satisfies the imagery of not fitting the clothing of being King and explains why he never resorts to diplomacy to secure his throne.
o Lady Macbeth is very ambitious but small minded and shrewish toward her husband (this is demonstrated in the ‘screw your courage to the sticking place’ speech) and really she can’t foresee the costs of her urgings – perhaps seeing the short term goal but isn’t smart enough to see what will happen if you kill the King.
These basic characterisations also tend to support the idea that Macbeth has no use for Lady Macbeth after the Banquo’s ghost scene – he has just resorted to battlefield tactics of killing everything and she has nothing more to offer.
Another twist here is it might be interesting if the witches or Hecate are Lady Macbeth’s servants.
- The start and end of the play are set in contemporary times, Macbeth falls under the witches spells and so experiences the rest of the play as if it were circa 800 BC.


Macbeth

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Macbeth

Background

Macbeth is a great general and warrior. This is his thing – he is ferocious, fearless and an inspiring field commander.

Usually he is played as a great heroic character but with vaulting ambition, and power lust (and perhaps his wife) as his fatal weaknesses.

In this production we’re taking a harder look at why this ‘vaulting ambition’ leads to a bloodthirsty and insane coup d’etat betraying and murdering his leader, his best friend and destroying his country.

The line we will take is that he is a great general, but not a great politician. In fact off the battlefield he really is ‘in borrow’d clothes’. He is not up to being King. That’s peharps why Duncan didn’t make him Cumberland (crown prince).
His level of intelligence is up to the actor. Insightful soliloquy’s do not necessarily mean he’s bright.
The murders after Duncan show a Macbeth who falls back on what he knows- violent bloodshed – he turns the Kingdom into a battlefield because that’s what he understands.

The Elmwood Macbeth will be a mostly decent but flawed general who is perhaps reminiscent of a great sportsman who just doesn’t get the politics around his code.

So why does he kill Duncan?
· Yes he did think he should be King – he doesn’t know his limitations
· The witches cast a spell on him (a thrall) – which alters his perceptions
· Lady Macbeth is more ambitious than he is and is goading and pushing him
· He’s weak

The audition

The audition will involve – working with 2 auditionees for the role of Lady Macbeth (LM)
1. Some dialogue and movement with an auditionee for LM
2. A soliloquy
3. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the character and the play
4. The dialogue again with another actor as LM

Soliliquys - 2 to choose from:

Is this a dagger which I see before me,The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.Art thou not, fatal vision, sensibleTo feeling as to sight? or art thou butA dagger of the mind, a false creation,Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?I see thee yet, in form as palpableAs this which now I draw.Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,Which was not so before. There's no such thing:It is the bloody business which informsThus to mine eyes.
A bell rings
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Or

I have lived long enough: my way of lifeIs fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;And that which should accompany old age,As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,I must not look to have; but, in their stead,Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.

Dialogue

Enter LADY MACBETH
MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour'd me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunkWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done to this.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journeySoundly invite him--his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warden of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA vessel only: when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males. Will it not be received,When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twoOf his own chamber and used their very daggers,That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,As we shall make our griefs and clamour roarUpon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show:False face must hide what the false heart doth know.


Lady Macbeth

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Lady Macbeth

Background

Lady Macbeth is arguably the greatest female Shakespearean role.
Usually she is played with one of 3 variants –
1 Strong and ruthless, dominating her husband
2 As very much in love and weaker but who makes herself strong to do what she thinks her husband really wants
3 As equal to her husband but trying to work with him to achieve greatness, partly out of her own ambition and partly just being in partnership with him.

In this production we’re taking a harder look at both her and Macbeth to understand why they embark on a bloodthirsty and insane coup d’etat betraying and murdering the King and plunging the country into terror and confusion.

Just because other women’s roles in Shakespeare aren’t great is no reason to make her dominating and strong unless we really believe she is. Although many people have introduced historical detail behind the real Lady Macbeth this isn’t that relevant to the script.

So why does she urge Macbeth to, and go ahead with, killing Duncan? My answers for discussion are:
· She is very ambitious and wants them to be King and Queen
· Her ambition outweighs her commonsense and ability to understand the consequences of her actions
· The witches cast a spell on her and her husband


The audition

The audition will involve – working with 2 auditionees for the role of Macbeth
1. Some dialogue and movement with an auditionee for Macbeth
2. A soliloquy
3. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the character and the play
4. The dialogue again with another actor as Macbeth


Soliliquys - 2 to choose from:

The raven himself is hoarseThat croaks the fatal entrance of DuncanUnder my battlements. Come, you spiritsThat tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,And fill me from the crown to the toe top-fullOf direst cruelty! make thick my blood;Stop up the access and passage to remorse,That no compunctious visitings of natureShake my fell purpose, nor keep peace betweenThe effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,Wherever in your sightless substancesYou wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,To cry 'Hold, hold!'

LADY MACBETH
Yet here's a spot.
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, mylord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need wefear who knows it, when none can call our power toaccount?--Yet who would have thought the old manto have had so much blood in him.
The thane of Fife had a wife: where is she now?--What, will these hands ne'er be clean?--No more o'that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all withthis starting.
Here's the smell of the blood still: all theperfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this littlehand. Oh, oh, oh!


Dialogue

Enter LADY MACBETH
MACBETH
How now! what news?
LADY MACBETH
He has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber?
MACBETH
Hath he ask'd for me?
LADY MACBETH
Know you not he has?
MACBETH
We will proceed no further in this business:He hath honour'd me of late; and I have boughtGolden opinions from all sorts of people,Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,Not cast aside so soon.
LADY MACBETH
Was the hope drunkWherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since?And wakes it now, to look so green and paleAt what it did so freely? From this timeSuch I account thy love. Art thou afeardTo be the same in thine own act and valourAs thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have thatWhich thou esteem'st the ornament of life,And live a coward in thine own esteem,Letting 'I dare not' wait upon 'I would,'Like the poor cat i' the adage?
MACBETH
Prithee, peace:I dare do all that may become a man;Who dares do more is none.
LADY MACBETH
What beast was't, then,That made you break this enterprise to me?When you durst do it, then you were a man;And, to be more than what you were, you wouldBe so much more the man. Nor time nor placeDid then adhere, and yet you would make both:They have made themselves, and that their fitness nowDoes unmake you. I have given suck, and knowHow tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:I would, while it was smiling in my face,Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as youHave done to this.
MACBETH
If we should fail?
LADY MACBETH
We fail!But screw your courage to the sticking-place,And we'll not fail. When Duncan is asleep--Whereto the rather shall his day's hard journeySoundly invite him--his two chamberlainsWill I with wine and wassail so convinceThat memory, the warden of the brain,Shall be a fume, and the receipt of reasonA vessel only: when in swinish sleepTheir drenched natures lie as in a death,What cannot you and I perform uponThe unguarded Duncan? what not put uponHis spongy officers, who shall bear the guiltOf our great quell?
MACBETH
Bring forth men-children only;For thy undaunted mettle should composeNothing but males. Will it not be received,When we have mark'd with blood those sleepy twoOf his own chamber and used their very daggers,That they have done't?
LADY MACBETH
Who dares receive it other,As we shall make our griefs and clamour roarUpon his death?
MACBETH
I am settled, and bend upEach corporal agent to this terrible feat.Away, and mock the time with fairest show:False face must hide what the false heart doth know.


The witches
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Witches

Background
When people think of Macbeth usually the witches are one of the first things they think of. Waiting outside to see productions of the play I have discussed with people how the witches will be played.

The key questions around any production and the witches are:
· Do they really enthral Macbeth?
· Are they just a prompt for Macbeth?
This production goes for real magic.

Usually the witches are played as hags – in this production we’re going to take the ‘fair is foul and foul is fair’ and apply it by making the witches physically attractive and internally very ugly. On the production blog is a music video with the proposed style of the dresses.

Also these witches will be dancing so we’re looking for witches who can move. The first scene sees the witches coming out of a rave tanked up and full of party pills – they then enthral Macbeth and he plunges into a nightmare which he experiences as circa 800 AD.
At various points in the play where really awful things are happening the witches will never be far away and having a great time – and they may be Lady Macbeth’s attendants (which would explain an awful lot).

The audition
The audition will involve – working with 2 other auditionees for the witches
1. Some dialogue and movement
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue
First Witch
Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.
Second Witch
Thrice and once the hedge-pig whined.
Third Witch
Harpier cries 'Tis time, 'tis time.
First Witch
Round about the cauldron go;In the poison'd entrails throw.Toad, that under cold stoneDays and nights has thirty-oneSwelter'd venom sleeping got,Boil thou first i' the charmed pot.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Fillet of a fenny snake,In the cauldron boil and bake;Eye of newt and toe of frog,Wool of bat and tongue of dog,Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,For a charm of powerful trouble,Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Third Witch
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,Witches' mummy, maw and gulfOf the ravin'd salt-sea shark,Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,Liver of blaspheming Jew,Gall of goat, and slips of yewSilver'd in the moon's eclipse,Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,Finger of birth-strangled babeDitch-deliver'd by a drab,Make the gruel thick and slab:Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,For the ingredients of our cauldron.
ALL
Double, double toil and trouble;Fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Second Witch
Cool it with a baboon's blood,Then the charm is firm and good.
By the pricking of my thumbs,Something wicked this way comes.Open, locks,Whoever knocks!

Duncan

Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Duncan

Background

Duncan is the perfect monarch, usually played as ‘older’.
Gravitas / authority will be key to this part. This usually means taller and distinguished.
The dialogue has been cut from the full version of the play.

The actor can double for other parts.

The audition
The audition will involve –
1. Some dialogue
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue

SCENE IV. Forres. The palace.
Flourish. Enter DUNCAN, MALCOLM, and Attendants
DUNCAN
Is execution done on Cawdor? Are notThose in commission yet return'd?
MALCOLM
My liege,They are not yet come back. But I have spokeWith one that saw him die: who did reportThat very frankly he confess'd his treasons,Implored your highness' pardon and set forthA deep repentance: nothing in his lifeBecame him like the leaving it; he diedAs one that had been studied in his deathTo throw away the dearest thing he owed,As 'twere a careless trifle.
DUNCAN
There's no artTo find the mind's construction in the face:He was a gentleman on whom I builtAn absolute trust.
Enter MACBETH, BANQUO, ROSS
O worthiest cousin!Would thou hadst less deserved,That the proportion both of thanks and paymentMight have been mine! only I have left to say,More is thy due than more than all can pay.
MACBETH
The service and the loyalty I owe,In doing it, pays itself. Your highness' partIs to receive our duties; and our dutiesAre to your throne and state children and servants,Which do but what they should, by doing every thingSafe toward your love and honour.
DUNCAN
Welcome hither:Noble Banquo,That hast no less deserved.

My plenteous joys,Wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselvesIn drops of sorrow.

Sons, kinsmen, thanes,And you whose places are the nearest, knowWe will establish our estate uponOur eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafterThe Prince of Cumberland; which honour mustNot unaccompanied invest him only,But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shineOn all deservers. From hence to Inverness,And bind us further to you.

MACBETH
[Aside] The Prince of Cumberland! that is a stepOn which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;Let not light see my black and deep desires:The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be,Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.

The rest is labour, which is not used for you:I'll be myself the harbinger and make joyfulThe hearing of my wife with your approach;So humbly take my leave.

DUNCAN
My worthy Cawdor!
Exit
DUNCAN
True, worthy Banquo; he is full so valiant,And in his commendations I am fed;It is a banquet to me. Let's after him,Whose care is gone before to bid us welcome:It is a peerless kinsman.
Flourish. Exeunt

The Porter
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Porter

Background

The porter is often seen as the ‘light relief’ in Macbeth.
He is clearly a metaphor for the porter to the gates of hell and I suppose that porter would need a sense of humour.

I have no firm idea of how this part should be played but it is a great part for someone of have fun with.

The actor may be asked to double – perhaps for the doctor or be the same person as Seyton who appears later.

The audition
The audition will involve –
1. Some dialogue
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play

Dialogue
Porter
Here's a knocking indeed! If aman were porter of hell-gate, he should haveold turning the key.
Knocking within
Knock,knock, knock! Who's there, i' the name ofBeelzebub?
Knocking within
Knock,knock! Who's there, in the other devil'sname? Faith, here's an equivocator, that couldswear in both the scales against either scale;who committed treason enough for God's sake,yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, comein, equivocator.
Knocking within
Knock,knock, knock! Who's there?
Knocking within
Knock, knock; What are you? Butthis place is too cold for hell. I'll devil-porterit no further:
Knocking within
Anon, anon! I pray you.
Opens the gate
Enter MACDUFF and Ross
MACDUFF
Was it so late, friend, ere you went to bed,That you do lie so late?
Porter
'Faith sir, we were carousing till thesecond cock: and drink, sir, is a greatprovoker of three things.
MACDUFF
What three things does drink especially provoke?
Porter
Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, andurine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;it provokes the desire, but it takesaway the performance: therefore, much drinkmay be said to be an equivocator with lechery:it makes him, and it mars him; it setshim on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,and disheartens him; makes him stand to, andnot stand to; in conclusion, equivocates himin a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
MACDUFF
I believe drink gave thee the lie last night.
Porter
That it did, sir

All other parts
Audition notes Macbeth – Elmwood Players 2008 – Miscellaneous parts

Background

The Elmwood production of Macbeth will be both traditional and modern with the play starting in modern times and moving into circa 800 AD.

We will be working to get Macbeth and Lady Macbeth’s motivation as plausible other than them being very heroic but with a vaulting ambition that makes them kill Duncan and leads to chaos, bloodshed and evil.

The cast will operate as a team with some doubling of roles. There have been many cuts Macduff, Banquo, Malcolm, Ross and Angus are still substantial but many other miscellaneous thanes have vanished. Depending on the cast one or two can be retrieved by reclaiming their lines. Seyton is now the chief murderer.

The Old Man, young Macduff, Fleance, Donalbain, both Siwards, Menteith, the English Doctor, and some of the murderers have gone.

Given the setting of the play there is room for a female thane (the idea is that Macbeth is a contemporary military commander experiencing a dark ages nightmare so a woman General or Colonel is possible).

Lady Macduff, the Gentlewoman and Hecate now only have a few lines. These combined with other servants leaves room for doubling roles. Some scenes have been cut so that the play will be showing people rather than telling them what is happening.

There will be little set; black drapes, a table and some chairs, smoke and light. Oh and lots of blood.

The audition
The audition will involve – working with other auditionees:
1. Some dialogue and movement
2. A discussion on how you like to work, and your views on the characters and the play


Dialogue and soliloquy’s

BANQUO
What are theseSo wither'd and so wild in their attire,That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aughtThat man may question? You seem to understand me,By each at once her chappy finger layingUpon her skinny lips: you should be women,And yet your beards forbid me to interpretThat you are so.

********

ROSS
Good morrow, noble sir.
MACBETH
Good morrow, both.
MACDUFF
Is the king stirring, worthy thane?
MACBETH
Not yet.
MACDUFF
He did command me to call timely on him:I have almost slipp'd the hour.
MACBETH
I'll bring you to him.
MACDUFF
I know this is a joyful trouble to you;But yet 'tis one.
MACBETH
The labour we delight in physics pain.This is the door.
MACDUFF
I'll make so bold to call,For 'tis my limited service.
Exit
ROSS
Goes the king hence to-day?
MACBETH
He does: he did appoint so.
ROSS
The night has been unruly: where we lay,Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,And prophesying with accents terribleOf dire combustion and confused events
MACBETH
'Twas a rough night.
Re-enter MACDUFF
MACDUFF
O horror, horror, horror! Tongue nor heartCannot conceive nor name thee!
MACBETH / ROSS
What's the matter?
MACDUFF
Confusion now hath made his masterpiece!Most sacrilegious murder hath broke opeThe Lord's anointed temple, and stole thenceThe life o' the building!
MACBETH
What is 't you say? the life?
ROSS
Mean you his majesty?
MACDUFF
Approach the chamber, and destroy your sightSee, and then speak yourselves.
Exeunt MACBETH and ROSS
Awake, awake!Ring the alarum-bell. Murder and treason!Awake!Shake off this downy sleep, death's counterfeit,And look on death itself! up, up, and seeThe great doom's image! Malcolm! Banquo!As from your graves rise up, and walk like sprites,To countenance this horror! Ring the bell.

********

SCENE IV. Outside Macbeth's castle.
Enter ROSS and MACDUFF
ROSS
Is't known who did this more than bloody deed?
MACDUFF
Those that Macbeth hath slain.
ROSS
Alas, the day!What good could they pretend?
MACDUFF
They were suborn'd:Malcolm the king's son,Is stol'n away and fled; which puts upon himSuspicion of the deed.
ROSS
'Gainst nature still!Then 'tis most likeThe sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.
MACDUFF
He is already named, and gone to SconeTo be invested.
ROSS
Will you to Scone?
MACDUFF
No, cousin, I'll to Fife.
ROSS
Well, I will thither.
MACDUFF
Well, may you see things well done there: adieu!Lest our old robes sit easier than our new!
ROSS
Farewell, cousin

********

HECATE
Have I not reason, beldams as you are,Saucy and overbold? How did you dareTo trade and traffic with MacbethIn riddles and affairs of death;And I, the mistress of your charms,The close contriver of all harms,Was never call'd to bear my part,Or show the glory of our art?And, which is worse, all you have doneHath been but for a wayward son,Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,Loves for his own ends, not for you.But make amends now: get you gone.

********


MACDUFF
Let us ratherHold fast the mortal sword, and like good menBestride our down-fall'n birthdom: each new morn
MALCOLM
Perchance even there where I did find my doubts.Why in that rawness left you wife and child,Those precious motives, those strong knots of love,Without leave-taking? I pray you,
MACDUFF
Bleed, bleed, poor country!Great tyranny! lay thou thy basis sure,For goodness dare not cheque thee: wear thouthy wrongs;The title is affeer'd! Fare thee well, lord:I would not be the villain that thou think'stFor the whole space that's in the tyrant's grasp,And the rich East to boot.
MALCOLM
Be not offended:I speak not as in absolute fear of you.I think our country sinks beneath the yoke;It weeps, it bleeds; and each new day a gashIs added to her wounds.
MACDUFF
Not in the legionsOf horrid hell can come a devil more damn'dIn evils to top Macbeth.
MALCOLM
I grant him bloody,
********

MACDUFF
See, who comes here?
MALCOLM
My countryman; but yet I know him not.
MACDUFF
My ever-gentle cousin, welcome hither.
ROSS
Sir.
MACDUFF
Stands Scotland where it did?
ROSS
Alas, poor country!Almost afraid to know itself. It cannotBe call'd our mother, but our grave; where nothing,But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the airAre made, not mark'd; where violent sorrow seemsA modern ecstasy; the dead man's knellIs there scarce ask'd for who; and good men's livesExpire before the flowers in their caps,Dying or ere they sicken.
MACDUFF
O, relationToo nice, and yet too true!
MALCOLM
What's the newest grief?
ROSS
That of an hour's age doth hiss the speaker:Each minute teems a new one.
MACDUFF
How does my wife?
ROSS
Why, well.
MACDUFF
And all my children?
ROSS
Well too.
MACDUFF
The tyrant has not batter'd at their peace?
ROSS
No; they were well at peace when I did leave 'em.
Now is the time of help; your eye in ScotlandWould create soldiers, make our women fight,To doff their dire distresses.
MALCOLM
Be't their comfortWe are coming thither: gracious England hathLent us good Siward and ten thousand men;An older and a better soldier noneThat Christendom gives out.
ROSS
Would I could answerThis comfort with the like! But I have wordsThat would be howl'd out in the desert air,Where hearing should not latch them.
MACDUFF
What concern they?The general cause? or is it a fee-griefDue to some single breast?
ROSS
No mind that's honestBut in it shares some woe; though the main partPertains to you alone.
MACDUFF
If it be mine,Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.
ROSS
Let not your ears despise my tongue for ever,Which shall possess them with the heaviest soundThat ever yet they heard.
MACDUFF
I guess at it.
ROSS
Your castle is surprised; your wife and babesSavagely slaughter'd: to relate the manner,Were, on the quarry of these murder'd deer,To add the death of you.
MALCOLM
Merciful heaven!Whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break.
MACDUFF
My children too?
ROSS
Wife, children, servants, allThat could be found.
MACDUFF
And I must be from thence!My wife kill'd too?
ROSS
I have said.
MALCOLM
Be comforted:Let's make us medicines of our great revenge,To cure this deadly grief.
MACDUFF
He has no children. All my pretty ones?Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?At one fell swoop?
MALCOLM
Be this the whetstone of your sword: let griefConvert to anger; blunt not the heart, enrage it.
Come, go we to the king; our power is ready;Our lack is nothing but our leave; MacbethIs ripe for shaking, and the powers abovePut on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:The night is long that never finds the day.

********

Doctor
I have two nights watched with you, but can perceiveno truth in your report. When was it she last walked?
Gentlewoman
Since his majesty went into the field, I have seenher rise from her bed, throw her night-gown uponher, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it,write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and againreturn to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.
Doctor
A great perturbation in nature, to receive at oncethe benefit of sleep, and do the effects ofwatching! In this slumbery agitation, besides herwalking and other actual performances, what, at anytime, have you heard her say?
Gentlewoman
That, sir, which I will not report after her.
Doctor
You may to me: and 'tis most meet you should.
Gentlewoman
Neither to you nor any one; having no witness toconfirm my speech.
Enter LADY MACBETH, with a taper
Lo you, here she comes! This is her very guise;and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her; stand close.
Doctor
How came she by that light?
Gentlewoman
Why, it stood by her: she has light by hercontinually; 'tis her command.
Doctor
You see, her eyes are open.
Gentlewoman
Ay, but their sense is shut.
Doctor
What is it she does now? Look, how she rubs her hands.
Gentlewoman
It is an accustomed action with her, to seem thuswashing her hands: I have known her continue inthis a quarter of an hour.

Script edits 4

The script won't be posted here, and the blog doesn't accept files.
I can say that including the stage directions that the word count has gone down from 18,114 to 11,486. However there are a additions to to the play through adding scenes where things are played out.

Audition packs

I've started the audition packs - these include background on the ideas I have for the production, how I want to audition people, and the excerpts from the play for the auditions.

Above all I want people to give the type of audition that reflects the way they work… they can read up and prepare looking at background and the script OR turn up cold. Part of the audition is to find out how they like to work and what sort of actor they are.

I have worked with people who start rehearsals as blank canvasses and others who turn up to the first rehearsal with most of the character in place. I've had with thinkers, intuitive actors, and others who are very physical in how they develop their characters. Some audition brilliantly and never get any better, most audition at one level and just get better. I have also worked with actors who give brilliant auditions and get worse. One woman I had in a show 11 years ago I never saw her get near her audition level .....

I'm a blank canvas - I come in with ideas but really try and learn the part as I go... so I start with thinking and listening to the Director and feeling the other actors and then let it happen intiuitively. Some years ago I was cast as Amadeus, and withdrew 2 and a half weeks into 8 weeks of rehearsals when the Director wanted to know why I wasn't fully in character yet.

Anyway enough war stories I will post the audition packs and the script here in the next two weeks.

Bloodiest Macbeth ever? Teller's Macbeth

Teller (from Penn and Teller) did a version of Macbeth in 2007 that sounds pretty interesting.
To quote from Teller's Blog:
"The premise is that “Macbeth” is Shakespeare’s supernatural horror story, and should be done as violently and amazingly as a modern supernatural horror movie"
http://www.pennandteller.com/03/coolstuff/tellersmacbethindex.html


It seems like he achieved his aim:

"This dark, violent thrill-ride of a production is a revelation, one that uses modern staging techniques to return to the play’s core. Shakespeare himself would heartily approve of a production that emphasizes the bloodshed, supernatural elements, and the madness that give the play timeless appeal to audiences " - DC Theatre Scene

and

"That distinction belongs to the blood - more blood than has likely appeared on a stage in this part of the country since the ill-fated Broadway musical "Carrie" back in 1988, as well as a final blood "effect" that, whether intended or not, serves as an ironic homage to that show." - Baristta Net

The production Diary is definitely worth a read! One of the things they had, that we don't, was a huge expertise in magic to make people and things vanish and appear.

One thing I strongly agree with in their production - the co-director was quoted in the New York Times as saying: “Macbeth” often “flounders under the weight of its own self-importance.”

Hecate's back

For 14 lines. And I'm wanting to double (or triple) her with Lady Macbeth's Attendent and the Gentlewoman.

A working definition of evil

I've been considering evil and magic and how they should work in this production.

An American psychotherapist, M Scott Peck, wrote a book about evil based on working with patients who he concluded were evil. (People of the Lie; 1983) It's a great book for working out what evil might look like. His conclusions were evil is a conscious decision to not grow or prevent someone from growing to preserve an image or view of oneself. That is people who lie, cheat and misrepresent and manipulate people to preserve their own ego. When I read the book 15 years ago I did so to understand someone I had identified (I believe correctly) as evil.

There are many examples in the book of couples who are working together and their relationships are based on lying so that things remain as they want them. There's the chilling story of a couple where the husband had put himself in his wife's thrall [Peck's word not mine]because he was weak and she was dominant and in doing so he had got more and more pathetic and awake every day to head the word 'kill' in his head, while she would call him pathetic and useless to his face. In the end he kept trying to slit his throat because he knew he couldn't live without her. She on the other hand got dominance over him.

Other stories dealt with individuals - one a woman who put herself in therapy for four years but lied the whole time and had no control over anyone, couldn't hold down a job or a relationship, but didn't want her ego / spirit contraption deconstructed. that is she had this weird fantasy view of the world that everything she didn't like was someone else's fault and that she set the rules for any job she went to, any relationships she had and how she dealt with power and telephone companies. And she wouldn't change. Peck's view was a part of her probably wanted to get well but most of her (the intellect and ego) was not prepared to change and let people set rules for her. Also interestingly she had no empathy for anyone - other people just had to do what she wanted and she would impose and ascribe her feelings on them.

Anyway there were many other examples in the book but the important things for Macbeth are:

• Macbeth must voluntarily give himself and his will to achieve goals by killing others because in some sick way it reinforces him (and him is his ego / ambition / view of himself as pre-eminient over others...)
• Lady Macbeth has to also voluntarily give herself to the same goals (which she clearly does with her unsex me speech)
• Both must manipulate and lie to the same ends and reinforce each other while they are both working together (which they do) they can appear charming and civilised but their language and actions disguise their real intent
• The witches are a catalyst but the point at which Macbeth decides to kill Duncan is when he becomes taken by evil (but never, as we learn in his soliquoys, 100 % evil)
• The Macbeths should lose empathy with other people (which they do)

The other thing, rereading Peck's book, is that Shakespeare got it spot on. I had said in an earlier post that understanding of psychology had changed and that this meant portraying the Macbeths realistically is harder today. The clear message from this is that if you adopt a psychology of evil it works very well.

The stark soulessness of the 'tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow' speech matches up with something in Peck's book: he quotes Simone Weil as writing "Imaginary evil is romantic and varied, real evil is gloomy monotonous, barren and boring."

Setting times, dates and people

Next Monday the governing body of Elmwood - the committah- are deciding on all the key details for the show. This will include the request for earlier performances from schools and looking at the need for matinees. As it stands there won't be matinees, so unless we get inundated with comments here before then that's how it will stay. The reasons we need to lock it in now are: publicity materials and booking of the auditorium.

I'm keen to get this stuff locked in. The poster is nearly done (minus details) and I'll be seeing it this week. As soon as that's complete it will be posted here!

The other good news is that the facebook audition notice - kindly set up by Mel - has produced a lot of interest. I'm positive about the talent I may be asked to choose from at the auditions.

Auditions again are 25 May at the Elmwood Auditorium.

Sometime in the next week or so I'm going to meet the pyrotechnics guy who made some of my plays in the 90s so much fun.

Mixing modern and old

Met with Scott today and talked through the time transition issues. Both he and Julian have cautioned that the time change and use of anachronism needs to be very deliberate to work.
The issue Scott raised is why would Macbeth and Banquo speak in Shakespearean dialect before the 'thrall' and not in modern English.
Of course they're not speaking in dark ages Scots either.

I think the answer is going back to the script and looking at all the people and events outside the Macbeths' ambit.

Audition notes

I'll be putting a page or two of notes for auditionees or people interested in auditioning up on this blog sometime this month. Anyone interested can also see the notes via Facebook or via Elmwood players. Or send me a note via this blog.

Poster and images

Have settled on a concept of three women, in the mist and a spooky castle. Hardly original but striking and it covers the time issues in the production.

I'll post it when it's done.

Editing Macbeth

Some purists want to see all of any given Shakespearean play left in the performance. Of course this doesn't necessarily serve the audience well.

But to make sure I get it as right as I can I have been seeking advice on the edits.

Given this is an important play there are some considerations aside from performance issues - maintaining the rhythm (and iambic pentameter), all the key metaphors and critical lines is essential.

But if there are cuts that means lines and scenes need to go.

Once it was clear we need to remove some text the question has been what to remove. I have been talking with Scott Koorey who edited for the script that Loopen did last year and also looking at blogs and other sources.

The issue Scott believes is to look at what the intent of the cuts is. His production edited lines through-out but kept the scenes.

I've chosen to put Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the witches, and possibly Duncan and Banquo at the core. Macduff and Malcolm are counterbalances of good but this can be demonstrated with a lot less dialogue. I'll also be endeavouring to 'show' rather than 'tell' with action where possible.

The cuts aren't finalised yet and I want to work on them some more.

Killing the Macduffs

When I originally looked at this production I didn't want to have anything to do with killing 10 year olds so in my first set of edits I cut out this murder from Act 4 scene 2.

I spose I have a personal distaste for this killing but moral revulsion is a key part of demonising Macbeth.

It has been put to me though that since I need a younger person for the apparitions I should leave it in. I have to think this through some more.

Oh NO!

Our very talented and excellent costume person is leaving town and can't do the production!!!

Historical Macbeth (as best we know)

http://www.pathguy.com/macbeth.htm

Shakespeare got his story from Raphael Holinshed's Chronicles. It's a fun read. Click here or here to read Holinshed.

Holinshed spends a lot of time on the incident in which Malcolm (who became a popular king) tests Macduff by pretending to be mean when he is really nice. Holinshed talks about the murder of King Duff by Donwald in the century before Macbeth. According to Holinshed, Donwald was nagged by his wife until he did the evil deed, and drugged the guards. Shakespeare adapted this for Macbeth.

I've read that Holinshed's section on Macbeth was largely derived from the work of one Hector Boece, Scotorum Historiae ("Chronicles of Scotland", 1526-7, translated from Latin into English by a John Bellenden in 1535).

It is evidently not online. I've also read that Boece's sources include the Chronica gentis Scotorum ("Scotichronicon") by John of Fordun in the early 1500's (he also writes about William "Braveheart" Wallace and Robin Hood), and Andrew of Wyntoun (1400's). John of Fordun seems to have been the first to record the story of the dialogue on kingship between Macduff and Malcolm. You may be able to find this book in an old university library, but I could not find it online. By the time the story of Macbeth had reached Holinshed, it was already mostly fiction.
Here's what we think really happened with Macbeth and the other characters.

In a barbaric era, population pressures made war and even the slaughter of one community by another a fact of life. Survival depended in having a capable warlord to protect life and property, prevent infighting, and protect from distant enemies. Groups of warlords would unite under the nominal leadership of one king to promote their common interests and war on more distant nations. While people pretended to believe in "the divine right of kings" and "lawful succession", continuing effective leadership was assured by warlords killing off the less capable family members.

The name "Macbeth" means "son of life", and is a Christian name rather than a patronymic (hence the "b" is lower case.) Macbeth would have signed his friends' high school yearbooks "Macbeth mac Findlaech" (McFinley). There are MacBeth families in Scotland and Nova Scotia.
Macbeth's father Findlaech was ruler ("mormaer", high steward) of Moray, at the northern tip of Scotland. Macbeth's mother's name is unknown, but she is variously said to have been the daughter of King Kenneth II or the daughter of King Malcolm II.

In 1020, Findlaech was killed and succeeded by his nephew Gillacomgain. In 1032, Gillacomgain and fifty other people were burned to death in retribution for the murder of Findlaech, probably by Macbeth and allies.

The historical Mrs. Macbeth was not named "Lady", but "Gruoch" (GROO-och). She was the daughter of a man named Biote (Beoedhe), who was in turn the son of King Kenneth III "the Grim" who Malcolm II had killed to become king. (Some say that Biote was the son of Kenneth II instead.) She was originally married to Gillacomgain. Their son was Lulach the Simple (i.e., stupid; no, Lady Macbeth didn't brain him.) After Macbeth killed Gillacomgain, he took his widow Gruoch for his own wife, and raised Lulach as their stepson. What a guy!

Centuries before Macbeth, King Kenneth MacAlpin, "founded Scotland" by uniting the Picts and the Scots, i.e., getting them to fight foreigners rather than each other. In this era, Gaelic custom required that the succession go via the male line, and that if an heir was not yet old enough to reign when the king died, the kingship went to whatever male adult was next in line. Since the succession was designed to ensure some stability in a world of warlords and infighting, this made sense. Kenneth MacAlpin's male line continued to King Malcolm II, who had at least two daughters but no sons, and he killed the last member of the male McAlpin line. One daughter, Bethoc, (Holinshed calls her Beatrice) married Abbanath Crinen, the secular hereditary abbot of Dunkeld, and gave birth to Duncan.

In 1034, Malcolm II was murdered at Glamis by his fellow warlords, possibly including his grandson Duncan. Then Duncan managed to kill his rivals and seize the throne. Duncan married Sibylla Bearsson and they had Malcolm and Donald "Bain".

--> Macbeth allied with Thorfinn of Orkney, a Norseman. Thorfinn was the son of Sigurd the Fat and Bethoc, apparently the same Bethoc who was Duncan I's father. Thorfinn Sigurdsson is variously called "Thorfinn I", "Thorfinn II", "Thorfinn Skull-Smasher", "Thorfinn the Black", and "Thorfinn Raven-Feeder" (ravens eat dead meat, including human corpses). Thorfinn and Macbeth defeated and killed Duncan I in a battle in Elgin in August 1040. Thorfinn ruled northern Scotland, and Macbeth ruled southern Scotland. According to accounts, Macbeth was a good king, strict but fair, for the first decade of his reign.

In 1054, Earl Siward of Northumberland, who spirited Malcolm to England after Duncan's death, invaded Scotland. According to the Anglo-Saxon chronicle, he met and defeated Macbeth at the battle of Birnam Wood / Dunsinane (July 27). Most of Macbeth's army were killed, but Macbeth escaped. Siward's son and nephew were also killed. According to the Chronicles of Ulster, Macbeth continued to reign and was actually killed three years later by Duncan's son Malcolm. Thorfinn II survived until 1064.

After Macbeth's death, Lulach claimed the kingship and had some supporters. Lulach was ambushed and killed a few months later by Malcolm.
Malcolm went on to reign as Malcolm III "Canmore" ("big head" or "great ruler"). He took Thorfinn's widow Ingibiorg for himself, and they had a son Duncan, who later ruled as Duncan II. After Ingibiorg died, Malcolm Canmore married Margaret, a princess of the old English royal family. Margaret was a woman of great personal piety, and is now honored as a saint by Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Three of their sons became kings in their turns.

Malcolm Canmore was an aggressive and successful warrior who invaded England several times. He was finally killed in Northumberland. The story is that a treacherous soldier, pretending to hand him a key on a spear, put the spear through his eye socket.

Donald Bane, was king twice (deposed for a time by Duncan II, who he later defeated and killed). Donald Bane was finally defeated, imprisoned, and blinded by King Edgar, one of the sons of Malcolm Canmore and Margaret.

Unlucky for some

http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview?id=721201

It is said that there is a history of catastrophes, bad-luck, andunexplained incidents when the play is performed, and some actorsconsider it unlucky to refer to the play by name. They call Macbeth the ‘Scottish Play‘. This belief is still current among some actors.

There is no suggestion that the audience is in danger from thissuperstition.As to how this superstition arose is subject to debate. It is that said that the play of Macbeth with its witches, spells and incantations was nervously performed by Shakespeare’s actors, and that the fear that the play was cursed was confirmed when an actor by the name of Hal Berridge died while playing Lady Macbeth in 1606.

Some argue that the superstition was an invention of a later generation of actors. After this tragedy in 1606 it was reported that productions of the play suffered from various incidents. You can read a general accountof these in the article from the Austin Chronicle. Please note, however, that I have not researched each incident to see whether itindeed occurred. http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2000-10-13/arts_feature2.html

As I mentioned, the origin of this superstition is disputed and you may wish to read this short essay, ‘The early seventeenth-century Origin of the Macbeth Superstition’ by Gabriel Egan, Senior Lecturerin English at Loughborough University. The author ( and otheracademics) argue that there was no such actor as Hal erridge.
http://magpie.lboro.ac.uk/dspace/bitstream/2134/266/1/Macbeth_N+Q.pdf

You may also find this discussion on the Macbeth superstition of interest: ‘Angels and Ministers of Grace: Theatrical Superstitions Through the Ages’. The section on Macbeth starts two thirds of the way down the page at “Of course, the granddaddy of all theatrical superstitions” http://www.endicott-studio.com/rdrm/theatricalSuperstitions2.html

This is yet another suggestion from The Stevenage Lytton Players at arecent production of Macbeth.“However, the ACTUAL reason for this fear is much more sensible, and rarely known by theatre peoples. The superstition actually began in the old days of stock companies, which would struggle at all times to remain in business. Frequently, near the end of a season a stock company would realise that it was not going to break even and, in an attempt to boost ticket sales and attendance, would announce production of a crowd favourite . . . Macbeth. If times were particularly bad, even 'the bard's play' would not be enough to save the company, therefore, Macbeth often presaged the end of a company's season, and would frequently be a portent of the company's demise. Therefore, the fear of Macbeth was generally the fear of bad business and of an entire company being put out of work." http://www.lyttonplayers.co.uk/Previous%20Productions/Macbeth/macbeth.htm.

Some modern actors still admit to the superstition. This is from an interview with Dominic Dromgoole who is the new artistic director ofthe Globe Theatre, “On the debit side, there are one or two loud pingson the luvvie-ometer (he actually admits that he still refers to Macbeth as “the Scottish Play”)”http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2102-2107901,00.html

Some, however, dismiss it. Royal Shakespeare Company director Dominic Cooke banned all actors from calling it “the Scottish play”. http://www.bbc.co.uk/coventry/stage/stories/2004/03/dominic-cooke-interview.shtml


Another take on this:

it's only unlucky if you say it in the theatre, either on stage, in the wings, backstage or in the dressing-rooms. it's otherwise referred to as "the scottish play".

It became an unlucky thing after a series of unfortunate events - fires, props malfunctioning, people hurting themselves by accident...

->August 7, 1606 (1st performance) – the boy who played Lady Macbeth died backstage
->1849 - 31 people were killed in a riot over the rivalry between actors Edwin Forrest and John Macready in front of the theatre where Macready played Macbeth
->1934 – in one week of performances at the Old Vic, four different Macbeths had to be used: one came down with laryngitis; one caught a chill; one was fired and the fourth one had to finish the run.
->1937 – During the Laurence Olivier-Judith Anderson production at the Old Vic, the following things happened: Lilian Baylis, founder of the theatre, learned that her favorite dog had died; the next day, Lilian Baylis herself succumbed; the director of the play nearly died in a taxi accident; Olivier was nearly hit with a stage sandbag; the scenery didn’t fit the stage; the musical composer kept tearing up his compositions and Olivier accidentally wounded the various Macduffs during the battle scenes.
->1954 – at another opening of the play, Lilian Baylis’ portrait fell off the wall and smashed into pieces
->The Stratford Festival’s 1938 season, which opened with Macbeth, was filled with bad luck: an old man had both of his legs broken when he was hit by his own car in the parking lot; Lady Macbeth ran her car into a store window; and Macduff had to be replaced by an understudy for several days after falling off his horse.


Above list from: http://www.thehipp.org/macbeth_perspectives.html copywhich also supplies a way to try to avert the curse when it is spoken aloud.

http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/Issue/story?oid=oid%3A78882
The Curse of the Play By Robert Faires

The lore surrounding Macbeth and its supernatural power begins with the play's creation in 1606. According to some, Shakespeare wrote the tragedy to ingratiate himself to King James I, who had succeeded Elizabeth I only a few years before. In addition to setting the play on James' home turf, Scotland, Will chose to give a nod to one of the monarch's pet subjects, demonology (James had written a book on the subject that became a popular tool for identifying witches in the 17th century).

Shakespeare incorporated a trio of spell-casting women into the drama and gave them a set of spooky incantations to recite. Alas, the story goes that the spells Will included in Macbeth were lifted from an authentic black-magic ritual and that their public display did not please the folks for whom these incantations were sacred. Therefore, they retaliated with a curse on the show and all its productions.

Those doing the cursing must have gotten an advance copy of the script or caught a rehearsal because legend has it that the play's infamous ill luck set in with its very first performance. John Aubrey, who supposedly knew some of the men who performed with Shakespeare in those days, has left us with the report that a boy named Hal Berridge was to play Lady Macbeth at the play's opening on August 7, 1606. Unfortunately, he was stricken with a sudden fever and died. It fell to the playwright himself to step into the role. It's been suggested that James was not that thrilled with the play, as it was not performed much in the century after. Whether or not that's the case, when it was performed, the results were often calamitous.

In a performance in Amsterdam in 1672, the actor in the title role is said to have used a real dagger for the scene in which he murders Duncan and done the deed for real. The play was revived in London in 1703, and on the day the production opened, England was hit with one of the most violent storms in its history.

As time wore on, the catastrophes associated with the play just kept piling up like Macbeth's victims.

At a performance of the play in 1721, a nobleman who was watching the show from the stage decided to get up in the middle of a scene, walk across the stage, and talk to a friend. The actors, upset by this, drew their swords and drove the nobleman and his friends from the theatre.

Unfortunately for them, the noblemen returned with the militia and burned the theatre down.

In 1775, Sarah Siddons took on the role of Lady Macbeth and was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience.

It was Macbeth that was being performed inside the Astor Place Opera House the night of May 10, 1849, when a crowd of more than 10,000 New Yorkers gathered to protest the appearance of British actor William Charles Macready. (He was engaged in a bitter public feud with an American actor, Edwin Forrest.) The protest escalated into a riot, leading the militia to fire into the crowd. Twenty-three people were killed, 36 were wounded, and hundreds were injured.

And it was Macbeth that Abraham Lincoln chose to take with him on board the River Queen on the Potomac River on the afternoon of April 9, 1865. The president was reading passages aloud to a party of friends, passages which happened to follow the scene in which Duncan is assassinated. Within a week, Lincoln himself was dead by a murderer's hand.

In the last 135 years, the curse seems to have confined its mayhem to theatre people engaged in productions of the play. In 1882, on the closing night of one production, an actor named J. H. Barnes was engaged in a scene of swordplay with an actor named William Rignold when Barnes accidentally thrust his sword directly into Rignold's chest. Fortunately a doctor was in attendance, but the wound was supposedly rather serious.

In 1926, Sybil Thorndike was almost strangled by an actor. During the first modern-dress production at the Royal Court Theatre in London in 1928, a large set fell down, injuring some members of the cast seriously, and a fire broke out in the dress circle.

In the early Thirties, theatrical grande dame Lillian Boylis took on the role of Lady Macbeth but died on the day of final dress rehearsal. Her portrait was hung in the theatre and some time later, when another production of the play was having its opening, the portrait fell from the wall.

In 1934, actor Malcolm Keen turned mute onstage, and his replacement, Alistair Sim, like Hal Berridge before him, developed a high fever and had to be hospitalized.

In 1936, when Orson Welles produced his "voodoo Macbeth," set in 19th-century Haiti, his cast included some African drummers and a genuine witch doctor who were not happy when critic Percy Hammond blasted the show. It is rumored that they placed a curse on him. Hammond died within a couple of weeks.

In 1937, a 30-year-old Laurence Olivier was rehearsing the play at the Old Vic when a 25-pound stage weight crashed down from the flies, missing him by inches. In addition, the director and the actress playing Lady Macduff were involved in a car accident on the way to the theatre, and the proprietor of the theatre died of a heart attack during the dress rehearsal.

In 1942, a production headed by John Gielgud suffered three deaths in the cast -- the actor playing Duncan and two of the actresses playing the Weird Sisters -- and the suicide of the costume and set designer.

In 1947, actor Harold Norman was stabbed in the swordfight that ends the play and died as a result of his wounds. His ghost is said to haunt the Colliseum Theatre in Oldham, where the fatal blow was struck. Supposedly, his spirit appears on Thursdays, the day he was killed.

In 1948, Diana Wynard was playing Lady Macbeth at Stratford and decided to play the sleepwalking scene with her eyes closed; on opening night, before a full audience, she walked right off the stage, falling 15 feet. Amazingly, she picked herself up and finished the show.

In 1953, Charlton Heston starred in an open-air production in Bermuda. On opening night, when the soldiers storming Macbeth's castle were to burn it to the ground onstage, the wind blew the smoke and flames into the audience, which ran away. Heston himself suffered severe burns in his groin and leg area from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.

In 1955, Olivier was starring in the title role in a pioneering production at Stratford and during the big fight with Macduff almost blinded fellow actor Keith Michell.

In a production in St. Paul, Minnesota, the actor playing Macbeth dropped dead of heart failure during the first scene of Act III.

In 1988, the Broadway production starring Glenda Jackson and Christoper Plummer is supposed to have gone through three directors, five Macduffs, six cast changes, six stage managers, two set designers, two lighting designers, 26 bouts of flu, torn ligaments, and groin injuries. (The numbers vary in some reports.)

In 1998, in the Off-Broadway production starring Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett, Baldwin somehow sliced open the hand of his Macduff.

Add to these the long list of actors, from Lionel Barrymore in the 1920s to Kelsey Grammer just this year, who have attempted the play only to be savaged by critics as merciless as the Scottish lord himself.

To many theatre people, the curse extends beyond productions of the play itself. Simply saying the name of the play in a theatre invites disaster. (You're free to say it all you want outside theatres; the curse doesn't apply.)

The traditional way around this is to refer to the play by one of its many nicknames: "the Scottish Play," "the Scottish Tragedy," "the Scottish Business," "the Comedy of Glamis," "the Unmentionable," or just "That Play."

If you do happen to speak the unspeakable title while in a theatre, you are supposed to take immediate action to dispel the curse lest it bring ruin on whatever production is up or about to go up.

The most familiar way, as seen in the Ronald Harwood play and film The Dresser, is for the person who spoke the offending word to leave the room, turn around three times to the right, spit on the ground or over each shoulder, then knock on the door of the room and ask for permission to re-enter it. Variations involve leaving the theatre completely to perform the ritual and saying the foulest word you can think of before knocking and asking for permission to re-enter. Some say you can also banish the evils brought on by the curse simply by yelling a stream of obscenities or mumbling the phrase "Thrice around the circle bound, Evil sink into the ground." Or you can turn to Will himself for assistance and cleanse the air with a quotation from Hamlet: "Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn'd, Being with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee."

Neither director of the current Austin productions has encountered the Macbeth curse personally, although Guy Roberts says that he did "produce a very bad version of the play when I was the artistic director of the Mermaid Theatre Company in New York. But in that case I think we were only cursed by our own inability."

Marshall Maresca says that when he was in the 1998 production of Julius Caesar at the Vortex, "Mick D'arcy and I would taunt the curse, call it on. Before the show, everyone would shake hands, say, 'Good show' or 'Break a leg' or the like. Mick and I would look right at each other and just say, 'Macbeth.'" For additional reference on the Macbeth curse, see Richard Huggett's Supernatural on Stage: Ghosts and Superstitions in the Theatre (NY, Taplinger, 1975).

Theatre Ghost

Oh and Elmwood Auditorium is haunted. Well so some say. I think it adds to our production myself, but it may freak out some of the actors.

Some images of Macbeth

Ian McKellan and Judi Dench. A great poster. Patrick Stewart as Macbeth.

We need to come back to the age of the Macbeths.

Odd productions of Macbeth #1 - no witches

I posted this some time ago but it seems to have gotten lost.... I have heard of productions without the witches - including one cut down production with no magic at all, this however is amusing. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DD1F3FF934A1575AC0A967958260

Review/Theater; 'Macbeth' Without Witchcraft
By MEL GUSSOW
Published: September 27, 1991
Foul is fair in Gus Kaikkonen's vaguely updated version of "Macbeth" for the Riverside Shakespeare Company. The three witches have been transformed into attractive, nun-like Army nurses who begin the play by ministrating to the needs of wounded soldiers in a World War I field hospital. This is a confusing overlapping of the first and second scenes of the play.
Later the unweird sisters appear in Macbeth's nightmare, hovering around his bed along with a ubiquitous doctor to give him a shot of an unknown substance. In other words, in this quasi-interpretation, drugs may be the cause or the aftermath of Macbeth's mania. There is no cauldron in sight, no witches' brew, thunder or mystery. There is not much of a "Macbeth" on this stage, despite Stephen McHattie's performance in the title role.
In this troublesome approach, Lady Macbeth (Jennifer Harmon) is not a malevolent presence. Her sleepwalking scene is so mild, in fact, that it would not wake the neighbors. Almost everything is played out under bright lights, which vitiates the feeling of menace. Some of the doubling in roles is distracting. One witch, for example, also plays Lady Macduff, and King Duncan is also the Porter.
One distinct problem is the choice of military hardware. Some of the soldiers carry rifles, others have swords. Several, obviously low in rank, march into battle with small shovels. They look like garden tools, suitable for potted plants. A spade is a spade for all that, and theatergoers should have no doubt which characters will be the losers.
Though warned about the walking woods, Macbeth is surprised by a small band of soldiers carrying tiny twigs, what might be considered the bonsai version of Birnam. There are bigger boughs at any nearby sidewalk florist than there are onstage at Playhouse 91. The purpose may be thrift, but the result is overly spartan.
Behind all this cavalier conceptualization, there are a few defensible aspects to the Riverside "Macbeth," including Bob Barnett's useful, Japanese-style set. Mr. McHattie is a forthright Macbeth and is clearly capable of performing the role in a more faithful production. He is evenly matched by Richard McWilliams as Macduff. Their duel is the sharpest moment in the evening.
Earlier, Mr. McWilliams is victimized by one of Mr. Kaikkonen's more ill-conceived notions. When Macduff seeks out Malcolm to convince him to return to Scotland, he finds him lolling on a blanket with a lady friend. The couple look and sound like figures from an Oscar Wilde comedy. The lady, who does not exist as a character in Shakespeare, suddenly becomes Malcolm's protector and draws a pistol on Macduff, demanding that he lay off Malcolm. At this and other points, a theatergoer might be justified in borrowing Macbeth's final words: "Hold, enough!" Macbeth By William Shakespeare

Odd productions of Macbeth # 2 - silent

http://www.timeout.com/newyork/articles/theater/9057/the-pretentious-festival
Strip Macbeth of its language and you’re left with a fairly banal story about one man’s murderous ambition, fodder for a silent film in which creepy organ music plays in the background. This is the sort of old-fashioned entertainment that director (and TONY contributor) Jeff Lewonczyk and his actors, aided by sound designer Ryan Holsopple, serve up in Macbeth Without Words

A take on Lady Macbeth by a US actress

Some great stuff in this thesis - And while I don't agree with much of it, there is useful background and it oulines many of the key decisions needed to make it real. I've only put in the first part.
What I very pleased is that Tara has so generously made this excellent resource available for everyone.


http://etd.lsu.edu/docs/available/etd-04132005-093708/unrestricted/MacMullen_thesis.pdf
THE ROLE OF LADY MACBETH
IN SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH:
A PRODUCTION THESIS IN ACTING by Tara MaMullen (see her on imdb.com - she's working!)

The role of Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare’s Macbeth was selected as a thesis project in the fall semester of 2004. The purpose of this thesis is to provide a written record of the actor’s interpretation and creation of the character through the rehearsal process. It contains five parts: an introduction, a character analysis, a daily actor’s journal, a physical score, and a conclusion.


The character of Lady Macbeth is one of the most confusing and intriguing in all of Shakespeare’s works. No definitive Lady “M” has been agreed upon. Directors and actors cannot even agree as to whether or not she is a prominent character, as she disappears after the banquet scene not to reappear until the infamous sleepwalking scene.
In this analysis of the role of Lady Macbeth, the focus is first on historical and critical views of Lady Macbeth.

Three versions of Lady Macbeth have been considered notable since John Rice originated the role opposite Richard Burbage in 1606. These actresses are Sarah Siddons, Ellen Terry, and Judi Dench. The interpretations and the possible textual basis for the choices follow.

In 1785 Sarah Siddons played Lady M to her brother John Kemble’s Macbeth. Siddons was said to have been the only woman who could ever play this role. She was a strikingly beautiful woman, very tall and statuesque. The 18th century Shakespeare scholar William Hazlitt said of Siddons, “We can conceive of nothing grander. It seemed almost as if a being of superior order had been dropped from higher sphere to awe the world with the majesty of her appearance. Power was seated in her brow, passion emanated from her breast as from a shrine. She was tragedy personified.”

Siddons choice made Lady Macbeth a ruthlessly ambitious woman who dominated her husband. Her brother’s Macbeth was said to have been in a constant state of blindly rushing towards and from his ambitions. Siddons countered this by being absolutely firm and even masculine in her desires. She became the strongest of the pair.

Hazlitt said, “She is a great bad woman, whom we hate, but whom we fear more than we hate.” This fear came from her utter steadiness. Textual basis for this choice could come from any of the following pieces of text:
Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear
And chastise with the valor of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crowned withal.
(1.5. 28—33)
Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty.
(1.5.47—50)
Leave all the rest to me.
(1.6.86)
Infirm of purpose.
Give me the daggers.
(2.2.68—69)
What beast was ’t then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man.
(1.7.53—58)
Are you a man?
(3.4.70)
Lady Macbeth seems to know that she will need to coax him into performing the murder of Duncan; and she is right. The choice can be made that she has taken the position as leader of the clan. She decides what needs to be done and she “chastise[s] with the valor of her tongue” every fear and doubt Macbeth has about performing that deed. The choices made by Siddons of masculinity and steadiness seem to be found in Lady Macbeth’s famous “unsex me” speech. She demands the forces of evil to neuter her, to free her of gender, and the frailty of womanhood. Lady Macbeth, often, in the script, takes charge of the situation. Siddons read this to mean Lady Macbeth was in charge at all times. She chose to make Lady Macbeth the dominant figure in the
relationship. More evidence for Lady M’s dominance may come from her constant questioning of Macbeth’s manhood. It is the strike she makes most often to push him into action. Macbeth falls for it every time. Again, it seems as though Siddons chose to believe that it is a constant part of their relationship.

I find the trouble with these choices to be many. If she is in fact the strength, the man, in the relationship, why does she ask spirits for resolve and strength? Why does she not perform the murder herself? And the biggest flaw I find is in the famous sleepwalking scene. She ends Act 3 scene 4 by sending Macbeth to bed. This action is clearly not the problem; she is still domineering, still the stronger partner. She then disappears for almost two full acts. We hear little of her and when she re-enters she has lost her mind. The audience can infer that she has been overcome by guilt or the need for secrecy, or that her relationship with the devil himself has become too much. This strong woman falls too far by Act V scene ii without any explanation. In my mind, Shakespeare would not have left us with a pillar of strength returning once more as a woman unloosed without taking the opportunity to tell us how. It seems as if we would need some show of weakness from the strong Lady for us to believe she could end up here.

The next famous incarnation of Lady Macbeth was performed by Ellen Terry in 1888, opposite Henry Irving. Ms. Terry is considered the first woman to break from the long standing interpretation of Lady Macbeth as set by Sarah Siddons, creating a very new and very controversial Lady M. Twentieth century film historian, Roger Manvell, author of Ellen Terry’s biography called her Lady M “humane and penetrating.” He said, “Love blinds her to all else but the fulfillment of her wishes and thus she allies herself to the spirits of evil ‘to prick the sides’ of his intent and help him to happiness.” And Garry Wills in Witches and Jesuits calls Terry a “pre-Raphaelite spectre who dooms [Macbeth] with her beauty.” As a Victorian sex symbol, Ms. Terry inspired John Singer Sargent to paint his version of Lady Macbeth with long plaits of floor length red hair holding a crown high above her head as if she were crowning herself.
Terry sought to understand Lady Macbeth more fully and wrote William Winter, an important American critic and friend, asking for assistance. She said, “Everyone seems to think MrsMcB is a monstrosity—and I can only see that she’s a woman—A mistaken woman-& weak- not a Dove- of course not- but first of all a wife.” (The emphases are Ms. Terry’s.) Not just a wife, but a good wife who struggles with and for her husband. She sees not only her own weaknesses, but she believes to see his as well.

Her new understanding of Lady M was still scheming and ambitious, but very feminine (in her own notes she underlines “very” and “feminine” double and triple times). Terry chose to be a devoted wife who did not know her husband well enough to see the evil that existed inside of him. Quite aware of her own weaknesses, she calls for help in the famous “unsexing” speech.
Terry made the choice that Lady M’s faint in Act II scene iii must be real. She says, “Strung up at first she relaxes when all seems safe and they swallow her husband’s masterly excuse.” Though many scholars believe the faint is to take focus off of Macbeth’s murder of the grooms, Terry’s choice was that Lady M has an emotional release; and in exhaustion, faints. This faint allowed the audience to believe more freely that Lady M, unlike in Ms. Siddons’ performance, has some touch of frailty that could grow into the hysteria seen later.

Some clues from the text which lead to the interpretation of a loving and devoted wife are:
Thou wouldst be great,
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it.
(1.5.18—19)
Art thou afeard
To be the same in thine own act and valor
As thou art in desire?
(1.7.43—45)
Why, worthy thane,
You do unbend your noble strength to think
So brainsickly of things.
(2.2.58—60)
I pray you, speak not. He grows worse and worse.
Question enrages him. At once, good night.
(3.4.144—145)

These references show a Lady Macbeth who cares deeply about her husband and sees not only his strength but some of his weaknesses as well (i.e. “without the illness” and “art thou afeard.”) She is concerned with his well-being (“you do unbend your noble strength”) and with his public personae (“Question enrages him.”) The text Ms. Terry may have focused on could lead to a woman who sees the struggle her husband is about to undertake. I do evidence that she has weaknesses. She says in Act II scene ii lines
11—12, “Had he not resembled my father… I had done’t.” I agree that it is a mistake to
not make their love very real. My problems are again many.
Ms. Terry was extremely worried about the audience liking her. Because of this she found a new level to Lady M that is often overlooked by actresses, but I think by making her ambition only for her husband she becomes less interesting. How many people are giving enough to kill a king in their home? And would Shakespeare write a woman so loving that she calls on demons and loses her mind? I believe also that playing so much on her frailty discounts all of the strength she does possess. She challenges his manhood. Is this the act of a loving and devoted wife who wants only for her husband’s happiness? Does the promise of bashing the brains out of a child come from a frail woman who is blinded by love of her husband? Terry gives us a side of Lady M that
seemed lacking in Siddons’ interpretation, but by pushing her too far in the other direction Terry undermines what is clearly written by Shakespeare. He gives us a woman who begs for cruelty and then uses it against the man she loves. She is a woman whose desire for power leads her to plot a murder of a king in her own home. Terry’s view, though valid in many ways, erases the complexities of Lady Macbeth that intrigue the audience.

In 1978, Dame Judi Dench played Lady Macbeth opposite Ian McKellen. Her most notable choice was to be Macbeth’s equal. She neither dominated him nor submitted to him. And like many Lady M’s before she clearly loved Macbeth. Critics have said of her RSC performance, Dench transforms “from cold, malevolent she-devil to sadly broken, guilt-ridden madwoman.” While calling upon evil forces to come to her aid she shows a little bit of humanity by getting frightened of what she is asking. Ms. Dench’s Lady M has been called a “barometer of guilt.” Macbeth’s (as well as her own guilt) are played out more in her actions than in those of her husband. She inhabited the choice that they are in this deed together.

Some textual references to this choice are:
Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is to full o’ th’ milk of human kindness
To catch the nearest way.

(1.5.16—18)
But screw your courage to the sticking place
And we’ll not fail.
(1.7.70—71)
A little water clears us of this deed.
(2.2.86)

As his equal she is able to see what he may be unwilling to do, she steadies herself to be his support. Dench may have latched on to Lady M’s references to “us” and “we.” After the deed is put into motion, she speaks in terms of their togetherness. Lines such as, “These deeds must not be thought after these ways; so it will make us mad (2.2.37—38),” and the previously mentioned, “A little water clears us of this deed.”

My problem with Dame Dench’s choice is that she didn’t seem to use Lady Macbeth’s ambition as fully as it seems to exist in the text. She wants power. She does love her husband very much and is willing to help him, but when he refuses to go any further her desire for the throne wins over her love for her husband. She forces him to go through with the murder. She chides him and calls his manhood into question. She does not say to him, “Honey, I love you, and if you think it is best to back down, I’m with you.” She tells him to buck up and give her what he promised her. She certainly wants him there. He is not just a means to an end. But she will not let him break his promise.

She wants to be in power. They are equals, I think Dench is right in that choice, but she is adamant about one thing and that is becoming queen. The next bit of research I obtained is the critical analysis of Lady Macbeth made by several Shakespeare scholars. My main resources were Harold Bloom’s Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human and Jan Kott’s Shakespeare Our Contemporary. I also pulled from dramaturgical references to Holinshed’s Chronicle and stories of the historical Macbeth.

Harold Bloom in The Invention of the Human brings up idea that informed and even translated directly into the creation of my Lady Macbeth. One common idea he presents is that Macbeth is her second husband. He claims that Macbeth is dependent on Lady Macbeth. I do believe that in many ways he is dependent. He comes to her first with the witches’ promise. He is lead by her insistence of their steps to power. His dependence on her also allows for a greater sense of loss for Lady M when he starts to exclude her from plans. If, after the murder, he no longer needs her, the steps to her decline seem clear. She has gone from his trusted, needed advisor to a wife who is purposefully being left out. Bloom refers to Lady Macbeth as “pure will.” The lack of will that Macbeth seems to have succumbed to is what makes Lady M so necessary to him, particularly early on. She lets her desire to be queen drive her and her husband to regicide in her home. It seems that Macbeth could not have gotten to that point by himself. He says that he had been honored and it wasn’t yet time to give up those honors, even though she is suggesting greater honors. The main ideas I took away from my reading included that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the happiest couple in all of Shakespeare. He calls them, “…persuasive and valuable personalities, profoundly in love with each other.” This statement particularly informed my choices for Lady Macbeth. In this case, the idea that they loved each other seemed more useful than the idea that she was a mother figure for Macbeth, or that she needed him to achieve her political goals, or that it was a lust/sex based relationship. That being said, I do believe there are clear moments when each of these ideas are present. She has to scold him at times for being afraid and for getting upset. She does send him to bed, like a mother, after the disastrous banquet. Her need for Macbeth as her way into power is obvious in that she cannot gain power as a woman without a man. She needs to be married to man who can get her to the top. I believe she got lucky with a powerful man whom she also deeply loves. The idea of them as a sexual couple will lead me into the next author whose work influenced my choices for Lady Macbeth, Jan Kott.

In Shakespeare Our Contemporary, particularly the chapter entitled “Macbeth, or Death-Infected,” Jan Kott discusses a Lady Macbeth who is the man in the relationship. He sees her charge to murder as “…a confirmation of manhood, an act of love.” Kott talks about two people who are “sexually obsessed with each other” but who have suffered a “great erotic defeat.” While I do not know what textual evidence he has for this, besides the strong sexual language of their first meeting and the constant attacks on Macbeth’s manhood, I think the idea is a usable one. I put to use the idea that Lady Macbeth finds some kind of sensual gratification in the enacting of this murder. Also, I thought of times where Lady M does step up and become the “man.” She often puts herself in the position of power, telling Macbeth to “leave the all the rest to me,” manipulating him into agreeing to murder when he is clearly against it. On the other hand, I think there are times that she is just as obviously the devoted wife—she is the hostess and the first face for the guests to see, uses her womanhood against him just as easily as she challenges his masculinity, “I have given suck…”

The historical Lady Macbeth is a woman named Gruoch—Scottish women didn’t actually take the name of their husbands. It is known that this woman had a son by a first marriage. Unlike in Shakespeare’s telling, this son lived to adulthood and actually held the throne for a short period of time before being killed. The real “Lady Macbeth” killed her first husband. Gruoch actually had a claim to the throne, or she would have if she were a man. She was the granddaughter of King Kenneth III (a direct descendant of Kenneth MacAlpine the first king of the Scots) which would, if she were a male, have given the same right to the throne as Duncan and Macbeth.

Macbeth hath murdered sleep

I've had insomnia for the last couple of weeks and also some bloody dreams (which I'm not going into here).
The insomnia does seem to be related to having ideas and working through issues to do with the Scottish play but also work and family etc.....

Anyway for me the thing about directing or being in a play is to really get to the heart of it and immerse myself in it. I'm wondering if sleep deprivation will give me new insights.

Oh and we've discovered the school won't let us have matinees during the week as they need the auditorium for classes as their classrooms are inadequate for the current roll. Which is a shame as one or two weekday matinees (if the cast could do them) would have been great.

Opening scene - warning spoiler

I won't go into this in too much detail as I plan to let this blog be used as a school resource closer to the season.
The play needs to begin in the present and at the moment that Macbeth comes under the witches thrall he perceives the world as circa 1000 Scotland.

The present setting is modern independent Scotland with a newly restored monarchy and Macbeth, third in line to the throne, is commander of the Scots forces in Afghanistan or Iraq. Banquo is his 2-I-C. While in Afghanistan, Scots General Cawdor is exposed for traitorously supporting one of the local war lords, and Macbeth exposes him and comes back a war hero.

This will make Macbeth more than just some old Scottish git and help modern audiences to relate to him.

But post witches it's all old castles and swords. Until the end.

Witches - warning spoiler

Depending on the auditions I'm pretty sure now what I want for the witches.

As outlined in earlier posts I want on the outside 'fair' witches not foul. They will be horrid creatures on the inside but I'm going more for Sirens than hags.

And that leads me to the opening scenes.

Hecate

Reluctantly - no.

Washing your hands of it

Lady Macbeth Not Alone in Her Quest for Spotlessness
By BENEDICT CAREY NY Times

Liars, cheats, philanderers and murderers are not renowned for exquisite personal hygiene, but then no one has studied their showering habits. They may scrub extra hard after a con job, use $40 hyacinth shampoo after a secret tryst or book a weekend at a spa after a particularly ugly hit. They are human beings, after all, and if a study published last week is any guide, they feel a strong urge to wash their hands — literally — after a despicable act in an unconscious effort to ease their consciences. And it works, at least for minor guilt stains. People who washed their hands after contemplating an unethical act were less troubled by their thoughts than those who didn’t, the study found. “The association between moral and physical purity has been taken for granted for so long that it was startling that no one had ever shown empirical evidence of it,” said Chen-Bo Zhong, an author of the new research and a behavioral researcher at the University of Toronto. The study, which he wrote with Katie Liljenquist, a graduate student at Northwestern University, appeared in the journal Science. The researchers call this urge to clean up the “Macbeth effect,” after the scene in Shakespeare’s tragedy in which Lady Macbeth moans, “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!” after bloodying her hands when her husband, at her urging, murders King Duncan. In one of several experiments among Northwestern undergraduates, the researchers had one group of students recall an unethical act from their past, like betraying a friend, and another group reflect on an ethical deed, like returning lost money. Afterward, the students had their choice of a gift, either a pencil or an antiseptic wipe. Those who had reflected on a shameful act were twice as likely as the others to take the wipe. In another experiment, the researchers found that students who had been contemplating an unethical deed rated the value of cleaning products significantly higher than peers who had been thinking about an ethical act. Psychologists have known for years that when people betray their values, they feel a need to compensate. Christians who have read a blasphemous story about Jesus express a desire to go to church more frequently; social liberals who feel they have discriminated express an increased desire to volunteer for civil rights work. “It’s sometimes called symbolic cleansing, or moral cleansing, and it’s an attempt to repair moral identity,” said Dr. Philip Tetlock, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of California, Berkeley. Sure enough, Mr. Zhong and Ms. Liljenquist found that students who had been thinking about past sins were very likely to agree to volunteer their time to help with a graduate school project — unless they had been allowed to wash their hands, which cut their willingness to volunteer roughly in half. Several people known to have expressed guilt over spreading rumors were asked to comment for the record on the findings, but all declined. And efforts to contact hit men to inquire about personal hygiene were deemed unwise; none had publicists. But Macbeth was available for comment. Liev Schreiber, who played Macbeth to critical acclaim this summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park, said the moral weight of the murder in the play was exhausting. And he said that cast members lined up to shower at the theater, rather than waiting until they got home. “That was unusual — usually no one uses those theater showers,” Mr. Schreiber said in an interview. “I had to shower. I was covered in eight gallons of fake blood by the end.” He said he had no idea how much the cast’s cleansing was because of to the moral horror of the play and how much was because of the muggy summer weather. Either way, the Macbeths, by the last act, have fallen to pieces, physically and mentally, despite compulsive efforts to purge their sins. Mr. Zhong said in an interview that for this couple at least, all the kingdom’s washbasins were not enough to ease their consciences. But the murder of a king, he acknowledged, falls into a different category from the confessed sins of the undergraduates, which included shoplifting, lying and “kissing a married man.” “We do believe there might be limits to how well simple hand washing can clean your slate,” he said, “but it remains to be seen where that limit is.”

Lesser than Macbeth ...less words anyway - the edits

To get the show to 90 minutes some savage cuts are required.
The following scenes are the ones I've targeted in my script editing... although lines go in other scenes. The Macbeths' lines are mostly in tact.

Act 1 scene 2- the Bloody Sergeant scene - a long scene where Macbeth's valour and military achievement is praised. Down to one speech and a battle.
Act 1 sc 3 - the first part of the witches scene where they go on about the Sailor going to Aleppo has been cut. Angus has been written out in the second part of the scene and the dialogue there cut.
Act 1 Sc 4 - a third removed. The important thing here is Duncan announces his son will be Prince of Cumberland.
Act 2 Sc 3 - half of the porter's scene.
Act2 Sc 4 - the old man has been written out and this becomes a discussion between Macduff and Ross.
Act 3 sc 1 - much of the lengthy discussion with the murderer has been removed.
Act 3 sc 3 - this is where Banquo is murdered and Fleance escapes, I'm opting to show this rather than talk it. This is down to 4 lines and a brutal murder.
Act 3 Sc 5 - jury is out on how much here is cut but Hecate's long intro is excessive. IF Hecate stays in this will be a lot shorter.
Act 3 Sc 6 - Cut. The one line of value is written into Act 3 Sc 4.
Act 4 Sc 2 - This is long for what it is. Again show not tell, a few lines to set the scene, Lady Macduff's despair and then the murderers turn up and kill them.
Act 4 Sc 3 - cut from 7 pages to 2. While I understand the testing of Macduff in the atmosphere of people not trusting each other it reads like Morecombe and Wise. I've written the doctor out, and allowed for some build up of tension with Ross hovering all the while so the audience know what he has come to say.
Act 5 Sc 2 - down to a few lines
Act 5 Sc 7 - Lines removed here. Fighting and Macbeth talks to himself.
Act 5 Sc 9 - Young Siward (killed in sc 7) and old Siward dialogue removed. Comrades all embrace each other, mourn the dead and then Macduff brings in Macbeth's head. Malcolm ends the play.

Cauldron

No.

Ahhh! We've changed....

The introduction to the Arden Shakespeare notes that the Macbeths killing of Duncan, Banquo and everyone else didn't seem unconvincing to audiences till around 1900.

If that is correct then it was either:
that the change in our understanding of the human mind leads to a different understand of how people behave (eg Freud, Jung and modern psycho-analysis)
OR
People were just used to barbaric acts - that we in the modern west have trouble believing. But that the Islamic world (eg Taleban), Africa the civil wars accept as common place.

Staging decisions

Given we don't audition for a 8 or more weeks it may seem odd I am already looking at the set. Or it may not. But I've found myself needing to clarify the set to clarify the script cuts.

The theatre is a huge round with two rectangular boxes added on opposite sides- one for the foyer and toilets, the other for a dressing room and school supply room.

The seats are on one side in three blocks covering most of the half round. The space is a large circle. Ideally there'd be a huge revolve or multilevels to the building.

Our constraints include:
* There is no fly floor.
* The beams, while adequate, can't easily support people (which means there are unlikely to be flying witches).
* We have to strike the set every day so that the school who we share it with can use it for assemblies, as their gym and for dance and other classes.
* Actors behind the audience can't get to the back of the auditorium without going outside.
* The floor is polished light brown wood and past performances there have shown it makes blackouts hard and the floor reflects a lot of light.
* The floor is sprung and makes a lot of noise if hard shoes are worn on it.
* The architect has achieved a fantastic feat by making a round space with poor sight lines!
* If it rains it drowns out the sound in the auditorium.
* You can't use smoke machines as the fans in the ceiling sound like a helicopter hovering overhead.
* Oh and from the back of the auditorium you need to be miked to be heard in the audience UNLESS you have strategically placed buffers.

What do I need/want?

The script calls for a castle (with bed chambers, banquet hall, entrance area), a blasted heath, some battlefields, roads, a forest, the English Court, a witches' hideway and battlements.
I need a ghost, some apparitions, and theoretically flying witches (Hecate and the other three, not the first three).
Other special effects are smoke, lightening, and some sort of cauldron.

Sooooooo......
I've decided that I can only have minimal set and will got for a table and chairs, and a cauldron (cliche cliche). I need one small rostra, and the rest of the set will be lights, blacks (tabs), and dry ice.

For layout I'm intending to have a black curtain in a straight line as close to the audience as possible, with a white curtain in the middle of it to act as a screen for front and back lighting.
Macbeth's castle will be in the audience, and the banquets will be up against the front row with the audience as guests. The heath, battlefields and the roads will be up against the curtains or played behind them. The English court needs to be up somewhere... not sure where but we have a huge mobile tower that two actors can work on at extreme stage left or right. The two doors between the audience will be Duncan's chamber, the door to the castle, Lady Macbeth's chamber and misc internal doors. The white curtain will lift in the last scenes and there will be a blacks behind it to allow for the advance of Macduff and the army.

I have decided that despite all the fantastic space we have, that the disadvanages call for a tight space and this will need to add to the claustrophobia and feeling of evil. Also if the audience finds themselves in Macbeth's castle it may work to our advantage thematically, with some referential nod to the evil without, that the castle should protect you from, being let in.

Why does Macbeth kill Duncan?

Traditional explanations are that:

a) Macbeth, with his vaulting ambition, had already secretly considered killing Duncan to take the throne (propounded by two of my teachers at school and the lecturer at uni) OR
b) The witches and Lady Macbeth urge him to do it (but is he really that weak?)

The problem is he knows it's evil and speaks against the deed. And he only discovers he's not going to be king after the great military victories in the first scenes.

It may be ambition and pique, but if he is such a great and loyal lord and, as he asserts how wrong it is, it still lacks credibility. To kill a man who has been so good to you, in a time when everyone is secure, to destroy everything with a personal and bloody regicide- in your own house? It doesn't make sense: he'd have to be unhinged, or missing the bit of the brain that deals with consequences.

It would work if Duncan was an idiot rather than a saintly and loved King OR if the decision to make the King's son was patently unjust and wrong for the kingdom - that is that Macbeth's claim was stronger. The problem is Malcolm is painted as a saint as well. The way Macbeth is written though he is far to self-aware.

So why has he embraced evil and a course he knows is wrong?

There are two possibilities I want to explore-
1 He is a great warrior but has other character flaws than vaulting ambition. What he does best is solve problems with violence, and for all his ability to reason and talk he is such a good killer that's his solution to an injustice. Also his flaws may include being so self absorbed he doesn't understand consequences or simply can't visualise them.

2. He wants the throne AND the witches and Lady Macbeth have either entrhalled him or created a space where somehow the murder seems to be acceptable all right - despite the angels of heaven calling against it. After all Lady Macbeth is the one who has called on the powers of evil to possess her.

Macbeth seems divided over the first killing and then is driven by his need for security for the others. I like the idea that somehow the witches and Lady Macbeth have conned or enchanted him to be blind to the outcomes.

Macbeth himself

The best Macbeth I've seen was Nicol Williamson in the 1980s BBC version. A strong warrior, and to me he captured the haunted, isolated nature of the character. He played it, as I remember it, as a little on the foolhardy side spurred on by his battle success and physical strength - when in doubt kill someone. He consulted the witches and you could see the hesitation in his eyes as he sought counsel. He was great but flawed.

In contrast Jason Connery and James McAvoy playing the chef Macbeth in the 2005 version the were just too competent and likable. In my mind they played it like they were kings - not someone wearing garments that were too big. And in both cases I had trouble believing they'd do it. And Jason Connery seemed to be consulting the witches because it was in the script.

The Beckhams

I've never seen a Macbeth / Lady Macbeth combination and characters that have really worked for me. The closest was a production in Gisborne on the pier in the middle of summer in about 1994. Lady Macbeth was played as disturbed right from the start, and Macbeth was either played as vague with bursts of enthusiasm or that was just the actor.

Anyway I discussed Lady Macbeth as a bit like Pauline Hanson the problem is who would Macbeth be? What would they look like as a couple? What is the dynamic? And that's where most productions fall down for me. Most versions play it like they're deeply in love - but how does that work? I've asked a few people and have answers like 'ah yes but that's why they're different - they're giving in to their dark sides, ambition'. I think when people say that, if you believe them, you should give them a wide berth. I can't find that sort of relationship in myself coming from love. It's more Charles Manson and Squeaky Fromm. To me to be realistic it needs to come from a very sick, dysfunctional relationship. It's more David Bain's family than Burton and Taylor.

Discussing it tonight the Beckhams seem a nice parallel. They're not brutal enough, but you know something is not right. He's a great warrior. And you know Posh is in charge.

Performance dates!!!

Only 2 weeks - 2 to 17 August 2008

A bog-standard old school essay on why Lady Macbeth is the stronger of the two in their relationship

http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://www.technicolorgoldfish.net/graphics/macbeth-poster.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.technicolorgoldfish.net/macbeth.html&h=256&w=168&sz=16&hl=en&start=25&sig2=hKu1QLJ5rRHtwm7lAVnF0g&tbnid=syXH7aRWPfnsZM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=73&ei=oqTLR8_YLYyIgAPustytCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmacbeth%2Bposter%26start%3D20%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

viz
Lady Macbeth is the real power behind the throne because she is the dominant partner at the beginning of the play, she persuades Macbeth to achieve his goal of being king, and she plans and organizes the murder of Duncan. Lady Macbeth is strong-willed and takes on the traditional male role in a marriage. Macbeth, on the other hand, is weaker than she is, and takes on the traditional female role in a marriage. For these reasons, Lady Macbeth is the dominant partner. Also, Macbeth is undecided on whether to murder Duncan or not, until Lady Macbeth taunts him and then assures him. It is she who persuades him to murder Duncan. Finally, Lady Macbeth plans and organizes the murder, so that all Macbeth has to do is the actual killing. It is power that Lady Macbeth uses to get her way in the world. She uses her power over Macbeth to convince him to murder Duncan. By murdering Duncan, Macbeth gains power for himself and Lady Macbeth - the power of a queen and her king.


Utterly simplistic - if she is so strong and dominant why does she kill herself????

Magic

What is it that makes Macbeth so special?

It's the shortest of the great Shakespearean tragedies. It is accessible and has no subplots.
It is the story of one man's fatal flaw and his decline from hero to hated villain. It's full of blood.

Of the posters I've reviewed I see crowns, blood and heroic warriors.
http://images.google.co.nz/images?hl=en&q=macbeth+poster&btnG=Search+Images&gbv=2


I love this one:
http://images.google.co.nz/imgres?imgurl=http://admin.cru2.net/images/1184057953poster01_sml01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.thebiggerpicture.biz/home.html&h=325&w=482&sz=70&hl=en&start=94&sig2=OG402Pp8afWk42oQVwFgQA&tbnid=bvCH7ajzfeE9DM:&tbnh=87&tbnw=129&ei=1aXLR8W4NZrWgQPHqeitCQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmacbeth%2Bposter%26start%3D80%26gbv%3D2%26ndsp%3D20%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN




And Macbeth is full of magic.

In the late 1600s the witches scenes were increased, songs added, and they were made to fly on hoists. When Samuel Pepys saw Macbeth he described it as a musical.

For me the witches and the magic are a key factor in the success and allure of the show. I'm sure I have heard of a production where the witches were written out, although I can't locate it.
This is close and would have been entertaining for it's odd take: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D0CE1DD1F3FF934A1575AC0A967958260

Music & costume

I've been listening the the Dufay collective, some Elizabethan music and some chant and plainsong. Also I've sampled music such as 'Dead can Dance' and the 'Cocteau Twins' - sort of modern dark ages music. And I've listened to a lot of trance.
This intrigues me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCnOqciO7G4 Dead can Dance sampled with trance.

I've found what the witches could look like (not the woman the costumes):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvKbGQRrWCM

The venue

When I decided I wanted to direct Macbeth I had in mind the Mill Theatre here in Christchurch. For years I've stared at it thinking how it would be a great place to put on the Scottish play. It's a pros arch, black box. The theatre is an old Mill and has the feel of a well used venue. It has a ghost. As I imagined Macbeth at the Mill I saw a full-on traditional rendition. But it is not at the Mill but at the Elmwood Auditorium.

I've spent 6 years writing site-specific plays, that is plays performed in the venue they are set in. I've learnt from that that it is really important to match the style of production with the location for the performance.

Elmwood Auditorium is shared with a school and has a light polished wooden floor. We can't leave a set up so it has to be struck every night. The venue is an odd shape- a half round but with a huge back stage area. A traditional rendition is not a good option.

The 2008 Elmwood Macbeth needs to be in tune with this.
A modern space. The wooden floors reflect light. The ceiling is incredibly high.

So set and 'set-up' - initial thoughts are:

* Modern setting
* Lots of smoke and dry-ice
* Music and lighting key components of set
* The set has one or two rostra elements that roll out
* A screen that can be used to project from behind and from the front
* The ceiling height and shiney floor need to be used

Okay how many Macbeth's are there? random thoughts from 1 am

This entry looks at my central confusion with the script and performances:

1. At least there's only one text! Unlike many of Shakespeare's surviving works there is only one version of Macbeth (first folio 1623). It is known the play was revised and there are many questions about whether there was a missing subplot or whether some parts, such as Hecate's scene, aren't original.

Wikipedia has a lot to say about the origins:
Many scholars conjecture the likely date of composition to be between 1603 and 1606.[2] As the play seems to be aimed at celebrating King James's ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo),[3] they argue that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603; and suggest that the parade of eight kings—which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV—is a compliment to King James VI of Scotland. Other editors conjecture a more specific date of 1605-6, the principal reasons being possible allusions to the Gunpowder Plot and its ensuing trials. The Porter's speech (Act II, scene III, lines1-21), in particular, may contain allusions to the trial of the Jesuit Henry Garnet in spring, 1606; "equivocator" (line 8) may refer to Garnet's defence of "equivocation" [see: Doctrine of mental reservation], and "farmer" (4) to one of Garnet's aliases.[4] However, "farmer" is a common word, and the concept of "equivocation" was also the subject of a 1583 tract by Queen Elizabeth's chief councillor Lord Burghley, and of the 1584 Doctrine of Equivocation by the Spanish prelate Martin Azpilcueta, which was disseminated across Europe and into England in the 1590s.[5]
Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at Oxford in the summer of 1605 that featured three "sibyls" like the weird sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the weird sisters. The earliest account of a performance of the play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing it at the Globe Theatre.

Anyway the point of this is that there is only one accepted script and so it should be pretty easy to work out how it should be done.

2. As I said in the introductory post I have seen a few productions of Macbeth -Five. I've also seen four maybe five film versions. And I have read the script many times,and studied it at school and university.

My fundamental issue is the script never reads like the plays I have seen.

In fact there are things I see in the script that don't seem to be part of any of the stage versions I've seen. Some examples 'fair is foul' and 'foul is fair' - this works for Lady Macbeth who is usually played as a very attractive woman, but therefore the ugly witches must be fair of spirit.

When I see film and stage versions Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are played as having a great love for each other.... while I can see that at a pinch in the script I more readily see some screwed up disfunctional people who really don't know enough about love.

Lady Macbeth has been played since the late 1600s (by the Davenants) as a powerful woman, yes that can work but it doesn't seem real to me. That tradition was followed by Sarah Siddons (1785) and more recently by Dame Judi Dench. In equating her character to real people I see someone who is at the beginnng of the play determined, but not necessarily as strong and intelligent. I come back to the type of people I see around me, and if say Annette Presley of Slingshot, or Helen Clark, or Theresa Gattung were Lady Macbeth they wouldn't disappear, let Macbeth mess up and then kill themselves. I see Lady Macbeth is someone whose ambition is way over their ability to understand what's going on - knowing the price of everything and value of nothing, more like Australia's One Nation founder Pauline Hanson.

My question is 'can I see Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself in the people around me and in the headlines?' I can't see the traditionally staged Macbeths but I can see the sort of middle class people who swindle the rest of their siblings out of an estate for sheer greed, not really caring or understanding the long term consequences for them and their heirs. I can also see small-minded hoods that rip people off, deal P, and then spend much of their time in the district court, and who eventually kill their toddler.

Lady Macbeth could equally be an ambitious narrow-minded shrew. Macbeth could be a great warrior but with little understanding of niceties. What I potentially see is the wife of a rugby club Captain who schemes and plots for her husband to President of the club but for no real end. He could be the dumb star player who likes the idea of being President and is egged on, but only knows how to play on the field. So in the middle of the AGM he tackles the existing President and takes him out of the game, and then takes on the rest of the club in the same way till they finally take him out.

So set these sort of people in a time when war and murder are all around them, and they can seize the throne, and Macbeth is what you get.

The book of 'coarse acting' talks about how many actresses are interested in having pretty dresses for their part whether they dresses are appropriate for the role or not. I've come to the conclusion that Lady Macbeth is paying the price for all the other crap women's parts in Shakespeare so everyone who gets the role is determined to mine it for strength. It's not to say that Lady Macbeth can't be strong and dominating in an interpretation, but that is always how she is played.

No I'm not wanting to set the play in a rugby club, nor dumb down both the characters, but it seems to me that to have 'ill-fitting' garments they both need to be clearly unskilled to be monarchs. Yet they are always played as great heroic figures rather than limited people who get way out of their depth by temporarily upsetting the natural order.

Another issues I see is that every teacher I have heard going on about Macbeth has come back to 'vaulting ambition' that leads to Macbeth's downfall. I see equally he has fallen into bad company... his wife and those witches at least egging him on. If the script is really a lot about magic 'the charm's wound up' isn't he also in part in a thrall? It seems to me all the productions and all but one of the films seems to gloss over this aspect and confine the witches to theatrical fortune tellers.
The terror of the production is about the fact this magic exists it's demonic and people under spells become blood-crazed murderers.

If you play him this way Macbeth can be a great intelligent warrior who wakes up after the deed is done and it's to late.

Anyway these are some of the issues that I want to address as the play is worked through. Who knows I may end up with 3 crones, a very strong Lady Macbeth and Macbeth himself as a strapping clearly royal figure?

In terms of performance if there is no hero - it's not good theatre. The tension I see is balancing real characters and making them compelling in an atmosphere where magic and murder are commonplace.

Foul is foul

Torrential rain is forecast. Appropriately I'm going through the Macbeth Script and history to look for insights into the production.

The central problem today is reducing the script to 90 minutes. The complication is I don't know how long it is now. I've been hunting for estimated lengths. I do know I've seen two productions well over 2 hours.

Anyway back to the start.
I have always been fascinated by the Scottish Play. At drama classes when I was 12 we did sections of it. I studied it at school and university, I've seen many movie versions. I've paradied the play in essays and letters.

Three things prompted me to seek to direct the play now:
1 I was writing a play for a cafe and I wanted to turn the waitresses into the 3 witches.
2 My father died.
3 I was watching a play at a theatre that would lend itself to a production of it.

That theatre company had no slots till 2009 but Elmwood players did have a slot and when I went to suggest a comedy to them, I mentioned what I really wanted to do at some point was the Scottish Play.

And so 2 months later here we are.

What is amazing is how quickly the script has taken over my conscious thoughts. Many decisions about the production have already gone in ways I wouldn't have expected.

My intention here is to follow these decisions and then the production as it takes shape. The few equivalent discussions I have found on the web have been fascinating and I want to link to some of the key ones as I go. I also think leaving our record may be of interest to others. Or not. The one issue I have is to not have spoilers here that may take away from the living production.

As I progress I would like to invite those involved in the production to join the blog and share their decisions and observations.