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
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Articles. Show all posts
27 April 2008
25 April 2008
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:
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.”
17 March 2008
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.”
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.”
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