Session Six

Hi Guys

Good work this last Friday just past. I hope you all feel the progress. That, at this stage, we're aiming for clarity, understanding and vocal energy.

But not to worry if some people have begun to 'move' their scenes, and others feel as if they're just 'saying' them.

The fact is each scene needs it's own approach. For example, in my judgment, it will help Paul at this stage to 'enter' the space and cross it etc. It feels like it's a scene about split focus. Yes, the porter is being obliged to open the Castle gate, but also, as Shakespeare's clown, he has a need to speak to the audience about his role as keeper of 'Hell Gate'. How we finally stage the scene, though, may be different - thought we will incorporate what we've LEARNED in doing this...

But, for Kendra, we spent some time developing our understanding of what she is saying in the sleepwalking speech. We establish that, in one beat or section, she's talking to Macbeth; some version of things Lady M's said to him about the murder, or after the murder or later still in the banquet.... And it needs us to be very clear about what she's saying AND HOW HE'S ANSWERING HER, in the same way we would have to be really clear and specific if we had to act a phone conversation on stage, by knowing PRECISELY what the other person is saying BACK. States of Intensity could well be employed too: The Thane of Fife Had a wife might be a sung Californian... where is she now (Tragedy)... Hand clean (attraction) .... No more of that etc (tragedy? outbreath?)

In the same scene, we spent some time on the 'back-story' of the Doctor and the Gentlewoman. What, for example - we asked ourselves - were the circumstances of the Doctor and the Gentlewoman being here? (Their 'purpose') And in asking those questions we began to build up a picture: the gentlewoman as Lady M's lady in waiting, sleeping in her bedchamber, hearing her mistress saying things about murder and guilt. The need for this woman - probably quite noble herself - to share them with someone. She might be the only one who'd heard this. In the world. Does that make her complicit? Does she need to share this burden with someone? A doctor? Yes. But she's not prepared to tell him outright what she'd heard. She wants him to hear it with his own ears to make sure she's not imagining it. Or making things up. But also to remember that, in the Macbeth dictatorship, knowledge can be dangerous; fatal even...

Acting, rehearsing is about asking questions. Taking nothing for granted. Assuming that nothing is as it appears. We have to be like a dog with a bone, worrying, worrying, until we have got all the flesh off it. Until we're satisfied we've got at the simple truths behind the complexities of our characters' actions.

In another scene, Gemma and Abigail's, it's mostly a question of clarity and understanding - which is now very strong in both players. The next thing will be to find some action for the scene that fits the words. Is Lady M dressing the boy? Feeding him? Washing him? Brushing his hair? Playing chess with him? And if none of these, what? Something that expresses what is going on in the words they are using with one another. And not to LOSE the clarity once we've found that action... It's an interesting scene. Shakespeare could easily (and disastrously) made Lady Macduff a straightforward 'innocent victim'. But he shows her as angry with her husband for 'deserting' her as she sees it. Left - 'widowed' - to bring up Macduff's son. Having now no -one to confide in but the son. And a very smart and precocious son at that... We talk about Ugly Betty's sister and her son as models...

In the scene between Macbeth and Lady M with Juan and Sarah Jane, we were looking at what is going on BEHIND the words. And we found something quite intimate, excited, sexy even. The realisation that their dreams of power, their ambitions are on the verge of coming true.... That these are things they've been dreaming about together for a long time. That, again, a help in playing it may be a state of intensity: 'attraction' maybe. That while they are saying such mundane phrases as: 'The King comes here tonight'... their eyes are eating each other up...

With Lee in the 'How far is call'd to Forres', once again clarity in our rehearsal was paramount. To find action for the scene will be the next step - and it should not be too taxing. The witches also now have the necessary vocal energy....

With Emma, in her scene, the understanding is excellent, but Emma wasn't showing the necessary vocal energy. The requisite NEED to say the words. Her STAKE in the scene wasn't high enough. It was as if she might have been telling Macbeth something quite unimportant, not something that all their dreams, all their hopes DEPENDED ON. This is why we had two guards dragging her away. So she HAD TO TELL HIM. AS IF HER LIFE DEPENDED ON IT. WHICH IN THE PLAY IT DOES.