When my drink is ready ...

I love that line and the way it can affect an audience, filling them with admiration and dread for the forthcoming act, so colorfully, and so crudely described as a drink. But I also think it is the key to that dagger speech which directly proceeds the act. The act of Duncan's murder is the main locus of event in the scene, towards which all the life points, but this line creates a hollow space just before it. As such, after parting with Banquo and then dismissing the servants there is this odd, almost absurd moment when there is nothing to be done, nothing at all but wait for the ring of the bell. After all he has settled upon performance of the terrible feat and this then is not so much a moment of comtemplation. But still he must wait before he can perform. Its wonderful, and mundane, and human, that this exists in the play. Its like the the Dumb Waiter, where the murderers must wait for the call, and the waiting time, where nature goes way to dangerous thoughts in repose, is here illustrated. I think in the course of the speech he forgets the very thing that he is waiting for, and has almost forgetten it completely, until the last beat when in frustration he mocks the speech itself - words to the heat of deeds, too cold breath gives. I think at this point he is anxious to get the thing started, and then in direct response to that anxiety, his call is answered by the bell that invites him to his terrible drink.

To lie like truth ...

There is that strange bit of a speech after Lenox and Macbeth return from viewing Duncan's butchered body, wherein Mackie had also killed the grooms (talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time, much like Lady McDuff). He says that he wishes he had himself died before this chance. Now I think, the best lies can be traversed when one treads as near the boundary of truth as possible. It then becomes like creeping to the very edge of a cliff, and leering over, putting your weight against the wind. or like walking a tightrope between the world trade centers, when you know you are saying the absolute truth, and yet giving an absolutely false impression. There is a rush of power in being the innocent flower and the serpent under it. Which leads to a thought in the second plotting Lady Mac scene, that she is an acting coach, and now he applies her directions.

The future in the instant ...

I was talking about technology with a buddy of mine this afternoon, and he echoed a thought I've often had which I am sure is not an uncommon one, that it seems very possible and likely that in the near future we may have communication devices implanted directly into our corporal selves.

This interference, or advancement, or grafting, if indeed and whenever it does come, will, like cloning, doubtless settle with out its moral and ethical baggage and will most likely be met by profound resistance and resentment on religious, moral, ethical, and social grounds. Well at least until the technology, like any new technology, becomes so common, and indispensible, that its use is contractual to social existence.

There will, I imagine be people who will not consider the moral aspects of the technology, against regards of its naked advatanges.

But then there will be others who will actually consider the moral complications of the technology, but then also justify its use as an inevitability, or rather as a necessity in light of others existing moral depravity. In other words if they don't do get the technology, well, certainly, others will. And to prevent what ever advantage others might unfairly gain from it, and subsequently use to subjegate them with, they themselves have to acquire the advantage, and use it preemptively.

Open locks, whoever knocks ...

This phrase is the tag line of our production, and recently I've been thinking about it quite a bit in relation to other aspects of character of Macbeth and the show at large.

The phrase is spoken by the witches as Mac enters their Pit of Acheron for his second visitation, to learn by the worst means, the worst.

Most obviously the phrase resonates the porter's speech about the knocking at hell's gate.

But yet another textual association can be drawn to Mac's speech in I.iii, when he he is rapt in thought in regards to his new robes. "This supernatural solicitation can not be ill, cannot be good, if ill why hath it given me earnest of success commensing in a truth; if good, why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair, and my seated heart KNOCK at my ribs, against the use of nature."

By such ligamenting, it can be said, his very heart, moved by the witches' prohecy, is it self knocking at hell's gates, his ribs, if one can see the ribs as two reciprocal panels of hinged barred doors, like that of some castle entrance. And even the smallest knocking of sin, at the perpetrator's heart is enough to summon the porter to his calling.

All our yesterdays ...

The tomorrow speech is probably the most famous speech in the entire bloody language, and so far every time I do it I feel I am proceeding into a hallowed moment with its requisite preceeding pause rather then an actual personal experience. Part of the difficulty I find in it is its seeming disjointed nature. There is a logical leap between the first two lines "She should have died hereafter/there would have been a time for such a word" and the following "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..."

Its odd to me how tomorrow, which feels to me to be a positive form of time, (well this is of course debatable, as tomorrow is uncertain, except for death, the only certainty) gets the strange dark colouration. Maybe I'm thinking of the Annie song, when the sun will come out, that tomorrow is somehow hopeful. On the other hand, he says he gins to be a weary of the sun very shortly after. Lady M says, we will have the future in the instant. The future is promising. We build our hopes for the future. We want to leave the present.

All of this relates to time, and time is a key theme in the play, mentioned in its variant forms multitudinously through out the play. This speech is perhaps an expolaration of time and human relationship to it.

Swords I smile at ...

I've been thinking about the relationship Macbeth has to his weaponry, and I'm considering it is an intimate one. He handles his weapons with the familiarity a cat handles its claws, as they are ready to be drawn in an instant, and in such a manner that they are the extension of himself, a protrusion of his very soul into a pointed and potentially fatal shred. Similarly, like the cat, their exposure, though quick and volatile, is without reservation, and it takes some strong manner of dissolution to convince him of their withdrawal, and to settle his moved spirit, and avert his aim from a target. All this thinking, is applicable to the battle scenes, the dagger scene, the knocking scene, the banquet, and perhaps other scenes. I imagine that there might be a moment in which he threatens the witches, that they may indeed speak more. All this does make for a good amount of knife handling, but, Mac be what he be, whether hot blooded or otherwise, when he gnarls he bears his claws.

Poor player...

In one or another copy of the play with its particular annotations, I came across a note that argues the line "a poor player" suggests an unskilled performer. It seems legitimate that it can also be spoken to suggest an actor who may be well recieved, yet is still hapless in his life. Either way, its an ironic line to be said by the character of a play that bears his name and purportedly tells his tale. It seems both aware of the theatre, and of the world in one breath.

I can not say that I am not afraid to some extent of failing expectations and of appearing to be that very poor player who struts and then is heard no more. I feel my one means of escaping such a doom, is to play the part in and out through my skin. I was speaking with a colleague the other day, and he said verse requires both technical as well spiritual facility. I agree with this colleague of mine. The words have to be heard and understood, and inspired into the imaginations of the audience.

I am realizing that character must come out of instinct, which requires building an instinct or harnessing it, so that life on the stage is not thought through so much as lived through. Another colleague of mine feels that Mac is the one character who reacts entirely and is completely a product of his circumstance, and that the actor playing him need only live, and that he makes no decisions. I don't agree that Mac doesn't make decisions. He very much does, and very much pays for them. But I do agree that he is behaving as only Mac behaves. The words can really be bent to do anything as long as there is existence and focus into the scene. If you play a person who differs from yourself in some way, you must find your way into the life of that person that then does allow you to hold up a mirror to nature so fully. You can then allow yourself to really and simply say the words with out any premeditation. The goal would be that the audience is not watching an actor who plays Mac, but Mac himseld. Then you can have the capacity to not plan your performance and live in the moment in manner that is ever truthful.

In this light, I might be freed from any preconcieved interpretation or connection to any kind of proior performances, and then truly be might able to live the character as entirely my own. But this sort of acting, it does require a great deal more bravery and a great great deal more preparation.