Macbeth Study Day at The Globe

I really need to start blogging/journaling on a daily basis. The days are going by too fast. Why can’t I do everything I want to do???
Saturday
I’ve been to London before and it was my experience that it takes me 2hrs to get anywhere. This allows for walking time, train time, and getting lost time. I had to be at The Globe between 9:30 am and 10 am. I didn’t leave until 8:45am and I took a wrong turn. Apparently I can’t read hand drawn maps. I finally got to my study day at 10:45 am. The study day was all on Macbeth. It was different than what I was expecting. I was expecting it to be in a large theater and I would be far away from the speakers—but I would look very cool in my Mexican blouse and big hoop gold earrings (people would wonder what a Chicana was doing at a Shakespearean study day.) It was in a small theatre and there were about 60 people in attendance. I usually expect Brits to be conservative in their demeanor, but the bloke who organized the event was very enthusiastic about Shakespeare and very keen on getting feedback from the audience at every juncture.
I don’t have my handouts with me (only my journal where I jotted some notes) so I won’t be able to refer to names of presenters. I know some were professors from universities in London and others were academics involved with The Globe for years. I studied Macbeth last summer while in Salamanca. I read the play and watched the movie directed by Orson Welles. But, I felt like I learned so much more about Macbeth during the study day. (Oh, also learned from Mr. David Sheridan that it’s a tradition in the theatre to call it The Scottish Play. I watched a very funny episode of Blackadder with references to this.)
First Session: Young, female professor talked about the witches. Witches are women interfering with the domestic duties of women—in other words a woman who is a bad mother or a bad housewife could be accused of being a witch. In Macbeth, we see a bleeding of the demonic into the secular and the secular into the demonic. Lady Macbeth’s famous unsex me speech- she asks for spirits to take away her female sex—to stop up her holes basically—no menstrual blood or milk flowing. You can’t do bad things and still be considered female. Or even human for that matter—you have to monster yourself. This makes me wonder what people are capable of doing. Hmm… something to explore for writing. Lady Macbeth also pushes her interpretation of a man on her husband—she tells him he will be more of a man if he kills Duncan. She also mentioned the speculation about the Macbeths being childless. Maybe Macbeth feels less of a man because he can’t father any children. He can’t give Lady Macbeth babies but he can give her a political dynasty. The society of Macbeth was a very violent one. Macbeth is praised for splitting a man in half in battle.
Second Session: Macbeth in movies—The first clip we saw was an Australian film made in 2006 directed by Geoffrey Wright. The three witches are teenage girls in school uniforms. Macbeth is a city gangster. Apparently this is a common adaptation of Macbeth—the gangster view. India also has a movie based on Macbeth- Maqbool and it’s set in the Mombay crime scene. This professor/academic went on to explain why film/tv is different from a stage performance. I had studied this in my film and literature class last summer. Weird bit in Orson Welles’ movie is the witches making Macbeth out of mud—like a mud baby and then slicing off its head. The set in this movie mirrors the stage of The Globe somewhat—with the different levels. In 1957, a Japanese version has no dialogue at all in the murder scene. It is said that in a scene that uses arrows, they use real arrows to evoke real terror from the actors. Yikes!
Third Session: One of the acting coaches read through some lines with us. He emphasized the need for naturalness of delivery. He described Macbeth as being ‘intensitive.” He also said that the text guides us to the meaning of the text and how it wants to be delivered to the audience. I’m not sure I agree with this—or more like I don’t know how to reconcile this with the info the tour guide gave us two years ago. The tour guide told us Shakespeare never published anything within his life time. That the actors in the plays had later gotten together to put the script to paper. I’m not sure what to think of all of it. The acting coach said that this season’s production at The Globe is a visual production—the words bloody and gory have been thrown around (I’m going to watch it on June 15) This acting coach had been working in productions at The Globe for over 10 years, and he said he looks out for the text—speaks out on behalf of the text. It was so cool to have a roomful of seemingly ordinary people reading excerpts from the play in their British accents. They sounded better than any production or reading I’ve seen in the states. Macbeth is the tragedy with the second highest amount of rhyme (Romeo and Juliet being the first.) The acting coach said that rhyming gives comfort to the character. If it’s important enough to rhyme then it must be the truth (or something like that.) He also said that there is a naturalness to iambi pentameter (what??) because it runs at the beat of our heart. He says he doesn’t tell actors what to do—that he responds to what they do. I think I can apply this to teaching as well. He had two actors reading lines as well. The female, Zoe Waitz, had such a powerful voice.
Fourth Session: A professor talked about the politics in Shakespeare. He says that Macbeth tells the story of current, relevant issues. Macbeth is connected to the British unification of the kingdoms. He mentioned the Gunpowder plot to assassinate King James I. The professor posed the question: Is it possible a king can impose his will on his subjects. King James referred to himself as Rex Pacificus when Scottish kings are usually kings of war. Macbeth shows the realities of witchcraft and the divine rights of kings. The Scottish throne was not inherited. The most prominent men (usually royals) voted on a successor. Edward The Confessor, although supposedly very pious, promised his throne to three different successors. Another question: When does a legitimate king become a tyrant? The accepted thought was that if you couldn’t control yourself, then you shouldn’t rule. (This reminds me of the saying: Anyone who volunteers to run for office automatically should be disqualified.) Tyrants are thought of to be effeminate—they can’t control themselves. Also- every king needs an heir and a spare (how sad :/) Can an argument be made that parents have more than one child to have a spare? I usually hear parents wanting a second child so that the first child has someone to play with.
Last Session: A Q & A session with the director of the play and the actress that plays Lady Macbeth. They said working at The Globe is like no other experience. They were both involved in the production of “As You Like It” last summer which I really enjoyed.
That’s it for my commentary on study day
Xoxo Myra