More than a break.

Sprezzatura Macbeth is on Hiatus!

But there’s still a lot of great research and stuff on the blog to check out.

transitions…

We’ve been on break for a couple of weeks.

A good thing. The boys are doing some training. We’re looking at the possibilities for some script re-writes. Considering how a script can be used in performance — instead of a linear flow from beginning to end, could a script be a set of moments that can be played as a “set”, like a band might do with a set of available songs for performance. Changeable depending on the location, mood, audience.

We’ve also been considering the curse of the Scottish play.

More to come.

boys are back

13 February Rehearsal. The guys were finally all together. And there was much rejoicing.

Naked Run

Witch dance updated

Macbeth dance updated

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Sore night, night of horror, mistakes

6 February. Week 6 at the Gardens.

Miscellaneous things going on today. Songs. Mistakes. Dances. Sad Scenes. All trains were local. In anticipation of snow. Frigid and windy. No snow.

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Some Sacred Harp singing. Maggie has turned This Sore Night, long anticipated as a song in the original script, into an acapella piece inspired by sacred harp. Devin’s adding some harmonies. Here’s the first go:

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We shared some research, following more on this American influence on our Macbeth. Mistakes. This word. So innocent, innocuous. I can’t shake the weight of this word’s effect on this play. Making mistakes. The horror of it. The deep, lasting, resounding repercussions of mistakes. From the tiny to the great to the staggering. Considering other sources like Nathanial Hawthorne, Puritans, Sinners in the Hands, etc. Not sure where this is all going yet, but we’re intrigued. Excerpts below from the account of the Astor Place Riots, published 1849, year of the riot. A huge mistake.

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Worked some more on the Dances. Teaching Cory the Witch’s dance. Trying to add more quick steps, decelerations, spins, suspension to the Macbeth’s dance. Some clips. With the wrong music…embracing the sad theme.

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Some Sad Scenes. Pushing Lady Macbeth’s “Damn Spot” scene right up against Macbeth’s “I am sick at heart”, even in just a first read-thru, was devastating.

In the best way. Exploiting loneliness, the destruction of mistakes irreversible…heavy, suffocating, inescapable sadness and regret.

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And I don’t know what this is:

P a r t n e r s

23 Jan 2010. Rehearsal Log. Week 4, Gardens.

We’re back dancing with the Macbeths, with a clearer idea of 1) where this dance fits in the play, 2) what this dance looks like, and 3) why.

Where and Why are longer answers. Let’s start with what it looks like, then. After Joelle worked with Rowan and Devin a few weeks ago, we realized they could handle difficult material. Also, I got hooked on this “dearest partner of greatness” line that Macbeth calls Lady Macbeth and wondered if their dance could speak to them as Great Partners.

And that the dance is at once effortless, yet difficult (sprezztura!). Joelle’s latest inspiration came from Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse, great partners, lightness, ease and effortlessness embodied. Here’s the inspiration from Fred & Cyd: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iAWxCxTgoI&feature=related and then some pics and video on what Joelle and the lads worked on/came up with.

Oh yeah…some fine quick stepping happening. We’re off to a beautiful start, these guys are quick studies, love where it’s going. Made Maggie and me want to dance (wait…is this Macbeth?…yes, yes it is).

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In the whole history of Shakespeare in American life, perhaps the most shocking single fact is that 22 or more people once died as a result of a riot in New York over the correct theatrical interpretation of Macbeth. The truth, of course, is a little more complicated than that…

The Astor Place Riot. The broadcast over the Moonglow music in the video above is from the Folger’s documentary on The Astor Place Riots. (Found here http://www.shakespeareinamericanlife.org/stage/onstage/yesterday/astor.cfm). We’ve become intrigued by these Astor Place riots. Riots over competing productions of Macbeth in New York City, 1894.  We’re exploring how this episode in American history might inform our Macbeth. What’s American about our production? Is it relevant? Does it matter?

The vaudevillian-esque witches already speak to this time. When Shakespeare was low-brow entertainment, sharing the bill with popular entertainment. Not dissimilar to Shakespeare’s day — Hamlet for a penny or a few yards away bear-baiting for a penny. When did Shakespeare become so high-brow? Was the Astor Place Riot a sad example of these culture clashes? The encroaching  shift from low-brow to high-brow?

The Macbeth’s dance we’re working on will be the prologue to the production. A high brow’ish dance. A look back at the Macbeth’s in happier times. And we’re thinking of how this Astor Place can partner with the prologue. According to Nigel Cliff’s book, The Shakespeare Riots, the rioters, after forcing the English actor Macready off the stage during the production, apparently were chanting the Witches opening lines…”When shall we three meet again? In thunder,  lightning, or in rain? When the hurlyburly’s done…”

Heckling Witches, perhaps. Clash of cultures.

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New Noble Partner.

Devin’s taking on the role of Macbeth’s other partner, Banquo. Devin accepts the role from Maggie. Godspeed. We like the implication of this Lady Macbeth-Banquo doubling.

Back to the table

16 Jan 2010. Rehearsal Log. Our 3rd week at the Gardens. We took a departure from dancing, moving, music. And spent some time exploring the relationship between Duncan and Macbeth, at the table and around it, seeing what we might happen upon. Then back to the text and the table with Macbeth by himself. Which was less an exploration of the words than the experience of having all these words. Stamina. Loneliness. There was much laid bare… revelare.

The King and Macbeth.

Alex and Rowan improvised the first time Duncan and Macbeth meet and then subsequent meetings.  First meeting, At Duncan’s castle, he’s the new king. Things are awkward between these two, respectful, but awkward.

Next meeting, on the battlefield. Macbeth’s turf.

Still awkward. They just don’t seem to get each other.

Next meeting, back at Duncan’s. Macbeth brings the wife. Awkward, again, but in a different way. (apologies Devin, for the Maggie-LadyM stand in).

The question at the end of all this. How can Macbeth possibly kill this Duncan. Where does hate (is it hate) come from to kill this Duncan — gentle, respectful, thoughtful, peaceful.

These pictures from the day are stills captured from lots of (pretty funny and informative) video.  Including Maggie, Duncan’s PA and a fan of Macbeth, getting Macbeth’s autograph. Duncan doesn’t get that, at all.

Also…Macbeth brought up several times the idea or question if Kings were “magic”. He even asked the king. If he were magic. Duncan denied it. But I don’t know…there’s something about the light in these pictures that suggest otherwise.

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Macbeth alone far away at the end of the table.

Rehearsal ends with Rowan alone at the end of a long table. Doing the entire play, but only Macbeth’s lines. Then doing only Macbeth’s soliloquies, to the complicit audience.

Two important discoveries.

One: When Rowan did all of his lines, with Maggie providing only the cue lines, without stopping, moving from scene to scene, moment to moment, there was this profound sense that the play was getting away from Rowan. Naturally, it should. Things were moving too quickly and he was at once trying to keep up, figure out where he was. Even though he Nailed his lines and clearly knows the moments and large scope of the play (!), the play was going to move forward whether he was mentally or emotionally ready.  Leaving Rowan alone at the end of the table to get through the entire play on his own became this odd simulation of what it seems Macbeth is going through in this play — fumbling around in the fog (reference to Kurosawa’s production), that things are moving forward and he is desperately trying to catch up, continuing to make mistakes, but moving forward, not sure he totally understands what’s happening, but fighting for it, as is Macbeth’s nature. It’s intriguing to consider that Macbeth is trapped by a fate he doesn’t fully understand.

Harold Bloom suggests, that “…the little Macbeth in each theatregoer can be tempted to surmise a murder or two of his or her own. We do not admire Macbeth, yet we are oddly entrapped in sympathy for him.”

Two: Having Rowan perform just his soliloquies, the moments when he is alone with the audience, was a bit heartbreaking. When he slowed down and truly involved Maggie and Me in these conversation, they ceased to be “those famous monologes”. Even though these soliloquies are line after line of dense imagery,  he needed us to understand. The agony of the need was profound. We were entrapped in sympathy for him. Yet, he is utterly alone. And we can’t do anything to help him. These moments when Macbeth is isolated, (and the isolation feels increasingly profound as the play progresses), why does he continue to seek us out? In the production, we are earnestly working on making these interactions ones of of utmost vulnerabilty… more than pretty poetry, over-familiar lines, the big chunks of text, the Macbeth monologues. There’s more to these words. There’s a reason Macbeth speaks so long, with such imagination, and why he chooses to speak this way almost exclusively when he is alone with us. It matters.

Slightest of Hands

Saturday Rehearsal Log – 9 Jan 10

After our Justin-led-epic-warmup, pretty much everything we worked on today involved limiting, limited, or loaded hands.

Witches. Justin and Mike worked on creating some Witch choreography material, using Buckdancing and Cakewalks as source material — still following the inspiration of vaudeville. In both of these dances, the hands are rarely, if at all, considered in the choreography. The arms are simply attached to a moving body, responding reflexively. Cakewalk-buckdancing: It aint no cakewalk.

(bkgrnd music: Ground Stump by O’Death)

The “Cakewalk” was done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the South. Clip from the early 1900′s here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZBtVkmqxvk.  Winner of the performance won a huge cake.  Hence, cakewalk. Thereafter it was performed in minstrel shows, exclusively by men until the 1890s. The inclusion of women in the cast “made possible all sorts of improvisations in the Walk, and the original was soon changed into a grotesque dance” which became very popular across the country. [Wikipedia]. We like the idea of a grotesque dance for the witches. The cakewalk and buckdancing are both really physically demanding, but have a sense of effortlessness. Though Mike and Justin’s spin on it combines a sense of effort-full and effort-less. They’re working hard, as a good witch should.

Lots of material generated today for witch movement and character. Finding out who they are are, how they move, what their physical rituals are…it will inform the text, and  we’re hoping will consequentially keep us out of the ‘witchy’ realm of voice-chanting. I think we’re starting to understand these guys. Ladies. Weird Sisters.

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Lady Macbeth. Devin worked on that damn spot scene. Which in our adaption is a soliloquy. Nobody is watching and commenting (no doctor, no maid, they’re cut). So the audience gets to be her confidantes, we are complicit. She speaks to us directly, vulnerably.

We also tried to take the hands out of it. No hand-wringing. Not simply to be different, but to see if there is more to this. Maybe  she simply can’t look at her hands. They remind her of too many horrible things. (“horrible imaginings”.) So, we’re playing with keeping them in her pockets.

Perhaps this scene doesn’t come from a crazy woman who thinks she sees blood everywhere. But, from a woman who is deeply sad, devastated. The plan failed, it was a horrible mistake of epic proportions, and she can’t get it out of her head. She’s lost her husband, family, and she’s implicit in murder. Yeah, that might make you crazy, but we’re seeing if the moment can be wrought with something other than an effort to act crazy. Which Devin is getting at beautifully. It’s heartbreaking, really.

Oh yeah, we also cut the “Out Damn Spot” line.

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This Sore Night. In our adapting, we conflated an entire scene into words for a potential song. Maggie and Devin started working on turning these words into a song for the entire company to sing. The scene (originally between Ross and an Old Man) is about the turbulent previous night — the night Macbeth killed Duncan — and how all manner of unnatural things happened. Storms, horses eating themselves, etc. Maggie’s suggesting some Sacred Harp music, or Shape Note Singing. There’s also some corresponding hand-gestures. It’s pretty awesome. More updates on this in the Music log.

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