“It could have been me …” - preliminaries

Standing on the steps of the Stratford Theatre after the show and discussing what we DIDN’T like was the moment when I experienced once and for all what it means that it is always MY OWN TEXT I am reading. Of course I was annoyed that the others hadn’t liked it whereas I had loved it – but couldn’t say why. When I said that I didn’t want to flog it to death right now and blocked the discussion at my end I didn’t yet know why. It is a pity to block a discussion when there are THREE people who know the play well, and to kill a great opportunity to find out what the others had seen. But I realized soon afterwards – as soon as I began to take notes – that I had been right. I had to stop it to become still more complex. MY OWN TEXT had just BEGUN to be written, and I had to take a timeout to make it come together. When I am so happy there always is a reason for it, and I felt that it was about to become A GREAT TEXT.

To unfold it, it proved useful to take stock of what was already there. Of course there were a lot of ideas about “Macbeth” – more than I was aware of - but only very few of them proved useful for my reading of the RSC’s text. For example, I had “cancelled” the Weird Sisters right at the beginning without regret, even though they are one of my favourite bits, and I have lots of ideas what they might be about. And - even though I find Shakespeare’s grasp of early history in “Macbeth” fascinating, in fact find the function of different time levels in his plays increasingly fascinating - for me “Macbeth” has always been strikingly CONTEMPORARY. I have LOVED the play – for such a long time that I don’t remember how it began - but the moment I began to “really read” it was the moment I realized this. I don’t remember when and why this happened, but it must be the reason why the only really convincing “Macbeth” I had seen until the RSC was the “Shakespeare Retold” by the BBC with James McAvoy as “Joe Macbeth”, who is working his arse off as a cook in a posh restaurant and kills his employer to finally get what he is owed. (With Keeley Hawes as the only Lady Macbeth I could take seriously so far – until I saw Anne-Marie Duff.) The plot is weak, though, which shows in the end (as, frankly, the ending of the play itself is, which the RSC didn’t take great pains to disguise!) but it must have hit the nail on the head as to what I FELT “Macbeth” was all about. Nonetheless, there was this tiny flaw that there was no “Shakespeare” in it.

As it already IS so contemporary for me, a contemporary adaptation was what I would have chosen myself – even EXACTLY what they did because it wasn’t strictly contemporary but rather like the ubiquitous “swords and mobile phones” version of “Richard III” by the Almeida Theatre which I had loved. So - exactly what I would have done … (apart from the swords which matched their statement on violence as you couldn’t have killed a rat with them. Macbeth’s dagger was okay, though …) I realize that, for other people, this already might not be “Macbeth” anymore because the historical and geographical background is missing. Claudia said that “Macbeth” was the only play where she couldn’t imagine a (good) contemporary adaptation and – obviously! – this one wasn’t convincing from her point of view. And even though I find the historical implications of the “Scottish angle” in “Macbeth” very interesting I have always disliked it to be shown. I hate it when they are speaking Scottish in “Macbeth” as I feel that it kind of shifts the focus off what is really important. Nobody spoke Scottish in the RSC’s production. So - and I didn’t really realize this until now! – this was exactly how I would have done it … though there would be lots and lots of things I missed in my own “extended version”.

What I never realized to this extent before is that my extended version wouldn’t work half as well –if at all! - because it isn’t just an unfortunate necessity to have to MAKE CHOICES producing a Shakespeare text on the stage – it is IMPERATIVE to make the text work. Of course, everybody who is making theatre knows this – it is just that it is often the WRONG choices they make, for the wrong reasons. I came to trust the RSC because I could see that the choices they make usually are for the RIGHT reason – in my book! – which is to make a CONTEMPORARY UPDATE of relevant content that actually IS IN THE PLAY. And it was the brutal reduction and clear choices they made which made the text for me so consistent. And this means – on my level of text production – that I was able to read their text - and wanted to read it because I liked it - and then to make MY OWN CHOICES. Only when this can be done the process is successful, and I cannot help feeling that the others had seen bits and pieces they didn’t like whereas I was on the verge of producing a text – or rather completing a text which I had begun to write – and THIS is what was so satisfying and what made me so happy.

It ALSO made me aware - more than ever before - that what I was reading was probably not the text “they” intended to write. Even from the few things the others said about what they had SEEN – not about what they disliked! – I could infer that I had missed a lot, especially in the beginning when I was still adapting. Then, when I had an idea where their text was going, I began to see things, but WHAT I see is already “altered” by my own expectations and by what I THINK they want it to mean, even by inconsequential things that happen, like a beautiful actor unexpectedly showing up to the right of my seat, just a few meters away … I am always a little bit afraid of watching the DVDs of something I have enjoyed in the cinema or theatre because I know that I will see something different. I am always aware of this - and think I should be - but it isn’t much use. The only material I can build the text with are my own memories and observations anyway.

Now, to cut short the endless preliminaries: What “Macbeth” is about for me is what happens to us when “we” actually have this great career we have always dreamt of. I feel that I am already taking a run-up to make apologies again … because OF COURSE this is not what Shakespeare has written! But I let it stand like this because it is WHAT I READ. And just now I remembered the exact moment when “Macbeth” really began to matter for me – when I STARTED the updating. And I realize that this might become annoying - more apologies!!! - but some people never seem to miss the point. It was the moment when Richard Armitage explained how he used “Macbeth” in “The Hobbit”. When he said that he became interested NOT in the killing but in the DYNAMICS that unfold as a result. Right! It might not be “ethically correct” to look away from the killing and “enjoy” the interesting dynamics to unfold, nonetheless it is WHAT “WE” DO! (Of course, from this moment, I wanted to see what would happen if he played it, so, my (obvious) first choice for Macbeth wouldn’t just have been “favouritism”. And it wasn’t AFTER “The Crucible” that I “listed” him as my “specialist” for tragedy. This was just the final proof!) In fact, THIS is the most interesting thing that happens in “Macbeth”, and, where I am concerned, they can cut down on almost everything else. I was really, really sorry about the “missing” Lady Macbeth angle, but still it WORKED. And I think it worked because the RSC obviously know what they are doing when they are casting. There are LOTS of choices to make even before anybody begins their actual work on the production. And CASTING certainly is one of the most crucial.

There is something I have noticed for some time – and here is the right place for it. One of the many things I like about the RSC is that, in my experience, they don’t use famous actors to boost their sales. (There probably is no need for it – people will come anyway.) Casting Christopher Eccleston as Macbeth might not be a brilliant example for this, but what I mean is not that they shouldn’t use famous actors IF this makes sense. With most famous actors there is something they are famous for which might be exactly what they want for their production. I am obviously not good at this, so I don’t even know if it is correct to call Christopher Eccleston “famous”, but there certainly is something he SHOULD be famous for, being one of the most accomplished method actors I know. It was a RISKY decision, though, as he is not usually a theatre actor. And one of the many things I like about the RSC is – even though they use to shit their pants about political correctness issues – is that they often make daring choices. I even was in the unlucky position to witness the risks of casting somebody who is not usually a theatre actor. I will have to wait for the DVD to decide this issue, but I suspect that his “product” might have been better if I had seen an earlier version of it. There definitely WAS a risk – which DEFINITELY was worth taking in this case, no matter what anybody says about it! (To be continued …)

Now I feel confident that I have put all my “players” in their correct positions on the stage so that I can begin to play – respectively unfold MY reading of the RSC’s production of “Macbeth”. Less confident, though, that it will emerge remotely as great as it already feels – considering my overenthusiastic notes. But it is exciting … There I see TRAGEDY still looming in the background, ready to step forward again, and TIME, opposing it, eager to stand in to explain everything which doesn’t yet make sense about “Macbeth”, while multi-tasking by inexorably putting pressure not only on the CHARACTERS but the ACTORS as well, who must be brief and clear, take “brutal” and efficient choices to make what they do count … MYSELF in the middle of it all, the centre of “text production”, standing very close to the ACTOR/CHARACTER UNIT trying to describe what they are doing. In this case it will just be Christopher Eccleston/Macbeth for two good reasons: that “they” made this choice and put the focus on Macbeth – more than they usually should in a Shakespeare play – and because he is the centre of the “VORTEX movement”, of what is going to HAPPEN in the play. (The “vortex” always being present - and crucial! - though invisible.)

This is already pretty complex, but there is more. As far as I can see ARROGANCE is waiting in the background, half disguised by a black curtain, ungraciously elbowing CONFIDENCE to one side. Do I spot FEAR? I am not certain … among other “spectral” figures like SELF-HATRED(???) Then there is Claudia, probably in one of the first rows of the stalls where the directors are sitting, as usual giving me a crucial hint.

O, and there is still another APOLOGY standing BEHIND the curtain because, in this case, I will take advantage of the fact that an actor is also a REAL PERSON and – probably not always, but often - “comes into the text” as a real person – which I usually try to avoid, and, nonetheless let happen often enough. But I couldn’t prevent the “real” Christopher Eccleston from coming into my text when I read the McLean interview, and although this WILL become unduly personal I promise that I will handle it with discretion and sense (as I usually do… where is this damned smiley face?!). Anyway, as I stumbled on it I couldn’t avoid it, and the interview will be the focus of my next post.