Of course I kind of hit the text vortex before – just NEVER when I saw the play in the theatre – and the process released important issues, but I never hit it squarely, and I knew it. I was always aware that “Macbeth” was still going to happen. My two break-through moments so far I can sum up with “tragedy” and “How far would you go to further your career?”. And of course there are a lot of crucial sub-issues and discoveries that fit right in there, but I also knew that there were whole areas I basically left out, for example the weird sisters. I always had this impression they were really crucial but couldn’t figure out in what way. “Instruments of darkness” was a new attempt to get to the bottom of them that contributed to the working of the text vortex. Then there was history. I finally figured out in what way exactly “Macbeth” is a historical play, and, even more importantly, a POLITICAL play. There is probably no play of Shakespeare where you cannot find at least one important political issue that still works for us, but “Macbeth” is political through and through – just not in the way I have seen it represented so far. Tragedy remains an important issue, but tragedy and politics are indissolubly linked. This is what I figured out when I tried to reproduce how Shakespeare “processed” Holinshed. The term that links them, in my opinion, is ESCALATION – and it sums up why I always thought I was still not feeling BAD ENOUGH about this play. Now I do, having a better idea how it works, and why it concerns “us” still – and always will. There will be a separate post about this.
Another “sub-issue” also picked up speed, basically without me doing anything: LADY MACBETH. There are a few intricate issues concerning her that were always at the back of my mind, and it seems that my brain produced a few answers – or connections - in the meantime. I hope I will find time to look into this soon.
Now to my interlude – which might become my longest post ever – because I have finished Act 1 of my own hypothetical production of “Macbeth”. I changed my way of writing it slightly because I thought I would basically write stage directions and no text, which would have been shorter, but it didn’t work. And it reads much better with the text. I also started to write rather clumsy directions about what characters on the stage should do, when they should move and where, even about pauses and how they should express what they are feeling. They are not meant to be followed to the letter. Partly they are for my own orientation because, as it isn’t real, I have to know who is where at all times. The directions about when to pause and how to express their feelings are even less literal, they are mostly there to give a sense of TIMING. I realized that timing is an absolutely crucial issue of any theatrical production that needs to be “micro-managed”. In “Shakespeare” there is a lot of great timing already written into the text, but you have to get it out of it. (That might be the same with other great dramatists, but I never noticed it in this way. It might be that Shakespeare is special in this respect, as other historical plays get rewritten all the time extremely successfully. Rewriting a Shakespeare play wouldn’t work, and I think this is partly because the timing is impeccable.) I always notice when an actor has an especially good sense of timing, and I always notice and particularly hate it when somebody answers on the stage before giving himself the miniscule amount of time for taking in what the other person has been saying. My worst experience about this is the one I recently had with the DocX “Macbeth” because I know the text by heart. Then I heard it in the same way I am hearing it in my head – mainly by Ralph Fiennes, I am sorry to say – and this is really the worst thing that can happen with Shakespeare. No sense of timing AT ALL! These painful moments, though, are a great lecture about the importance of timing on the stage, and I realized that I had to include my own sense of timing in some way.
Another thing I noticed when I wrote this was that I had to imagine the stage this is happening on. This was actually a bit of a downer, as I realized that I imagined it to happen on a proscenium stage – my least favourite kind. But, at some point, I discovered that there was an aesthetical reason for it. I already wrote that I had to shed one of my original ideas, one of them that was in fact about escalation, though I never though of it in these terms. And I noticed that I had been kind of relieved about the absence of blood and violence on the stage in the Stratford “Macbeth”, though I criticized it. (They had a blackboard and chalk instead, and mostly blacked out the killings.) Now I noticed that there is at least one good reason for it – apart from its being gross and obvious, and maybe actors slipping on the blood. As it was a contemporary production, like mine, blood and violence wouldn’t work in the same way as in a historical environment. There certainly is as much bloody and violent action going on in our world, but seldom out in the open. Blood as a means of escalation wouldn’t work because the efforts of HIDING it would exceed those of shedding it – which theoretically could be made an issue as well. But I obviously dropped the blood in favour of a new aesthetical scheme. What I had rather liked about the DocX “Macbeth” was the amount of DARKNESS, though, on my stage, there shouldn’t just be darkness. I would like to use it as a means of contrasting this ominous atmosphere of EVIL with the little everyday-world people make up for themselves – where things are happening exactly as they were planned … (Ha, ha! – that’s the weird sisters from the off.) I would like only to illuminate little areas of the stage fully – where these things are happening. There also are these “natural” intervals of darkness between scenes where the darkness could be enhanced by sound like big iron machines working in the distance or some other kind of ominous, impersonal sound – not loud! (I haven’t thought about music yet, but at this stage I’d say: no music at all, apart from snatches of what people actually might put on, for example at the “Heath” when people are turning up to party.) In addition, the weird sisters could frequently emerge from the darkness and disappear into it. These ideas would work best on a rather high, good-size proscenium stage – which is what nobody likes, really, neither audience nor actors. Minimum requirement would be a stage with a background.
Now, finally, the fun bit:
1,3 (continued)
(“All Hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!”
Macbeth’s face “falls”.)
There is a short interval of darkness, about a second, then the lights come on again, flickering at the beginning. During this interval the sisters have relaxed and are now busy pouring champagne and passing on glasses.
Banquo (obviously sceptical about the quaint prophecies): “Why do you start and seem to fear things that do sound so fair?”
(Making up his mind about getting to the bottom of this): “I’the name of truth, are you fantastical, or that indeed which outwardly you show? My noble partner you greet with present grace and great prediction of noble having and of royal hope that he seems rapt withal. To me you speak not. If you can look into the seeds of time and say which grain will grow and which will not: Speak then to me who neither beg nor fear your favours nor your hate.”
The sisters, clinking glasses. (Mockingly):
“Hail.” “Hail.” “Hail.”
“Lesser than Macbeth, but greater.”
“Not so happy, yet much happier.”
The third sister, ceremoniously clinking with Banquo:
“Thou shalt get kings, though thou be none.”
Together, raising their glasses:
“So, all-hail, Macbeth and Banquo! Banquo and Macbeth – all hail!”
At this moment, disco-lights are flaring up, as a number of soldiers in combat-trousers and muscle-shirts and some made-up girls are storming the bar. In the ensuing commotion the sisters disappear. The party-guests are settling, one girl is taking the bar and handing out beer-bottles. The disco-lights are dimmed and stop flickering whilst a stronger light reveals Macbeth and Banquo still standing in the foreground, glasses in hand, looking stupid.
Banquo, looking around, then at his glass: “The earth has bubbles, as this water has, and these are of them. Wither are they vanished?”
Macbeth, striding towards the door, checking the outside: “Into the air, and what seemed corporal melted, as breath into the wind.” Disappointedly: “Would they had stayed.”
He returns and they are now standing together to the left of the bar in the spotlight, their backs to the crowd. Banquo drains his glass, shrugging as if to cast off the dream:
“Were such things here as we do speak about, or have we eaten on the insane root that takes the reason prisoner?”
Macbeth who has been drinking up, scoffing: “Your children shall be kings!”
Banquo: “You shall be king!”
Macbeth, collecting their glasses, turns towards the entrance handing them to one of the girls: “and Thane of Cawdor too – went it not so?”
Banquo: “To the self-same tune and words.” He has also turned and sees Ross and Angus entering.
Chuffed: “Who’s here!”
They all meet with hugs and patting backs. While they are joining, the spot phases out and the interior is gradually lit up. The four men are standing in the middle of the bar and are getting served drinks.
Ross: “The king has happily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success. And when he reads thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight, his wonders and his praises do contend which should be thine or his. As thick as hail came post with post, and every one did bear thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence and poured them down before him.”
Angus (impatiently): “We are sent, to give thee from our royal master thanks. Only to herald thee into his sight, not pay thee …”
Ross (interrupting): “And, for an earnest of a greater honour, he bade me call thee from him Thane of Cawdor …” Pausing, raising his glass: “In this addition, hail most worthy Thane, for it is thine.”
Instead of the expected pleased reaction, Macbeth and Banquo are petrified, staring at him. Banquo recovers first, blurting out: “What, can the devil speak true?”
Macbeth looks at him startled, then addresses Ross. (Subdued): “The Thane of Cawdor lives. Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?”
Ross: “Who was the Thane lives yet, but under heavy judgment bears that life which he deserves to lose. Whether he was combined with those of Norway, or did line the rebel with hidden help and vantage, I know not. But treasons capital, confessed and proved, have overthrown him.”
There is a moment’s pause, all four men looking grave. The barmaid comes to collect empty glasses and the group gets separated, with Macbeth to the left, slightly in the foreground.
Macbeth, facing the audience, muses: “Glamis and Thane of Cawdor. The greatest is behind.” Turning, with a step towards Banquo: “Do you not hope your children shall be kings when those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me, promised no less to them?”
Banquo, noticing the eager tone, becomes even more sceptical: “That, trusted home, might yet enkindle you unto the crown besides the Thane of Cawdor.“ Macbeth frowns. Banquo is about to turn away to address the others, but suddenly turns back. Very seriously: “But tis strange. And oftentimes, to win us to our harm, the instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles to betray us in deepest consequence.”
Seeing that the others are joining them again, he moves towards them, barring them from this conversation: “Cousins a word, I pray you.”
They are chatting amicably, while Macbeth, facing the audience, is slightly set apart from the others through lighting and space.
Macbeth: “Two truths are told as happy prologue to the swelling act of the imperial theme. This supernatural soliciting cannot be ill; cannot be good: If ill, why has it given me earnest of success, commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor. If good, why do I yield to that suggestion whose horrid image doth unfix my hair and makes my seated heart knock at my ribs against the use of nature? Present fears are less than horrible imaginings. My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical, shakes so my single state of man, that function is smothered in surmise, and nothing is but what is not …” Forcibly shaking off these terrifying and exciting thoughts: “If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me without my stir.” Turning to the others, now quite matter of factly: “Come what come may. Time and the hour runs through the roughest day.”
The others are also preparing to leave. Banquo, clapping Macbeth’s shoulder: “Worthy Macbeth, we stay upon your leisure.”
Macbeth (apologetically): “Give me your favour: my dull brain was wrought with things forgotten.” Facing Ross and Angus: “I thank you, gentlemen. Your pains are registered where every day I turn the leaf to read them.” (Steering them towards the entrance where the crowd is leaving.) “Let us towards the king”.
While the two others are stepping outside, he turns back to Banquo. (Confidentially, in a hurry: ) “Think upon what has chanced, and at more time, the interim having weighed it, let us speak our free hearts each to other.”
Banquo: “Very gladly.”
The other two have turned in the entrance and Macbeth is hurrying towards them. Over his shoulder to Banquo: “Till then enough.” Touching the others at the shoulder: “Come, friends!”
As soon as they have turned their backs, the three sisters reappear from behind the bar, just for a few seconds. The first has retrieved her gun and is covering the window. The second is stuffing things into her backpack while moving toward the door. The third stands there for two seconds, looking at the audience, then switches off the light. Darkness.
1,4
Change of scene. A neutral curtain-wall has descended in front of the ruined building. The whole scene is now interior, a conference room/headquarters with a long conference table to the right, chairs, a projection screen in the background. The third sister, in a smart suit, is placing glasses and water bottles on the table. Malcolm and Duncan are entering from the left.
Duncan (impatiently): “Is execution done on Cawdor. Or not those in commission yet returned?”
Malcolm: “My liege, they are not yet come back. But I have spoke with one that saw him die, who did report that very frankly he confessed his treasons, implored your Highness’ pardon and set forth a deep repentance. Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it. He died as one that has been studied in his death, to throw away the dearest thing he owed as t’were a careless trifle.”
Duncan (turning towards the back of the scene where there is a slight commotion; soberly): “There is no art to find the mind’s construction in the face. He was a gentleman on whom I built and absolute trust.” Seeing Ross, Angus, Banquo and Macbeth approach, he brightens and steps towards them, opening his arms: “O worthiest cousin, the sin of my ingratitude even now was heavy on me. Thou art so far before that swiftest wing of recompense is slow to overtake thee …”
He reaches Macbeth. Hugs. They are all hugging, with Malcolm as well.
The new arrivals are still in their combat suits. Behind them more people are entering, dressed formally or business-like, among them the first sister, carrying a briefcase. While they are coming in, the third sister is leaving, slyly acknowledging her sister as she is passing.
Macbeth (self-effacingly with a convincing air of sincerity): “The service and the loyalty I owe in doing it pays itself. Your Highness’ part is to receive our duties; and our duties are, to your throne and state, children and servants, that do but what they should by doing everything safe towards your love and honour.”
Duncan (hugging again): “Welcome hither. I have begun to plant thee and shall labour to make thee full of growing.” Flustered because he has omitted Banquo: “Noble Banquo, that hast no less deserved, nor must be known no less to have done so: Let me infold the and hold thee to my heart.” (Hugging him.)
Banquo (genuinely moved): “There if I grow, the harvest is your own.”
Duncan (dabbing at his eyes): “My plenteous joys, wanton in fulness, seek to hide themselves in drops of sorrow.” He takes the head of the table, gesturing for the others to take seats. Macbeth sits down at the right-hand corner of the table, Malcolm on the left closest to Duncan. The first sister has retired towards the left of the stage, phone in hand and starts texting when Duncan is speaking.
Duncan: “Sons, kinsmen, thanes, and those whose places are the nearest. Know we will establish our estate upon our eldest Malcolm whom we name hereafter the Prince of Cumberland, which title must not unaccompanied invest him only, but signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine on all deservers.” (Getting up and turning towards Macbeth.) From hence to Inverness, and bind us further to you.”
Macbeth, whose face has fallen during Duncan’s announcement, gathering himself together: “I’ll be myself the harbinger, and make joyful the hearing of my wife with your approach; So, humbly take my leave.”
Duncan: “My worthy Cawdor!”
Duncan is getting up and there is a general bustle as people are leaving. The first sister is approaching somebody with her briefcase, producing papers for them to read. Macbeth remains standing, facing the audience, and is subtly highlighted in the foreground whereas the bustle is going on more subdued.
Macbeth (shaking his head): “The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down or else overleap, for in my way it lies.” (Looking about him to make sure he couldn’t be heard. More subdued while the background lights are fading: ) “Stars, hide your fires! Let no light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be, which the eye fears, when it is done, to see.”
He is leaving in the opposite direction of the background entrance. Meanwhile people have been leaving, Duncan and Banquo last, chatting amicably. The last words of their conversation – casually spoken – are heard while they are passing the entrance: “Let’s after him whose care is gone before to give us welcome. It is a peerless kingsman.”
The stage is empty apart from the first sister close to the entrance, facing the audience for a second, smirking. Then she switches off the light. Darkness.
1,5
Swift change of scene again. The curtain wall is now background to a smart apartment in light colours with minimal furniture. A double bed to the right against the wall, a dressing-table with mirror in the foreground to the left where Lady Macbeth is sitting half-dressed. A moveable rack of clothes to one side in the foreground. Through the entrance on the left an atmosphere of a sunny morning permeates the chamber. The second sister enters, in expensive but casual clothes and sets a cup of coffee on the dressing-table. Lady Macbeth acknowledges her absent-mindedly. She lays out clothing-on the bed and leaves. Lady Macbeth’s phone makes a messaging noise. She checks the text and gets up excitedly, pacing the room. At one point she begins to read aloud.
“They met me in the day of success, and I have learned by the perfect’st report they have more in them than mortal knowledge. Whilst I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives from the king who all hailed me … Thane of Cawdor – by which title before these weird sisters saluted me and referred me to the coming-on of time with … ‘Hail king that shalt be!’ “ She pauses for a moment, eyes closed, the phone held against her heart, then reads on. “This have I thought good to deliver thee, my dearest partner of greatness, that thou might’st not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay it to thy heart and farewell.”
(Standing still centre-stage): “Glamis thou art, and Cawdor. And shalt be what though art promised.” (Pacing again, thinking fast.): “Yet do I fear thy nature. It is too full of the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou would’st be great; art not without ambition but without the illness should attend it. What thou would’st highly, that would’st thou holily. Would’st not play false and yet would’st wrongly win.” She moves back to her mirror and remains standing before it, making some adjustments absent-mindedly when she is really concentrating on making plans. “Hie thee hither, that I may pour my spirits in thine ear and chastise with the valour of my tongue all that impedes thee from the golden round that fate and metaphysical aid does seem to have thee crowned withal.”
Meanwhile the second sister has appeared at the entrance. This time she is knocking softly because she hears her mistress speaking. Lady Macbeth (startled and annoyed): “What is thy tidings`?”
Second sister (coming forward): “The king comes here to-night.”
Lady Macbeth (freezes; after a moment, shocked): “Thou art mad to say it.” (Gathering herself.) “Is not your master with him, who, were it so, would have informed for preparation?”
Second sister (eagerly): “So please you, it is true. Our thane is coming. One of my fellows had the speed of him, who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more than would make up his message.”
Lady Macbeth (authoritatively) : “Give him tending. He brings great news.”
The second sister leaves. Lady Macbeth moves to the middle of the room and stands still, nervously touching her forehead then proceeds to the bed, checking her clothes and starting to dress. She doesn’t finish, though, but moves restlessly towards the forefront with her dress in her hands.
(Laughing nervously: ) “The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan under my battlements.” Pressing her garment against her breasts, gathering her resolve. When she speaks again, her voice is different. A slight but distinctive change has come over her. There is some change in the atmosphere as well, different lighting or some kind of faint sound:
“Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts. Unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood. Stop up the access and passage to remorse that no compunctious visitings of nature shake my fell purpose and keep peace between the effect and it. Come to my woman’s breasts and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature’s mischief. Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark to cry: Hold! Hold!”
Macbeth enters rather noisily, still in his combat gear, breaking the atmosphere. Lady Macbeth turns and gasps in surprise. Then she runs towards him and they embrace and kiss passionately. At some point she moves back, holding him at arm’s length and looking at him: “Great Glamis. Worthy Cawdor. Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter! Your message has transported me beyond this ignorant present and I feel now the future in the instant.”
He laughs and they move towards the bed. They tumble on top of it in a mixture of attempting to remove the heavy clothes and foreplay. Suddenly Macbeth sits up, realizing that there are even more pressing things at hand: “My dearest love, Duncan comes here tonight.”
Lady Macbeth (immediately): “And when goes hence?”
Macbeth (after a pause cautiously): “Tomorrow … as he purposes.”
Lady Macbeth (promptly): “O never shall sun that morrow see!”
Macbeth turning away from her, getting half off the bed, feet on the floor. She moves to his side and turns his face towards her:
“Your face, my thane, is like a book where men may read strange matters. – To beguile the time, look like the time. Bear welcome in your eye, your hand, your tongue. Look like the innocent flower but be the serpent under it.” She jumps up from the bed and paces the room, frantically planning: “He that’s coming must be provided for, and you shall put this night’s great business into my dispatch, which shall to all our nights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.”
Macbeth, seeing her taking over like that, is beginning to have second thoughts. Getting up from the bed he grabs a towel from a pile on the dressing-table and is rubbing himself down, half turned away from her: “We will speak further.” (As in: “We will give this a rest for now!”)
As he is proceeding towards the entrance she follows him and turns him towards her. (Pressingly): “Only look up clear! To alter favour ever is to fear.” (Kissing him): “Leave all the rest to me!
The second sister emerges behind the rack of clothes where she must have stood all this time and is beginning to gather the shed items of clothing off the floor.
1,6
While the second sister is still tidying up, the furniture is removed by working staff in fashionable jeans and t-shirts. The left half of the background screen is removed so that light is flooding half the stage and the background reveals a blue sky. Fast-flitting birds are projected on it. The second sister disappears towards the backstage and reappears, impatiently overseeing the servants who are struggling to place two high, round tables to the right of the stage for the arrival of the guests that is already taking place. One gets furnished with a flower-arrangement, the other with champaign bottles and glasses. They are just finishing and retreat hastily towards the right when Duncan and Banquo are entering the stage, followed by Malcolm, Macduff with family, and staff. On the staff is the first sister in a smart suit with phone and briefcase. The second sister has stayed behind, pouring glasses of champaign.
Seeing nobody to receive them, Duncan is looking around, taking in the view: “This castle has a pleasant seat. The air nimbly and sweetly recommends itself onto our gentle senses.”
Banquo (indicating the birds): “This guest of summer, the temple-haunting martlet, does approve by his loved mansionry that the heaven’s breath smells wooingly here. No jutty, frieze, buttress, or coign of vantage but this bird has made their pendant bed and procreant cradle. Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed, the air is delicate.”
Lady Macbeth appears from the right in a smart dress or suit.
Duncan: “See, see, our honoured hostess!” He greets her delightedly with blown kisses or slight hug. (Lightly: ) “The love that follows us sometimes is our trouble which still we thank as love.”
Lady Macbeth (maybe taking his hands, exceedingly grateful: ) “All our service, at every point twice done and then done double, were poor and single business to contend against those honours broad and deep wherewith your majesty loads our house. To those of old and the late dignities heaped up to them we rest your servants.”
Duncan (looking around) while the second sister is passing champaign glasses on a tray: “Where is the Thane of Cawdor? We coursed him at the heels, but he rides well and his great love, sharp as his spur, has holp him to his home before us.”
Lady Macbeth throws an impatient glance to the right – the passage from the veranda into the house- and then smiles at Duncan apologetically.
Duncan, clinking glasses with her and drinking, to relieve her unease: “We love him highly and shall continue our graces towards him.”
He takes her arm and begins to lead her towards the indoors: “By your leave, hostess!”
They are leading the gaggle of people to the right into the house. Only the first sister is slowly passing to the front, phoning in a subdued voice. She remains standing there for a few seconds, then leaves the stage at the forefront on the right. The second sister is collecting glasses and is spoken to by one of the guests. While everybody is leaving and the stage is getting quiet, the light changes towards a late afternoon glow and the piercing cries of the swallows in the background can be heard over very remote party-noises. A long leisurely afternoon unfolding …
1,7
Macbeth enters at the right-hand front of the stage, pacing towards the centre of the stage, phone in hand, checking messages. He stops and looks around, noticing that he is alone and pockets his phone. He walks to the back of the stage where there are still a few glasses and a bottle left and pours himself a glass but doesn't drink. He is pacing back towards the audience instead. The light changes suddenly, as if a cloud was now covering the sun. All noises have stopped. (The light keeps changing gradually towards sundown during this scene.)
Macbeth looks briefly on the glass in his hand, then looks up as if he has just reached a decision, but begins his speech very casually: “If it were done when t’is done then it were well it were done quickly. If the assassination could trammel up the consequence … and catch with his surcease success, that but this blow would be the be-all and the end-all here, but here, upon this bank and shoal of time – we’d jump the life to come.” He makes a few steps. “But in these cases we still have judgement here. That we but teach bloody instruction which, being taught, returns to plague the inventor. This even-handed justice conveys the ingredience of our poisoned chalice to our own lips.”
He turns around to the house where, in the meantime, lights have been lit and there is a faint warm glow and very subdued noises. These noises stop when he speaks again, in a lower voice, having made sure that nobody could hear. “He is here in double trust. First, as I am his kinsman and his subject, strong both against the deed. Then as his host who should against his murderer shut the door not bear the knife myself.”
He pauses, making a gesture like touching his face to dispel the horrifying thoughts. Firmly and louder: “I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent. Only vaulting ambition that overleaps itself and falls on the other …”
During his last sentence, Lady Macbeth has entered from the main entrance of the house, looking for her husband. She sees him and he sees her. She approaches him, relieved, whereas he shows unease.
Lady Macbeth: “He has almost supped. Why have you left the chamber?”
Macbeth: “Has he asked for me?”
Lady Macbeth (annoyed, impatient): “Know you not he has!”
Macbeth (getting closer to her. In a low tone, as if fearful to be overheard but impatiently, as if trying to put a lid on a recent discussion): “We will proceed no further in this business. He has honoured me of late, and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people which would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon.)
Lady Macbeth, stepping back, after a slight pause in a sharp, provocative tone: “Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself. Has it slept since and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely?” Stopping Macbeth who makes a movement as if to protest, meaning business: “From this time such I account thy love.” (Which stops him!) “Art thou afeared to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire?” (Visibly not waiting for an answer): “Wouldst thou have that which thou esteemst the ornament of life and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon ‘I would’ like the poor cat in the adage?”
Macbeth (angrily): “Prithee, peace! I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none.”
Lady Macbeth (with a show or noise of frustration, accusingly): “What beast was it then that made you break this enterprise to me?” (Pause, gathering ammunition, then fast): “When you durst do it, then you were a man. And to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man. Nor time nor place did then adhere, and yet you would make both. They have made themselves, and that their fitness now does unmake you.” (???) Very deliberately, like pulling her last weapon: “I have given suck and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this.”
Some kind of pause ensues, some visible or invisible movement that makes the finality of this argument clear. She has crossed a line he knew she wouldn’t have crossed under any other circumstances. He CANNOT deal with this.
Macbeth, very quietly and matter-of-factly: “If we should fail?”
Lady Macbeth (relieved): “We fail? But screw your courage to the sticking place and we’ll not fail.” (She paces.) "When Duncan is asleep – whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him – his two chamberlains will I with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. While in swinish sleep their drenched natures lie as in a death, what cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan? What not put upon his spongy officers that shall bear the guilt of our great quell?”
Macbeth (visibly tuning in with her, matter of factly): “Will it not be received, when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and used heir very daggers, that they have done it?”
Lady Macbeth (in a tone and stance very much like his): “Who dares receive it other, as we shall make our griefs and clamour roar upon his death?”
Macbeth (promising her): “I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat.” (Taking her hand or touching her shoulder and making for the entrance to the house): “Away, and mock the time with fairest show.” (Looking back at the audience in a slightly different, more reflective, tone): “False face must hide what the false heart does know.”
