Extras : Words & Music Q&As

JM = James Marsters
CP = Cheryl Puente
Q = Question

Matinee Q & A

JM: So, we just have a few minutes. This is a different kind of Macbeth than I’ve ever seen in America, and I thought it might be interesting if you guys have any feedback about it... usually with Lady M as a big bitch and Macbeth as a big wimp, which I never really agree with. I just thought I’d you give a chance to ask any questions if there’s nothing that was clear. Or are you asleep? The brave one! Yeah...
Q: About the closeness of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth at the outset and how that disintegrated as the play progressed.
JM: She helped create a monster, didn’t she? Exactly.
Q: continues... About how much responsibility Lady Macbeth had in Duncan's murder and what then happened to Macbeth
JM: It was Duncan’s fault. Duncan screwed him. It’s really important. For me, what Shakespeare is saying, you can have a wife that’s telling you to do the wrong thing, you can read your horoscope that’s going to tell you to do the wrong thing, you can listen to witches if you want, but at the end of the day it’s your decision.
He lays it out really clearly. He says to the audience "I’m not gonna do it, screw it. If chance wants to have me king, then I don’t need to do anything". It’s only when Duncan screws him that he says "Prince of Cumberland, that’s the step on which I must fall down" and then he says, you know what - "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires" And then he’s like "You know what? I’m gonna kill this bastard. He’s a dead man."
He would have done it without her, it’s just will he do it in the bedroom? ‘cause he leaves thinking he’s gonna do it on the battlefield. And then stupid Duncan, idiot Duncan says "I’ll sleep in your bed tonight" He is old and so that tempts them. And the other thing about the scene is, Lady M....I always thought of the scene where Lady M is taking after Macbeth as kinda like Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro, and they're about to steal a car and Bobby’s like "I don’t know, I don’t feel so good about this", and Joe is like "Are you a man? You got a dick or what? Last time I counted there was two of them!"
I think that for Shakespeare what should be allowable for two men to say to each other, should also be allowable for a woman to say to a man. But unfortunately in our society we don’t allow women that. But in Shakespeare’s mind, who was a humanist and saw all of us as human beings, more than anything else, I think that by having Lady M attack like that, he’s showing his idea of the perfect relationship where these two people are equals.
So she goes after his balls, right? And it doesn’t work. He’s like "Pffft! I do everything a man would-- what do you know?" And then she says "Aha! I have a way to get away with it! We’ll blame the guards." And he’s like "Holy shit! Don’t ever have any girls, baby, you only have men, you need to have some murderers, that’s beautiful, I love you". So it’s not the emasculation that gets him, it’s really a plan that they can get away with.
Historically, in Holinshed the reason Macbeth is set up as a Thane in the first place is because he married her. Yeah. Plus, Shakespeare is writing at a time when a woman is sitting on the throne. I think they were ahead of our time, actually, with regard to sexual relationships, I think we’ve fallen back actually.

Q: About the disintegration of the Macbeths relationship.
JM: And that’s the tragedy
Q: continues... About how the change in the relationship mirrors the other changes in the characters over the course of the play - a strong couple at the start but estranged and with their worlds collapsing at the end.
JM: I’m glad, you just hit it on the nail, the theme is best carried by this relationship in the play.
Q: About the set and costume
JM: Actually, Shakespeare - his company performed it in jeans and a T-shirt of his day. They wore just whatever they wore normally, and if you were a king you got a crown, if you were a beggar you got a tatty cloak, and he had all the little props and stuff but it was only little pieces, but they put on their normal dress, just neutral modern day dress, and not all theatres did that. I think he did it for a reason, I think he did it to draw attention to the words.
Q: continues... The decision to do the play so simply.
JM: I would argue when there’s too beautiful a tech going on in Shakespeare’s show, it fights the words. There was a movie that was the ultimate expression of that, it was the Tempest in which Gielgud did all the parts, do people remember that? I thought it was absolutely fabulous if you didn’t look at the television, or turned the sound down and just watched the images. They were both great shows but fighting each other, I couldn’t make heads or tails and I’ve done the play twice.

Q: About the ‘out, out, damn spot’ scene - was Lady Macbeth insane at that point?
CP: Yes, it’s absolutely her going insane. During the whole time, in the beginning, she’s reminding Macbeth "just wash your hands, we can wash it right off, and if we wash the sin off our hands there’s not gonna be any more problems, we’ll forget about it, I’m gonna be Queen and you’re gonna be King", and in the end she can’t, even in her mind’s eye, get the blood off her hands, she just can’t. It’s on her hands permanently.
Q: continues... About how she went from being the one who seemed so strong about the prospect of the murders but was the one who ended up so deeply affected by it
JM: ‘cause in the day she was the calm one. This is something interesting that came in our rehearsal with our director, Dan, this idea that Lady M was really being the calm one, that’s her guilt. "I was the one who was calm, he was even feeling bad and freaked out, I was chill about it!" So she re-lives it, maybe with the kind of emotion she might have been feeling inside but not able to express because she had to cool him down.
CP: In the original play, it’s actually a scene with me and that speech is broken up between a dialogue between my nurse and a doctor, and you would know they are addressing the fact that I’m insane at that point, however.

Q: Why the Scottish Play rather than some other Shakespeare play?
JM: Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! The only curse on this play is it usually doesn’t work. Besides the fact that you have young guys running around in the dark with swords. People get hurt. Usually it’s some 20 year old playing Macduff, and God help us all, you know?
Q: continues... About Macbeth not being as popular a play as some of the other Shakespearean works
JM: I happen to think that this is a really misunderstood play, that’s why I pick it. I feel like Hamlet's been done very well, many times, but Macbeth, to me, is like a ripe plum on the tree, just waiting to fall, and no-one’s quite cracked it. I happen to think that it never has really rocked since Shakespeare died.
Because what happened was after he died, the Kings Men, his theatrical company, took the play to the King-- Shakespeare did the most controversial, the most offensive thing you could think about, he went way further than anybody had ever gone to scare the audience. He actually had witches incanting to the devil live on stage. To Elizabethans, who believed if you said the word good you’d get good luck, and if you said the word evil, evil would come you, they thought that the devil would actually come up through the floorboards and get them all, so it was like a crime.
And it worked like gangbusters, Macbeth was a big hot play and people were really afraid to go to it etcetera. But when his men took it to the king they were like "Umm, maybe we’ll re-write that scene, make it not quite so scary" And so what you come to is, when the witches incant to Hecate, if you perform the scene as written, Shakespeare didn’t write that scene, the audience will laugh at you every time, I’ve done the play twice.
If you cut it, his one major step down into hell is missing, and the play kinda goes [gestures descent] duh duh duh duh [big drop] duh duh duh and it doesn’t quite make emotional sense anymore, ‘cause at some point the devil’s got to come to town, and this shit gets serious now. I think my dream is to do it as a film because I think you could replace that scene and not re-write the Shakespeare and do it as a dumb shot with music and special effects with witches incanting the devil and freaky shit happens and cut. And I don’t think the audience would even notice that there’s no language going on. I’ve seen directors trying to do that on stage, but it’s a big silent hole in the middle of the play.

Q: About how you deal with the famous soliloquies and not let them stand out and pull people out of the performance.
JM: You just have to not think about that, because really, for a stage actor, it’s one big famous bit, they’re all like that, and so you really just ....If you let the words do your work for you, they’ll carry you through a journey, and if you’ve made decisions that are based on the text, and you don’t fight it, then the actual words will carry you through. If you let that happen you forget about that, all I was like was "Fucking hell, there’s this dagger!"
Q: About the passion between the Macbeths
JM: Yeah, completely, don’t you think?
CP: Absolutely.
JM: In the beginning, he’s just.... When you say to someone, we’ll talk later, it means that we’re not gonna talk now, and what else does he wanna do? He’s been away at war for three months. If you really listen to the words, and don’t let them just be Shakespeare talk, and like "What is he really saying, we’ll talk later? What does that mean, we’ll talk later? Oh! Oooohhh!" She comes in and says "What’s up? Why aren't we sleeping together anymore? Why are you keeping to yourself?" And so it’s right there in the words.
Q: continues... About how Macbeth cuts himself off from Lady Macbeth as the play progresses and doesn't respond to her any more.
JM: Well, yeah, ‘cause she doesn’t wanna keep being a murderer, and he knows that, and he has to keep murdering to hold the throne, and he’s trying to protect her, it’s what we all do with our loved ones, we try to protect them from the pain that we feel, and we end up distancing ourselves from them and break their hearts.

Evening Q & A

Q: About the accent he used for the Shakespeare lines which wasn’t the same as the one he usually spoke in.
JM: There is an American accent called Transatlantic or Standard Stage American, and it’s specifically designed by Edith Skinner to keep you from going [bad American accent] "Oh horror horror horror!" [audience laughs] Yeah [stage accent] "Horror, horror horror!" We all study it. Right on, that’s what I went to Julliard for [shudders].

Q: Did the Macbeths love each other?
CP: They absolutely love each other; it’s just that King Duncan wasn’t supposed to give that crown to his son. It belonged to Macbeth. They don’t pass it down from crown to crown, he was just wrong. My husband deserved that crown. So I had to tell him to strap a set on and go get it! [audience cheer] That’s why I married him, ‘cause he’s a big strong man.
JM: I think it’s all about love. In fact I think the true tragedy of the play is that they gain the crown and they lose each other. That’s why it’s a tragedy I think.

Q: Would Macbeth have killed Duncan without the witches?
JM: Yeah. Because Duncan screwed him. The thing is, in the beginning of the play, when the witches say you’re gonna be the king, Macbeth goes "[gasp] you read my mind! Whoa!" because he’s already thinking about it, but when it comes to him he says "You know what? I’m not gonna do it. That ain't right, man. That’s just not quite cool right now". But it’s when Duncan proclaims his son to be Prince of Cumberland; he has that speech "Prince of Cumberland! That is a step on which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, for in my way it lies" then he goes "Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires". So at that point that’s what makes up his mind to kill the king and I don’t think witches would change that. I think the witches function like a horoscope. You can use it or not. I think the point that Shakespeare is making is that you might have a wife that is pushing you to do one thing, you might have a horoscope telling you when to do something, but it’s your choice.
Q: About the witches representing inner demons.
JM: Yeah. That's the weird thing - in Shakespeare’s day there really were about 300,000 people in Europe walking around calling themselves witches, believing that they were witches and robbing graves and battlefields for thumbs and eyelids and stuff, it was really going on, and people really did believe it. But Shakespeare I think, is saying that this doesn’t make any difference, it’s still your decision. As far as the inner demons, I don’t look at it that way, I think of it as wrong choices. I think that we all remain moral throughout life by avoiding temptation, a set of circumstances will come down the pipes and you’re just tempted to move your morality that way just to get what you want. It’s only through an act of will that we hold to the things that we believe. But Macbeth is tempted to go beyond his own morality and pays the price. It’s a lot bigger price than he probably thought it was going to be.

Q: Method acting vs. Shakespearean acting?
JM: Yeah, big conflict, because in Shakespeare’s time, it’s all in the words, everything that the character thinks is in the words. Shakespeare is like Picasso. Picasso paints like 3 noses, 5 noses like that, because he’s showing the entire moment, he’s opening up one second of time to all the different facets that a hundred people might have noticed. Shakespeare is doing the same thing, so in one second of time he blows out with a soliloquy or with a lot of language and what you find is if you just marry yourself to the words they will carry you. A great actor Bob Scoggins, I was at the Goodman doing the Tempest, my first professional gig, and I asked what’s the secret of doing Shakespeare, and he goes "Kid, stand up straight, say your lines clearly and get the hell off stage," and that was exactly the secret of Shakespeare, that is really the secret. And The Method has you feeling and thinking a whole bunch of stuff beyond the words, so it’s kind of death to tell you the truth, they don’t really marry that well. Another actor will probably tell you exactly the opposite.
Q: About it being bloody.
JM: Actually from the nave to the chops. [audience laughs] Sorry, go ahead.
Q: continues...
JM: It was the worst thing he could think of to do.
Q: continues...
JM: This is my favorite subject right now, Lady M, man. The theme of this play is not avoid Lady Macbeth. That is not a theme, that is not enough for Shakespeare. The theme is not get your wife pregnant so she’ll be nice to you, that is not the theme of the play. I think Shakespeare was a humanist, and he viewed us all, primarily, as human beings, and that that commonality outstrips any differences we may have being male, female, plumbers or lawyers or whatever. I think that he believed that the way that a man would take after another man should be allowable for a woman to do. I think that in his mind when he shows Lady M taking after her husband like that, he’s showing his view of a perfect relationship, where they’re truly equals. Cause I always thought of it as Joe Pesci and Robert De Niro doing a crime and Robert De Niro goes "Man, Bobby, I don’t know I should do this I’m feeling really nervous" and Joe Pesci goes "What? Have you fucking got balls? Show them to me, I don’t think they’re there anymore!" That’s totally cool for guys, but we seem to have backslid since the time of Shakespeare and we cannot conceive that woman would be able to do that to her husband and not be a bitch, so let’s conceive it now.

Q: About the date he’d given for the setting of the play?
JM: I forgot my Holinshed and I called it 650 but isn’t it like 11-something? I don’t know.

Q: Did he write the performance and will it be published?
JM: I wrote all the in-between parts myself. Uh... the other stuff, not. I don’t know if we’re gonna publish it either. Did I answer your question?

Q: About Macbeth being a warrior, the scenes with Banquo
JM: I think the only curse of this play is that usually it doesn’t work, for that very reason. There’s only one production of it in modern times that’s known to be a success, that’s the ‘53 Olivier. I listened to it, and I also took great note that he was the only actor to draw his sword and rush the ghost, he jumped right up on the table and rushed it, he said about that "well he’s a fighter, there’s fight/flight and he’s not going to fly, he’s a warrior" and I just thought you know what? That is exactly right. And when you go back to the language Macbeth is toying with the ghost. "You’re dead. Get out of the way dead guy, let the earth hide thee", "Go where you belong". So I don’t think he’s ...
Q: continues... Could he have stopped and not killed Banquo?
JM: Banquo knew it. Banquo knew that he did Duncan. Banquo heard that prophecy and suddenly Duncan is dead in Macbeth’s extra bedroom? Macbeth goes to Banquo and says "Dude, when the time comes, back me up. I’ll make it worth your while." And Banquo says "As long as I don’t have to fuck anybody that’s cool" And Macbeth was like "Okay, you’re dead". Once you go down that road, you have to keep walking it, that’s the thing; Macbeth knows this, that’s why he doesn’t make the decision lightly. He knows that there will be more murders after that first murder. He also knows that Lady M doesn’t really wanna think that way and that’s why he sequesters himself away from her and breaks her heart.

Q: About casting other characters.
JM: Banquo needs to be taller than Macbeth. It has to visually be obvious why I gotta kill that guy. Banquo is usually played by an older, kind of comfortable looking actor, and I have never been able to figure that out, he’s supposed to be an equal with Macbeth on the battlefield. Macduff is always cast as a big strong guy and that’s a good thing but usually Banquo is cast weak and I don’t think so, I think I gotta stab him in the back man, because I am not losing my place. I would say Malcolm, the son of Duncan, he has got to be the most vicious mother out there, because he is the new kind of king, he’s not gonna kill you with a sword, he’s gonna figure out a more deft way to do it, and to make your family hate you afterwards. He’s gotta kick butt, when you get to that England scene, you’ve gotta come out of that England scene with Macduff and Malcolm just thinking like "that Malcolm is the shit". And they usually cast - in America anyways - I’ve seen it played very effeminate. "He’s not a fighter", well he is a fighter, he’s just a fighter with a brain. That’s unfortunately all the time we have.