What happened in Week 3?
🏁 In our third week, highlights include:
- The use of hypotheticals and future tenses
- What “the poor cat in the adage” really means
- The staccato delivery in Lady Macbeth’s lines
Plus – could Macbeth become a Christmas play?? 🎄🤶
Watch the Week 3 Session!
Full transcript included at the bottom of this post.
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Total Running Time: 2:03:36
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Check out this 40-second clip where actor Meaghan Boeing, director Nick Cagle and dramaturg Gideon Rappaport discuss Lady M’s state of mind.
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THE SCENE
Our group will be working on Act 1, Scene 7 and Act 2, Scene 2 from Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
We’ll explore the relationship of MACBETH and LADY MACBETH:
- Macbeth questioning Duncan’s murder and Lady Macbeth creating a plan
- Macbeth returning from Duncan’s murder, horrified by what he’s done
Scenes from the Folger Shakespeare Library here and here.
Macbeth Team – we have artists in LA, San Diego and Hawaii
- DIRECTOR: Nick Cagle
- DRAMATURG: Gideon Rappaport
- MACBETH: Mark Lawson
- LADY MACBETH: Meaghan Boeing
Read more about the artists here.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
One of our dramaturgs, Dr. Gideon Rappaport, has written three books on Shakespeare:
- Appreciating Shakespeare
- William Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Edited and Annotated
- Shakespeare’s Rhetorical Figures: An Outline
And there’s more!
Catch up on our other workshops featuring lots of Shakespeare scenes, from Hamlet, King Lear, Troilus and Cressida, Midsummer, As You Like It, and our Twelfth Night repertory extravaganza – all on the podcast and YouTube. If you’ve missed any presentations thus far, click here to find them all.
Click here for the transcript!
Nathan Agin
Hi everybody, Nathan here. Welcome back for our third session as we explore a couple scenes from Shakespeare’s Macbeth looking at the characters of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, husband and wife, both before and after the murder of Duncan. This is your first session. Hang out, check it out. Enjoy. And then definitely go back and watch weeks one and two. There’s just a lot to explore and, and discuss and talk about. And you’ll hear so many great questions and asides and conversations about this. I was just re-listening to the first session and I, I always love how actors find their own kind of personal journey through the material or what resonates with them or what challenges them or questions them.
So I, I think you’ll enjoy, you know, following along, you know, through all of these sessions. But with that said, if you’d like to support the project, you can do that through Patreon and another way to support, subscribe, click that bell notification so that you can, you know, keep up with us as new scenes and new sessions are coming out. I think that is it for me for right now. So I’m gonna disappear into the back of the theater, let these great artists have their fun. And I’ll see you guys at the end. So, alright, have a great night.
Nick Cagle
Thanks Nathan. Welcome back everybody. It’s nice to see you all again. Good to be back.
Mark Lawson
Good to see you.
Nick Cagle
Thank You so much for being here. So today, I apologize in advance. It may be a little slow, it may be a little tedious.
We’ve had two fantastic sessions discussing the meaning of each line, and I thought instead of looking at what we’re saying today, we can look a little at how we’re saying it and play with a little poetry if you guys wouldn’t mind. Does that sound okay?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Sure.
Nick Cagle
So I thought we’d sort of go line by line, section by section and you know, look at a little verse, a little and alliteration and all the fun things that Shakespeare gives us to do. This play is, you know, it’s full of purple passages as they say. And I think the poetry is truly extraordinary in this show and especially in these two scenes that we’re working on. So I thought we’d start with one seven, go line by line and discuss a little bit of poetry for the first half of the session. And then toward the second half we’ll take a look at those other scenes that are surrounding the two scenes that we’re working on and see if we can gather any clues from those. Go on and put it all together in the end.
Does anybody have any questions or is there anything that you guys noticed this week in particular about the scenes that you wish to discuss?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Not off the top.
Nick Cagle
Not off the top. Well then let’s just dive right on in. I think we’ll start with the speech at the top of one seven, if that’s okay, Mr.
Mark Lawson
Macbeth? Sure. Mr. Macbeth,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That’s your father.
Mark Lawson
Yeah, That’s my, yeah, exactly. Thank you.
Nick Cagle
You know, let’s just say the first line for us. Mark, would you mind? Okay.
Mark Lawson
Yep, sure. Ready? If it were done. When is done then we’re, well it were done quickly. If the assassin,
Nick Cagle
this Is a great, this is a great line to open a speech with. I, I love Is there anything that you notice in particular about the sounds of that line?
Mark Lawson
Well, I’ve been thinking, I have been thinking about the monosyllabic quality of it that we were talking about last week. Yeah. And the, the Ds in this and the ts really feel like a pulse. They feel like not just a pulse, but also ironically I’m listening to the shining at the same time and there’s a lot of like the booming in the hotel. And I feel like that kind of resonates here too. The booming in his head with this decision that he’s making
Nick Cagle
A knocking
Mark Lawson
The knocking,
Gideon Rappaport
Done, done, done three times or three times and when and then,
Nick Cagle
So can you do me a favor and say the line again and just say each word? I would say that, I mean, would you say this is more staccato than legato? Like let, let’s, let’s break it up and just say each word in sort of a, a choppy fashion so we can hear where Okay. Where they all sit. If you wouldn’t mind
Mark Lawson
If it Nope, that’s not staccato. If it were done when T is done, then Torre. Well, it were done quickly.
Nick Cagle
So it’s all, it’s all very tip of the tongue, isn’t it? Until the end. The last word, which
Mark Lawson
That’s interesting because for me, which hand the vowel sounds on on done, are kind of swallowed in the mouth a little bit more done it, it’s more back here and then Yes, quickly. I feel like it’s, it, it’s more front of the mouth. Yeah. It’s,
Gideon Rappaport
It’s also the opposition between the, the n sound and the K sound. So K sound is sharp and the n sound isn’t
Nick Cagle
Right also.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, there’s a there’s A lyric teacher.
Nick Cagle
Go ahead
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Megan, please. I was gonna say, I, I had a, a teacher once who, who pointed out that consonants are where meaning lies and vowels are where emotion lies. So I don’t know if that’s like,
Nick Cagle
That’s very Interesting
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
to, to play that idea of like, where is his heart in this and then where is he trying to figure things out. I might be too, too heady. But lemme think about,
Mark Lawson
This is clearly the, the, the episode where all of our nerdiness is really, really gonna
Nick Cagle
Let it flow. Let it flow. For sure. So I, the two statements, if it done, when t’s done, what do you, what do you think about those Mark? Is that a, is he making, is he making saying one thing and then making a different decision? Or is there a distinction between those two? Or is it one?
Mark Lawson
I think so, yeah. For me there’s an implied 180 in his thinking here that’s if it were done, when is done, then we, well it were done quickly. He doesn’t want to, if, if, if I’m gonna kill this man that I’ve, you know, respected and and killed four, I want it to be as humane as possible.
Nick Cagle
Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Gideon, what do you think? Do you have anything to add to that?
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, I don’t think killing him as quickly as po I think the murder needs to take place as soon as possible is what he means rather than slow killing versus fast killing. I don’t think that’s in his mind. But the f it begins with a hypothetical if it were done and then it goes immediately to direct future tense when T is done. And then back to hypothetical to where Well, it were, that’s hypothetical and, and I, to me the most compelling thing about it is, is everything’s leading up to the word quickly. So it’s like done, done, done. Quickly.
Nick Cagle
So you’re, you, you almost are making a choice that, that he’s, he’s nearly correcting himself in there. Mark.
Mark Lawson
Is that what you were saying? Yeah. That if like
Nick Cagle
There’s a hesitate, like there’s a hesitation with if, and that if becomes a when,
Mark Lawson
If I’m planning it, then let’s plan it and let’s not waffle on the decision to do it. Let’s assume I’m going to do it and let’s come up with the best way to do it.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
But isn’t the que isn’t the question in it? If it were done wouldn’t have done like that, that it’s not, it’s that like those two things go together. Like if it were over once I did the thing, then I better do it fast.
Gideon Rappaport
I think Megan’s exactly right about that
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And then that then it turns on the, but we have judgment here,
Gideon Rappaport
Right? So the, this is the first version of the next sentence, which is saying the same thing and then the, but so I think Megan’s exactly right.
Nick Cagle
Interesting. Can you just read the whole phrase for us one more time, mark?
Mark Lawson
Sure, thanks. If it were done when tis done, then we’re, well it were done quickly.
Nick Cagle
I see. So
Gideon Rappaport
can you for me, can you try hitting done the first one harder? Yeah. Meaning what Megan suggested if it were completed and finished and no, no nothing hanging over.
Mark Lawson
Hmm. Okay. If it were done when tis done, then we, well it were done quickly.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, I think you’re getting there now.
Nick Cagle
Interesting. Let’s keep going and let’s just put, let’s just put those in our head, those adjustments that we’ve gone through and let’s, let’s push on a little bit. Okay. Can you read the next section just down to the full stop for us? If you would, if you wouldn’t mind. I think that’s, we jumped the life to come. Thanks Mark.
Mark Lawson
If the assassination could trammel up the consequence and catch with his cise success, that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here.
Nick Cagle
So strictly looking at the consonants in this sentence, it seems like we’re doing a similar thing here. It seems we’ve got lots of s’s, but then we’re playing more with the back of the tongue a little bit. There’s, there’s lots of hard K sounds as well could, he’s going back and forth with the tongue, could trammel up the consequence and catch with his CCE success. I really like when he puts lots of s’s together and this feels snake ish to me
Gideon Rappaport
That he’s already done that in the Lady Macbeth scene we’ll talk about later. That comes before this or I mean before the before.
I can’t remember which one. It’s, it’s when she says, when she says solely sovereign sway in master dom.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh, that’s later. Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
Later.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Mark, since you’re a musician, could you play with this a little musically for me and just overemphasize the cons or the, the consonants so that the audience can, can hear what he’s playing with.
Mark Lawson
Sure.
Nick Cagle
Thank you.
Mark Lawson
If the assassination could tremmel up the consequence and catch with his cese success, that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. That that, but this blow feels like a timpani drum or something, doesn’t it? It’s like, BI really enjoy all the, all the things that are going on here. Do you have something that you wanna add to this section? Gideon,
Gideon Rappaport
look At the bees in four or five and six, but this blow might be the be all an end all here, but here, bank and show of time and then we get back to C jump the life to come back to the
Mark Lawson
Yep.
Gideon Rappaport
Could consequence catch. Yep. So it’s, it’s like it’s going from those hard Cs through the Bs or through the soft Cs as S’s or C success and then back to the hard C on life to come.
Nick Cagle
So that’s an interesting balance between those two sentences with, with his. So C success that, but this blow might be the be so it feels like there’s an adjustment that, that that is happening where that comma is, dunno what it is.
Mark Lawson
It’s Almost like the conspiracies, the Ss and the Cs. And then his hesitation is is that, is the b is that, is that the Tempe drum you’re talking about? It’s that, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Possibly.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And also that’s, that’s the actual blow. Like what he’s doing is like the, the blow that is the be all in the end, you know, it’s like, it’s like the, like the, the act of it.
Mark Lawson
Sure.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Maybe.
Mark Lawson
Hmm.
Gideon Rappaport
Excellent. He, he spent the first part of the play killing people by the hundreds.
Mark Lawson
Right.
Gideon Rappaport
In battle. But this blow is a different blow. So you kill someone in battle and you win the battle and it’s done. But, but in line seven, that, but, but here becomes, but in these cases, in other words, the word is the same, but it changes its meaning.
Nick Cagle
Yes. So we can acknowledge too that, that it’s interesting that, that but this blow, those are single syllable right there, right?
Gideon Rappaport
Yes.
Nick Cagle
So there could be a, you know, there, there definitely is an idea happening there. Something that pops in his head that leads to we jump the life to come, I think.
Gideon Rappaport
Right? And it’s all single syllables after success. Everything. Single syllables.
Nick Cagle
Yes, it is. I didn’t notice that.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Up to cases. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Wow. That’s huge. So you can just take a year to say that. No, I’m just kidding.
Mark Lawson
Just
Nick Cagle
Kidding.
Gideon Rappaport
So we’ve got, we’ve got assassination, trammel consequence or see success and then bam, bam, bam, bam.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Mark, can you, can you read that whole section again, but give us a eem, emphasize those single syllables after CCEs success for us.
Mark Lawson
Sure. I mean it’s almost just a, a thought, another thought as well. It’s almost like, yeah. The more complex words are the ambition and the reasoning mind. His, his humanity is still the singles. You know, the monosyllabic? No, no, no, no. In his head.
Nick Cagle
Oh,
Mark Lawson
interesting. Possibly, I don’t know. Just something.
Nick Cagle
Yeah,
Mark Lawson
if the assassination could tram up the consequence and catch with his ese success, that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here. But here upon this bank and shoal of time, we jump the life to come.
Nick Cagle
Excellent. Now I wanna add one more layer onto that section. And I want you to do exactly what you just did, but as I heard you do that, I realize the importance of the last word in each line here.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Catch blow here. And time. So as another layer of the music, could you do, could you do it more time and give us a little, a little notch on those last words.
Mark Lawson
If the assassination could trammel up the consequence and catch with his cerise success, that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here. But here upon this bank and shoal of time, we jump the life to come.
And
Nick Cagle
I
Gideon Rappaport
make a request too. There’s,
Nick Cagle
Please
Gideon Rappaport
can You do it like that? But give me a hit on this because you got a antithesis between this bank and sho of time and the life to come. Those are the opposites.
Nick Cagle
Oh. But here upon this bank and sho of time I see
Gideon Rappaport
We jump. So this as opposed to, to come
Mark Lawson
And it’s the, the monarchy, the king, the kingship. Yeah. Okay.
Gideon Rappaport
He means he’s talking the life to come is the, the afterlife. He’s talking about judgment. And so
Mark Lawson
Yes. Or also like, I can just be happy with this new rank that I’ve, this new position I’ve just been awarded and not shoot for the kingship and not not kill a king.
Gideon Rappaport
No, I, well I don’t think he means that. I think jump to life to come means risk, damnation risk the future risk giving up heaven for hell, which is what he ends up doing.
So he’s, he’s willing to do that if he can enjoy the kingship on this side of death without obstruction,
Nick Cagle
without, But mark, it’s entirely possible that the audience could register what you are saying too. You know what I’m saying? Like, that happens a lot in Shakespeare. You know, he, when he says jump the life to come, it could mean I’m happy where I am to somebody in the audience. It depends on where you keep in your head though. You know, I understand what Gideon is saying. Definitely. But I I see what you also mean. He, upon this bank and sho of time, we jumped the life. It’s the balance between this and the life to come.
Gideon Rappaport
Right.
Nick Cagle
I understand. And, and it later on, or Orson Wells does this speech and he gives this beautiful sense of disappointment right here in the line. I, I wish I, there’s not a, a better way for me to describe it because there’s only an, I’ve only heard an audio version of it and then there’s this sense of, you know, but we still have judgment here. You know, he’s like, darn it.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
You know,
Mark Lawson
Like I can’t just behave like an animal and
Nick Cagle
take what I Want. Yeah. It it, it’s lovely. It’s lovely. Excellent. Let’s keep going. We could stay on, this is the trouble when you start doing this with Shakespeare, you could stay on these little sections for an hour by themselves. But let’s push on and keep all this in our head for later on.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. But in these cases,
Nick Cagle
Yes, please.
Mark Lawson
Okay. But in these cases, we still have judgment here that we, but teach bloody instructions, which being taught return to plague the inventor.
This even handed justice commends the ingredients of our poison cha of our poison chalice to our own lips. He’s here in double trust. First as I’m Ms. Kinsman and his subject St. Strong, both against the deed. Then as his host, who should Against his murderer, shut the door. Not bear the knife myself.
Nick Cagle
I find humor in that line. Every time I hear it, it makes me laugh. I don’t, I don’t know why there’s something about who should against his murderer. Shut the door. Not bear the knife myself. Yeah. That gives me a,
Mark Lawson
That is a dark gala.
Nick Cagle
A chuckle. Yeah. Yeah. I’m sorry to interrupt, but go ahead
Mark Lawson
Please. Where do you want me to go from not Brad,
Gideon Rappaport
Can I just point out that the word against? No, I think you’re on a, I think you’re on,
Nick Cagle
oh, sorry. Gian, what’d you say?
Gideon Rappaport
I was just wanted to point out that the word against in line 14 is in the same spot as the word against in line 15.
Nick Cagle
Oh, thank you.
Gideon Rappaport
So I think you can use
Mark Lawson
That. Lemme lemme take it up. He’s here in double trust. First as I am his first, as I’m his kinsman and his subject strung both against the deed. Then as his host who showed against his murderer, shut the door. Not bear the knife myself.
Besides this Duncan has borne his facul. So Meek have been so clear in his great office that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tongue against the deep damnation of his taking off.
Sorry, I’m just, there’s another against,
Nick Cagle
Let’s stop there. There’s so much going on in that section. I feel musically along with the words right there, he, it feels like the words are rising up. I feel a sense of the words rising like angels. Like do you get a sense of that musically? Like there’s a crescendo happening in this section. Megan, what do you think?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I do? I think it’s, it’s, it’s not so much like a rising as it is sort of a spinning out. ’cause I think one of the things that’s interesting is he goes from using, he’s got his fancy words with re the consequences. And then it’s been sort of, and then it kind of goes back and forth between this language. And then he gets to this heth born as faculty, so meek and he kind of goes on this like wild tangent where he starts talking about like, like these, these really poetic images. And he’s, he, it’s sort of like that beginning of that madness of like, I just feel like, and I do, I feel like it has to build or ’cause otherwise it doesn’t make sense. Like that he would, you know, once you get to the naked newborn babe striding, like, it’s like why it’s crazy.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
You know? So I feel like there’s, it’s gotta have this like, so, so rising in that sense, I suppose in, in the sense of like, you know, not, not like a noble kind of way towards the angels, but to, to see like, you know, you are the cause of his donation.
Nick Cagle
I’m, I’m speaking specifically in volume and pitch, sort of like, oh yeah. You know, just, just from a musical standpoint. I don’t know. What do you think, mark? What, what is your take on that section there, starting with he’s here in double trust, you know, sort of to the end.
Mark Lawson
I think you’re both right. I mean, I think it’s, I think this piece is very much about the momentum and also I think it really starts in a much smaller place and grows all the way through. Yeah. And I think these ideas, like Megan was saying, the naked newborn babes striding the blast. I mean, I’ve been looking at this speech for 30 years and trying to make sense of that. And I think only on this sort of work through of it have I started to understand what that image actually is. And it’s, it is not the image of a sane person. It’s not, it’s not, it’s not a, it’s not a thought that you’re sitting there having your morning coffee with. It’s, it’s A-P-T-S-D kind of thought.
You know, it’s,
Gideon Rappaport
Can I, can I add a
Nick Cagle
Please Gideon, please.
Gideon Rappaport
Perspective, One of the horrors of this play is that Macbeth knows what he’s doing. If he were just evil, because he’s a foolish, ignorant, blind, hungry creature, it wouldn’t be as horrifying. But he has a full grasp of the goodness that he is attacking.
And, and so I think these images are coming from the place in him that recognizes what he’s about to do. What, what the me the horror of what he’s about to do. And he will do it anyway. And I think this, this passage is behind part of the energy when he says, we’ll do, we’ll go no further in this business.
Mark Lawson
A hundred Percent. Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
So
Mark Lawson
He worked it out Here. He’s made a decision not to do it. And then
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah,
Mark Lawson
Well, or at least wants her to believe that.
Gideon Rappaport
Well, he, he, he ends by the reason that he’s willing to go against this, which is his ambition. And that’s the justification for, for facing the horror that he’s listed here. The, how the whole world will recognize the horror of what he’s done and be opposed to it. And therefore, you know, cause trouble for him becoming king and, and being peacefully king. I love that he is not cold,
Nick Cagle
That he’s not Strictly from a
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
poetry not called Standpoint calculating.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, yeah, Yeah.
Nick Cagle
There’s a lot of imagery in this that is, we were talking about the tennis match or the pickleball match that’s happening inside of his brain at this point. And we can look at, I would ask you to think about the music of lines, like deep damnation versus taking off.
And, you know, I think that you can actually play with your voice on sections like that. You know what I mean? You can, you can find, you can use the, the range of your voice to help you project those images. Also at, at some point we have to talk about breath. Yeah. Where are we gonna breathe in this speech? Because some of the, there’s, if you’re, if you’re gonna try to just do breath on the full stop, some of ’em are quite long.
Mark Lawson
Yeah, yeah. You know, so it,
Nick Cagle
it might be worthy for us, it might be worthy for us to go through and sort of find where you naturally want to take a breath.
Mark Lawson
You know, it,
Nick Cagle
I mean interest. Why don’t, it’s interesting.
Mark Lawson
It, it Seems to always change when I’m working on it. And
Nick Cagle
Interesting. Yeah.
Mark Lawson
I think also going back to Megan’s point of him spinning out, there’s something interesting to me in getting, you know, I know that there’s a, there, there’s a kind of an oratory way to do this, but I think there’s also a way of, of just letting it take over. And I’m not saying one is right more wrong,
Nick Cagle
Keep it fresh.
Mark Lawson
Well, and just kind of being surprised by where you run out of breath and where you have to, where you have to restart and it lands you in a new place.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. I mean, sometimes Shakespeare writes where he wants you to run outta breath.
Mark Lawson
Sure.
Nick Cagle
You know what I mean? There, there’s plenty of phrases that he’s talking about air leaving, you know?
Mark Lawson
Right.
Nick Cagle
You’re supposed to be joking a little bit.
Gideon Rappaport
I always talk about who go Out to the ending doom is an example from the sonnets.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Or what is it? I know you all in Willa while uphold the un yoked humor of your idleness, yet herein shall I imitate the sun who does permit the base contagious clouds to smother up his beauty for the world. You know that because you start to run out of air at that point.
Pay attention to those things. Let’s, let’s just go ahead and, and plow through all this, keeping all of those 10,000 things in mind, mark. And you know what I ask you if you could just, you’re such a Mark is an amazing singer, everybody, by the way. And, and please use your brilliant instrument. Okay. You know, you, you can always pull it back a little bit, but go ahead and make and and sing it. Find, find those notes within the speech and we’ll level it out next week.
Mark Lawson
If it were done, when is done then for, well, it were done quickly. If the assassination could t trammel up the consequence and catch with his cise success, that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here.
But here upon this bank and shoal of time, we jumped the life to come.
But in these cases, we still have judgment here that we, but teach bloody instructions, which being taught return to plague the inventor.
This even handed justice commends the ingredients of our poison chalice to our own lips. He’s here in double trust verse 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. Besides this Duncan hath borne his faculty. So Meek hath been so clear in his great office that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tongue against the deep damnation of his taking off and pity like a naked newborn babe striding the blast, or heaven’s chervin hors upon the sightless couriers of the air shall blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears shall drown the wind.
I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition, which or leaps itself and falls on the other.
Nick Cagle
Very, very nice. Thank you, mark. Thanks for playing with that. I know that it feels awkward at first when you’re, you know, go going back and forth, but the music of it, you really started, you really started to, to find different levels in there. I would say I, I felt like there’s a change after tears shall drown the Wind. Yeah. After that full stop, you know what I mean? You might wanna explore. There’s a, a beat a little bit. I, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I feel like there’s a choice to be made before I have no spur to brick the sides of my intent.
Mark Lawson
Hmm. Like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
the air goes out of the balloon.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. It feels, it feels deflated, doesn’t it? That’s, yeah,
Mark Lawson
I like that.
Nick Cagle
There’s it. Yeah. Take a look and, and, and see what kind of choice works for you on that part.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Can I throw another Shakespeare performance monkey wrench at you?
Mark Lawson
I
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
don’t know if you’ve watched the John Barton playing Shakespeare stuff, but one of the things that I’ve found intermittently helpful is the notion of, I don’t, I don’t subscribe to, you have to stop at the end of every line, but there’s, I think a a, a middle ground in which, and I think like Barry Stein and his book playing Shakespeare is like, you’re asking yourself a question at the end of the line. But I think in especially big, long monologues like these, I think a it can give a sense of naturalism and speech where you’re not necessarily, you don’t know the whole sentence.
And also it can, it can, it, it can, when it starts to get emotional, taking little catch breaths at the end of the line sometimes is an interesting way. Like, when I was a kid, I worked on Juliette’s speech where she and I realized, and I did this exercise in an audition with a, with a somebody when I was like in my, oh, with Diego Gar when
Mark Lawson
I was
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
in my twenties, and he was like, take a breath at the, at the end of every line. And I actually, like, it gets you to that place. And it was like an interesting thing where I feel like not as a, like, and when I teach, it’s never like, oh, you should do this all the time. But it is always an interesting thing. Like, which words? Like when, you know, if I say, besides this Duncan, wow Duncan, you know, like, not that you’re gonna take a huge spot, but like, maybe it’s a place that sort of catches you and you know, that like, instead of just always breathing at punctuation, I feel like there’s room to speak the way we normally speak.
Mark Lawson
No, I think you’re right. And I feel like that’s one of the things that has always kind of, oh, I guess I’ll say annoyed me about, there’s a few different schools of thought of, and, and I’m a bad one for like, needing to be a good boy and do things right. And which pisses me off about myself.
And which is why I was saying sometimes I like it to just like be messy and, and because I have a tendency towards wanting to do things right. And I think that what you’re saying is actually, I mean, it was performed in the theater where you’re open air and you have to get the voice to the back of the house. So you need a lot more breath than you can use for, you know, then you’re just normal, naturally gonna get for five lines of verse, you know?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And I think
Mark Lawson
Too,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
he’s messy. This is messy. Like yes, sometimes you get things that are like, like five iams and my thought is complete. Yes.
Mark Lawson
And
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
this is like all over the place, not with the meter necessarily, but with the punctuation and the, the en jams and all of these things that
Mark Lawson
I feel like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
there’s a reason for that too. And it’s not necessarily just to make it sound like pros.
Mark Lawson
Agreed.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s not to make it sound like prose.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No, but
Gideon Rappaport
the only thing I would say, mark, is that in the, in the war, in your psyche between being a good boy and doing it right on the one hand and trying to mix it up a little, the the deciding factor has to be meaning.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. Yes.
Gideon Rappaport
Bottom line is meaning. So if you’re doing something mechanically that obscures the meaning, that’s not good. If you’re doing something off the grid, you know, and bad boy style. And if it, if it obscures the meaning, that’s also not good.
Mark Lawson
Agreed.
Gideon Rappaport
So that’s, that’s my predisposition to, to make sure that whatever you’re doing, and there are all different ways of doing it, there’s no one way. But whatever you do, I wanna understand exactly what you’re saying.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Mark, can I play music director with you a little bit please. And just to hear something for myself is, we’ll go through this just one more time and then we’re gonna move on to you, Megan. I promise
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I’m Good. I’m having a Blast.
Nick Cagle
Can you, can I, I noticed that there’s three distinctive sections in the first line and I wanted to hear just if you could break them up, it’s, how do I explain this? It’s like, break them up and keep them together at the same time. I wanna hear one, two, yep. Three, you know what I mean?
Mark Lawson
Yep.
Nick Cagle
Thank
Mark Lawson
you. If it were done when t is done, then we’re, well we done quickly.
Nick Cagle
My question is, and Gideon you could help me with this, do you think that the fact that it says quickly at the last word of the full stop, does that, does that perhaps give us some information that the line could be said quickly When Shakespeare writes something like that, does that give, is he giving us music direction?
Gideon Rappaport
You Got three monosyllables leading into that word quickly, so yes, you can do it that way. And it, it makes perfect sense.
Nick Cagle
Could we try that just to hear it, mark? Could we do that exactly what
Gideon Rappaport
I think You can, you can do that from the then in the previous line all the way to quickly.
Mark Lawson
Oh, Okay.
Nick Cagle
Oh, okay. Let’s, let’s, let’s hear those three sections said in in the, you know, in that pace that you’re, that you’ve naturally, you’ve already been doing it this way, but I’m just
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Breaking this down for our audience a little bit. So keep those three sections. Give us the speed and the, the, the higher stakes with it.
Mark Lawson
Okay. So, okay. Okay. If it were done when t’s done, then we’re, well it were done quickly. Don’t feel like, I feel like that’s actually, lemme try it again on
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Mark Lawson
If it were done when t’s done that we’re well it were done quickly.
Gideon Rappaport
I think you don’t need to hit were even though it’s in a position of the stress,
Nick Cagle
I think I wanna hear quickly hit instead.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah. Okay.
Mark Lawson
If it were done when t’s done, then we’re, well it were done, done quickly.
Gideon Rappaport
There You go.
Nick Cagle
I think that felt great to me. It’s so funny. I based so much of this stuff on what sounds like a nice line of music.
Mark Lawson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nick Cagle
And to me that that was beautiful. Beautiful.
Gideon Rappaport
Then can I just ask you to do it one more time? Only hit done the way you’re gonna hit quickly.
Mark Lawson
Got it.
Gideon Rappaport
In Other words, done. Got it. And then quickly
Mark Lawson
Got it. If it were, shit, let’s not scream at the audience.
Nick Cagle
This is Hard.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. If it were done when tis done, then we’re, well, we’re done quickly.
Gideon Rappaport
Megan, what do you say? Is that the done you mean?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No, I think for me it’s two, it’s, it’s actually two phrases. It’s not three. And it’s, I agree. We’re done. Winter is done then we’re well done. Quickly.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And it’s, this is for me.
Nick Cagle
Let’s Hear that one. Let’s hear that.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Matthews, what’s the new information you said done once. You don’t have to say it, you don’t have to hit it again. ’cause we already know that. We already know that that’s a thing. So it’s, it’s just, you know,
Mark Lawson
But what you’re saying is it’s not, it’s not an argument of if or when Or
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
no. Yeah. That’s all part of it. Because what you’re saying is if it, if it were, if it were over when I did it, then we better do it fast. So it’s really just two, it’s two pieces
Mark Lawson
For you. Okay. I’ll, I’ll do it like that.
Nick Cagle
Hear that once. Sorry, go ahead.
Mark Lawson
It’s all right if it were done. Once it is done, then Torre Well, it we’re done quickly. There you go.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Nice. Nice. That sounds great.
Mark Lawson
Hmm.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Excellent. Because, because because you’re saying basically like, if this was it, then I better do it. But then you go through eight pages of reasons. Well, I it’s not gonna be done
Gideon Rappaport
this, The, that first sentence is the thesis of the speech. It’s the topic sentence.
Nick Cagle
Great.
Gideon Rappaport
Everything else develops it.
Nick Cagle
Excellent. All right. Thank you very much. That, that, that’s very informative. Let’s move on to Was the Hope Drunk?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Sure.
Nick Cagle
And look at that little section.
Mark Lawson
Sorry, I’m now stuck on something I’m trying to look at. Gimme one second.
Nick Cagle
No problem. No problem.
Mark Lawson
I’m, I’m
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
happy either. No, this, this is Shakespeare. I mean, as, as Nick said, you, you start, you start analyzing, I do this, this is one of the things that I have to figure out when I coach is how much time do you spend on, do you know what you’re saying? And all the like 76 things that you mean when you save a thing, you’re saying, and that’s right. When do you give that up and just work on, you know, the rest of it. And I think that’s a really hard thing.
Gideon Rappaport
One of the elements of that, Megan, is who you’re working with. If they’re capable of more, you do more. And if they’re not, you say,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Well, but they’re also paying for your time. They’re like, I have an hour. And I’m like, oh, but we can do like four lines.
Mark Lawson
That’s Right.
Nick Cagle
Really it’s just layering, you know what I mean? It’s layer upon layer upon layer. It’s baking some kind of a, I’m not, I don’t know how to bake, so I really can’t use any reference there. I’ll just stop.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
You don’t bake it one layer at a time.
Nick Cagle
Yes.
Mark Lawson
I, I just had to check the folio. I’m sorry, I had to,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
oh, what Did it say?
Mark Lawson
If it were done? Comma, when is done, comma, then for a while they were done quickly. So
Nick Cagle
I think you can play, honestly,
Mark Lawson
I thinks lot
Nick Cagle
play that either way I’ve seen actors correct themselves. I really like, I honestly, I’ve never, I, I didn’t play it the way that Megan was saying, but I really enjoy that reading of it as well. And it’s very clear to me too. So Again, it’s the only
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
way I’ve ever heard it. That’s so funny.
Mark Lawson
It feels more calculated.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I mean, I saw you do it, but I,
Gideon Rappaport
I think it’s the, I think it’s the meaning and I think the commas don’t change that. I think if you give us done as Megan has been requesting, the rest follows naturally. Yeah. You just have to mean, you just have to mean what he means by that word. Right. And then the rest follows If
Nick Cagle
it were done, when is done or
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Then I better
Nick Cagle
do a Effect done when is done. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh, I see what you’re saying. It’s, if it were done,
Nick Cagle
It’s that
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
little, that little beat right there we could spend.
Mark Lawson
So Nick,
Nick Cagle
There’s, it’s just that we’re, we’re, we’re debating a tiny beat in one phrase.
Mark Lawson
Wait,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It’s A joy audience.
Nick Cagle
So
Mark Lawson
There was a drill, I actually think I had this drill from two different teachers. One at the conservatory in Boston and one at Lambda.
And the drill is, you’re in a big room and you’re using, you’re saying your speech and you raise your arm and you snap your finger and change direction with every punctuation mark. And it’s one of those things to kind of one, help you find breath, but also help you find all these layers that we’re talking about. And I feel like that’s that phrase, that first line for me is one of those where it’s almost like a little Jekyll and Hyde moment where he is like, no, no. And then I move on. And it just is a, it is just a, like a perfect little like, appetizer of how I think that exercise works so well to, to open up something like this and then allows all the different options, all the different variants that we’re talking about for, you know, exploring how an actor is actually gonna take a theory and take an idea and actually make it actionable and playable.
You know, because because otherwise I feel like you can get so mired into like, just, just the, just the, the lexicon that you’re trying to, to kinda shoot out to the audience instead of actually making it something playable. Right. So just a thought, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get on a tangent.
Nick Cagle
I love That exercise.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
We did two ways, Changing directions. Those are all
Mark Lawson
Yes, exactly Answer.
Nick Cagle
And I, and I think that we can go back to the verse to get our answer on that. I mean, I, I think that you just have to look at at, if it were done when T is done, then Torre, well, it were done quickly. You know, I think that you can look at the way you could scan the phrase and know it goes up and down.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
There Are only nine syllables in the Line is on And up anyway. Right. If it were done, winter’s done, done. Oh no, I did, sorry, that’s 10. Sorry. Well, Yeah, 10 syllables.
Gideon Rappaport
But nick’s right, the t gets the stress and the second done doesn’t.
Nick Cagle
Right. So that’ll, that’ll answer your question. But it just depends on your flow. But I think that you could choose, you know, how you wanna flow. And that,
Mark Lawson
it is Interesting though because I think that between the, one of the things that Megan said when we first started talking about this this evening was if he’s so confident in what he’s going to do, then he’s cold, then he is without remorse. And I, you know, so I think, I think playing either one of those, I think experimenting with, you know, can you, can you still have humanity if you’ve already made up your mind at the beginning of the speech? Oh, and he
Nick Cagle
definitely, It also depends on your, on your, I saw the production, a really great production of this with Sean Bean.
Mark Lawson
I saw that too.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh,
Nick Cagle
he had his shirt off in that mesh thing most of the time. So nobody heard anything he was saying anyway, as they were just looking at his fantastic physique this entire time.
Mark Lawson
So
Nick Cagle
let’s move on to, to Megan. ’cause again, man, we’re still on the first speech. Look at us.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Hey, I still have one more question about the first line. So
Nick Cagle
Well go ahead and ask it while we’re here, Megan.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Okay. No. So this is, this is Mike. ’cause this is always with the debate because I’m trying to make your choice make sense to me, which is one thing I love to do. So if you’re correcting yourself, right, if it were done is a mistake. So your, so your sentence starts with when is done right.
Can you say that line for me without the, if it were, if it were done? ’cause I just wanna hear that.
Mark Lawson
Sure. Well, yeah, that’s interesting. I haven’t done that. When is done then we’re well over done quickly.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
So for me, I feel like the if then is important and that’s why it doesn’t make sense the way that, that, that, because otherwise why do you say then,
that’s my question. When is done, what does that mean? When is done?
Nick Cagle
That makes sense. I see what you’re saying. Yeah. Yeah. Why the then
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, I don’t understand why the then is there if we don’t, if we’re not using the, if so, Megan
Gideon Rappaport
Don’t, 49
Nick Cagle
Minutes
Gideon Rappaport
Don’t be so tentative. Megan. You’re absolutely right.
Mark Lawson
Well, the Rhetoric I all the time, Well
Nick Cagle
I do have to move on because we’re at that thing that Megan was talking about where we only have two hours. We spend 49 minutes on one line.
Mark Lawson
Yeah,
Nick Cagle
it’s unbelievable. You can easily, let’s get to Megan’s part, for goodness sakes, lady Macbeth
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Was the hope drunk wearing you dressed yourself, had it slept since and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did. So freely from this time, such I account thy love aren’t thou a feared to be the same in nine own act and valor as the art and desire what thou have that which thou esteems to the ornament of life and live a coward in th own esteem. Letting I dare not wait upon, I would like the poor cat in the adage
Mark Lawson
Pretty peace. I dare do all that. May I dare do all that may become a man who dares do more is none.
Nick Cagle
Let’s just look at this little speech real fast. Mark Gideon, for our audience and for our director, could you remind us what the poor cat, what is the adage of the poor Cat?
Gideon Rappaport
The adage is the cat would catch fish but would not wet his feet.
Nick Cagle
Ah,
Gideon Rappaport
He wants to catch a fish, but he doesn’t wanna go into the water and get wet.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Is it?
Nick Cagle
I dare not.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Is it like a child’s, like is it, is it, is it, is there like an element of like a child’s fable kind of story? Or is that, or is that not part of that?
Gideon Rappaport
I, I don’t know that it’s a child. It’s kind of a universal.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Okay.
Gideon Rappaport
Traditional old saw, like look before you leap or
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
something. Right. Okay. So it’s not necessarily like she’s picking this along with green and pale to be like, oh, you’re, you’re being immature. It’s just, it’s just, you’re just, you’re just being
Gideon Rappaport
incisive. No, you’re being cowardly like the cat. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
The cat wants something, but he won’t do what it takes to
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
guess. Right. There’s not an additional layer of something.
Gideon Rappaport
I, I’m, I don’t, I don’t see one.
Nick Cagle
Well Let’s talk about all the things that are going on with, with Lady Macbeth’s mouth in that very first line. The, can you just say the was the hope drunk?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself.
Nick Cagle
So we have, we have, it starts with we have a a p and then it goes to a D and then it goes to a K in there. Right.
I always wonder if,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And I think there’s always like a bounce in there too. Like she can’t say hope drunk, we’re in, you know, it’s a hope. Drunk wein.
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It’s, it’s,
Nick Cagle
And those are single syllable too. So it, it feels like e maybe, you know?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
She puts weight on. Does she put the weight on each word there?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I think so. I certainly hope and drunk, I mean,
Nick Cagle
Yeah. And that, that’s, that’s coming straight off of his line. So Mark, could you say, not cast aside so soon, and then Megan, can you come right in so we could hear that poetry
Mark Lawson
Not cast aside so soon
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Was the hope Drunk wearing you dressed yourself.
Nick Cagle
So that’s the whole line right there between the two of ’em. I can just, I always wonder what do you think, Gideon, do you think Shakespeare was thinking about what, what the actor’s mouth was gonna do in these phrases?
Gideon Rappaport
Well, he was an actor as well as a writer, so he knew what it would take. But I, you know, did he stop and think about it? He didn’t have to stop. He had the knack. He he could feel it.
Nick Cagle
He knew it already. Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
I, I’d point out that you start the, the line with a W and it goes to the D in drunk and the next line, first part of the next line does the same thing wherein you dressed so was drunk wherein dressed
Nick Cagle
And then waist. Interesting. Yeah. So your mouth’s gonna move the same way. So the, so those lines have a, a common theme. So was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself and then she asked another question to put even more emphasis on it. Right. Megan, what do you think?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. And it’s a very, it’s similarly structured. Has it slept since? Like you have to, again, you have to say all the things.
Nick Cagle
The ss almost give a, a sense of even more malevolence or, or something. I, I feel like I like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Sarcasm more than malevolence.
Nick Cagle
Sarcasm. That’s great.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. I think
Nick Cagle
it’s, there’s a change. Yeah. I love sarcasm. That’s great.
Mark Lawson
It’s Definitely chi for sure. It’s like
Nick Cagle
A pretty, yeah. Yeah, I like that. And I think that, you know, Macbeth’s next line is pretty peace. So that gives us a clue onto how, onto what Lady Macbeth’s behavior is a little bit. Don’t you think
Gideon Rappaport
She’s piling it on?
Mark Lawson
Right.
Nick Cagle
She really can. Boy
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And he’s interrupting her ’cause they share that line saying shut up.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Yeah. Pretty, pretty, pretty peace. I mean that sort of means that he’s telling her to calm down.
You think please stop. Or is it sort of a
Mark Lawson
Stop? I can’t
Nick Cagle
Yeah,
Mark Lawson
It’s that end of the night when you’re overstimulated and your kids won’t stop.
Nick Cagle
So she’s really kind of beating him down a little bit in, in this section.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
And
Gideon Rappaport
She’s kind of spitting at him ’cause of the peace. So we’ve got P and Hope and slept and we’ve got pale and then at the end of the line we’ve got poor.
Nick Cagle
Oh yes.
Gideon Rappaport
Privy peace.
Nick Cagle
Megan, can you, can you do this, want more of time for us and just really overemphasize the consonants so that we can all hear what Shakespeare’s doing in this section. Thank you.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Sure. Was the hope drunk wearing you dressed yourself? Has it slept since and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did? So freely from this time, such I account thy love art, thou feared to be the same man, known act and valor as thou art and desire. W thou have that which thou esteems the ornament of life and live a coward in my own esteem. Letting I dare not wait upon, I would like the poor cat in the adage
Mark Lawson
pretty Peace. I dare do all that. May become a man who dares do more is none. You’re
Gideon Rappaport
picking up her Ds in that
Nick Cagle
book. You are? Yeah. There’s all, it’s a perry. Gosh, it it sounds like sword fight. Like it, it has that feeling like the, the consonance, just the way you read it right there, Megan, it you have it, it feels like you’re smacking. There’s a, there’s a pulse that is very direct and harsh in this it seems, except one word. And I don’t know if you did this on purpose or something, but there was a change when you said and and what it did so freely there, there was
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
something, there’s No way to make that word hard.
Nick Cagle
You Can’t make that word hard. There was a, all of a sudden she, there was an air like, I don’t know, it was just a nice moment that I noticed it was like a break from this pounding
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right, Right.
Nick Cagle
This question that she had.
Mark Lawson
It’s Funny, it’s almost like the promise of it can be nice when you do what I want you to do,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
When you can do, when you do what you wanna do. And that’s her whole point is she’s saying, you were like this before.
Mark Lawson
Yes.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And then it’s, are you afraid to be that way again? You know, and she gets back on it. But yeah, I mean the, the word and it’s, and it’s really smack in the middle of everything
Gideon Rappaport
And it’s the,
Nick Cagle
Can we go from Sorry, Gideon, go ahead.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s a contrast with pale slept since Wake the K in wake. Look the K in look pale and did hard Ds and then freely.
So it’s, it’s just bringing out the antithesis is that she’s accusing him of,
Nick Cagle
Can we just go and I wanna do the next Lady Macbeth’s section as well. But can I go from letting, I dare not wait upon I would and then go through Macbeth’s line into the next section
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
UA letting I dare not wait upon, I would like a poor cat adage pretty
Mark Lawson
Peace. I dare do all that. May become a man who dares do more is none.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What beast was it then that made you break this enterprise to me? When you durst do it, then you were a man. And to be much and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man nor time nor placed did Ben adhere. And yet you would make both. They have made themselves and that to their fitness. Now does unmake you as unmake you Sorry, you want me to keep going or are we going back
Nick Cagle
or Yeah, go to the end of the speech and then we’ll go back up. Please.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
They have made themselves and that their fitness now does unmake. You I have given and know how tender kids to love the babe that milks me. I would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple boneless gums and da brains out. Had I so sworn as you have done to this, If we should fail.
Nick Cagle
Gosh, it’s so interesting. He really does so much of the work for you. It’s very easy to get in Shakespeare’s way if, if you do too much acting on top of this text, you know, listening to you reading.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I feel like this scene is one of easiest I’ve ever worked on.
Nick Cagle
Clarity. Yeah. You, you really, you really just, you just have to let the language do the work, but you have to know the language and you have to pay attention listening to there’s so much going on and you and what you’re reading right there. I really like the word when I, I just listen to these words and certain that certain pop out like beast, beast immediately pops out to me. And enterprise the way you said that there’s, that’s a beautiful word with a t and a p and then straight from enterprise to Durst.
Yeah. For some reason it feels like there there is a beat and you naturally do this after that full stop on they have made themselves and that their, and that their fitness now does un make you beat at that full stop before that I have given suck line. It, it, I don’t know what the, what do you think that change is there? It, it seems like a change. I
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
think She has to come up with a very different, I mean tactic.
Nick Cagle
Like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It’s, it’s, yeah, absolutely. It’s a, it’s, it’s a, a raising of the stakes.
Gideon Rappaport
She’s talking about him and then she uses herself as an example.
Nick Cagle
Oh. So that’s, oh, that’s what’s happening. Yeah. That’s interesting. ’cause she’s like, you, you, you, you, you. And then she says, look, I,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Can can you just read that, that whole speech one more time for us, Megan? You don’t have to do consonants or anything or Okay. I, I just, just keep them in mind
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What beast was then that made you break this enterprise to me. 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 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
Nick Cagle
Brutal and Yeah, Gideon, I see what you’re saying. The U and the I are right next to
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Each other. Yeah. That was very helpful
Gideon Rappaport
Also that also look at, also look at then and now. So 52, right. Nor time nor place did then here,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Then adhere
Gideon Rappaport
and That their fitness now.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right. So
Gideon Rappaport
you, So it goes to have, so you would make both they have made did then adhere fitness now and then. Right. There’s a whole complex structure going on there with those
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
So many
Gideon Rappaport
Es
Mark Lawson
There’s another piece to this here that feel, I feel like carries over from what we were saying about freely a little bit earlier, which is, and to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man, the m’s in that the
Nick Cagle
Yes Oh Yeah. Are Very
Mark Lawson
warm and seductive and
Nick Cagle
Absolutely. Yeah.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s actually struck me every time you’ve read that line because it has a, it has a sort of a modern feel to it, that line.
Gideon Rappaport
And then
Mark Lawson
It’s actually the s that are actually the, the, the moaning of the M that actually appeals to the the man.
Nick Cagle
The man. Yeah. There’s, well then
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What’s interesting is he’s doing may become a man do more, and then she picks up on that
Mark Lawson
after. She’s like, what’s the point of being a man? Like, let me remind you Right
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Then, then you were a man. And now, but that’s in, that’s an interesting connection. I like
Mark Lawson
that. Well, In a man, in a man’s perspective of what a being a man means versus a woman’s perspective of what it would mean to be a man, I think is interesting.
Gideon Rappaport
Now, I, there’s just wanna add look what he does with those M’s, although you’re absolutely right about those msms. And then in the next sentence we go to K And unmake. So the m is is now introducing this hit of the K Mm
Mark Lawson
Mm
Nick Cagle
Man. He was good.
Gideon Rappaport
And that, that leads on to suck. That leads on to the word suck. And then we have all the m’s again, love the babe that milks me, smiling my face and then back to the K plucked.
Nick Cagle
It’s, it’s almost delicious. Yeah.
Mark Lawson
It’s, it’s, she’s Savoring it.
Nick Cagle
It is. She’s,
Mark Lawson
and it’s a and it’s a great tactic. Like she’s, she’s using her her warmth, which, you know, he doesn’t really experience a whole lot of in this moment,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
But that’s the basis of their relationship, I think.
Mark Lawson
Of course. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That, you know, that I, it’s, you know, everybody’s the happiest marriage in Shakespeare. But you know that
Mark Lawson
I think if we don’t
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
see that they really love each other, you know?
Nick Cagle
Isn’t it fascinating? Yeah. The the relationship is in the language. Yeah. Let’s keep going a little bit further.
Why don’t we just read on
Mark Lawson
If we should fail,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
We fail, but screw your courage to the sticking place and will not fail when Dunking is asleep. Where to the rather shall his days hard journey soundly invite him, his two chamberlains will I with wine and waffle. So convinced that memory, the water of the brain shall be a fume. And the receipt of reason limbic only when in swish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death. What cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan, what not put upon his spongy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great will.
Nick Cagle
Okay. We have to stop there because whoa. I mean, it’s almost like she’s dancing. Like yeah. It’s, there’s so much going, I, we we fail is very two very strong, you know, monosyllabic words too. Two.
So,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And I’ve always felt like it’s like the biggest full stop. If we fail, we fail and then she goes on. But like, I feel like it’s a moment. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
I feel that’s what I’ve, that’s it, it reads in just the language. Like, like it lives by itself, you know? Yeah. And then the rest of it is afterwards, that section,
Gideon Rappaport
The whole line is
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
They come up against each other
Nick Cagle
And then you’re, what were you saying,
Gideon Rappaport
Gideon? The Whole line is monosyllables
Nick Cagle
Done if we should fail,
Gideon Rappaport
Have Done
Nick Cagle
Oh have done to this. Oh yes, yes. If We should change.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And actually her whole, her whole line before that and dash the brains out had iso And for me it really starts with had I so sworn as you have done to this
Nick Cagle
Appreciate, so I would direct you to give, to give a nice breath after we fail Megan.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, for sure.
Nick Cagle
If you agree with that, you know what I mean? And, and then go ahead and start to fly again.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
On, but, and I think but screw your courage to the sticking place is one of the neatest lines.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I Love it from
Nick Cagle
Shakespeare. It’s so cool. And will not fail. And then so then it, then, then it’s a whole new thing, right?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
She’s gonna explain the plan after that. So the, that, that second phrase kind of lives its own in its own world too.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Does it? For Sure. Yeah. Completely. Yeah. It’s sort of like the, this is like I need, and I, it’s, it’s like, like I keep saying, like, they’re like eye to eye on this. Like, I need you to yeah. See me and will not fail. Right? We’re here.
Nick Cagle
Okay. And then here’s
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
The Plan, here’s the, and then she conjures and I feel like this is, I don’t, I don’t know. ’cause I, it, I’m not like really, really working on it, but I feel like this is her like most like poetic, poetic language that she’s like, yes, really? It’s like this, like, it’s almost like a spell.
Mark Lawson
The
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
way that she talks about what she’s gonna do with the guards and then, and then to snap at her with great quell at the end with all those hard, as you were saying, hard con, constant
Gideon Rappaport
Guilt. And she’s, she’s also answering his doubt in the first speech we talked about, because what’s gonna happen afterwards is what’s worrying him. And she’s now ending this speech by saying, these grooms, these officers are going to bear the guilt, so don’t worry about the success.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right.
Mark Lawson
And also
Gideon Rappaport
the, the aftermath
Mark Lawson
And also just the, when we consider what failure actually means, you know, it’s, it’s not just, we don’t, I don’t get to be king. It’s torture, public execution, you know, heretical, whatever sort of consequences are involved. Right. And I, I think for me it’s been easy to kind of forget that that’s what we’re talking about. Like, you either do it and are successful or you know, you’re flighted alive or whatever they would’ve done to you.
Nick Cagle
Let me just say to the audience watching, I would encourage you to, to pick up a script and read along with us while we’re doing this. Because if you’re just watching what we’re talking about, it’s not gonna be quite as sharp as if you’re looking at the words that we’re looking at. Find a script.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
She put a disclaimer,
Nick Cagle
a disclaimer At the top, disclaim Gideon and I have your version of the script here. And you’ve put the next line where to the where to the rather shell, his days hard journey soundly invite him in a parenthetical statement. Why is that? Is it just because
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
The
Nick Cagle
Folger does too? They do what what, what? Why is that?
Gideon Rappaport
Well, I don’t know what’s in the folio. I haven’t checked that particular question Mark’s going after it, but it is, it’s a, it’s a parenthetical phrase. The,
Mark Lawson
It’s parenthetical in the folio as well.
Gideon Rappaport
Sorry.
Nick Cagle
Okay.
Mark Lawson
It’s it’s parenthetical in there as well.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah. Interesting.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, it’s definitely a parenthetical. ’cause you don’t need it.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
You could
Nick Cagle
Say the line without it. She could just go from when Duncan is asleep. His two chamber.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, two
Nick Cagle
Chamberlains. I see.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
She’s just adding a, a a bit of detail. She’s like a, she’s reinforcing, gonna fall asleep. Reinforc. Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
She’s reinforcing the idea by saying, tonight Duncan’s gonna go to sleep and he is not just gonna go to sleep.
Nick Cagle
He’s really
Gideon Rappaport
tired. So he is gonna really sleep deeply, so don’t worry.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right.
Nick Cagle
Ah, I see, I see. That’s great. So there’s a, there’s, there’s a reassurance happening here. There’s a, a little a moment of softness with that.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. That warmth that we were that from the speech. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
There’s two Chamberlains will I with wine and, and wine And was and wa Wase Wassel, is that like a, like the Christmas drink? Is that like a, like a Nyy?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It’s, yeah.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. You, what is it exactly in that? So
Mark Lawson
We’ve got the eggnog and thesal right?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Got everything going.
Nick Cagle
This Is a Christmas play. It’s a
Mark Lawson
Christmas show.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
We always do it in
Mark Lawson
October.
Nick Cagle
I thought it Was a Halloween play. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh, can we do Christmas McBath?
Nick Cagle
Christmas McBath. She’s decorating the
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Tree have decorate.
Nick Cagle
Interesting concept.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
So,
Nick Cagle
but those ws are delicious that she says that Will I with wine and is it wassel or wase? How would you pronounce
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Wassel?
Gideon Rappaport
No, Megan’s Right. Wassel
Nick Cagle
Wassel.
Mark Lawson
And they capitalized in the folio. Just,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh,
Nick Cagle
That memory. The water of his brain. That’s beautiful. Can you just read that whole thing first again because we love it.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Sure.
Nick Cagle
Thank you. So, and then we’ll go on from there, mark, if that’s okay with you.
Mark Lawson
Sure.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
When Duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shove his hard days hard journey soundly invite him, his two chamberlains will eye with wine and waffles. So convinced that memory, the water of the brain shall be a fme. And the receipt of reason limbic only when in swish sleep their drenched nature’s lies as in a death. What cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Duncan, what not put upon his spongy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great quell
Mark Lawson
Bring forth men, children only for thy undaunted metal should compose nothing but males. Will it not be received when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and use their very daggers that they have done,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Who dares receive it other as we shall make our griefs and clamor roar upon his death?
Mark Lawson
I am settled up, I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat away and mock the time with Ferris show.
False face must hide what? The false heart that No,
Nick Cagle
I I So when it, when listening to that beautifully read you guys when listening to that, I, I really heard that the, the consonants in I am settled, settled, bend, corporal and terrible. The all those different consonants that that really rang in my ear. Yeah. The D’s are, are very important in, in these scenes as well. Shakespeare uses D’s a lot, it seems to me as a, I don’t know. What do you think, Gideon, do you have anything to add to that section?
Gideon Rappaport
I I think you’re right about the Ds, but I, we could have, as you said, we could talk for two hours about every consonant and what he is doing because the weaving together of sound and meaning is the great mysterious power of a great poet. And he’s doing it better than anybody has ever done it, with the possible exception of Virgil doing it in Latin. But I think Shakespeare’s even subtler than Virgil. I I just wanted to say that what struck me, mark, was the oxymoron of terrible feat. And Macbeth is used to doing feats of courage and accomplishment. He won the battle for Duncan, but he recognizes that this is a terrible feat.
Mark Lawson
Mm.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s a, it’s a great heroic accomplishment. That’s terrible. And then that leads into false heart and, and Ferris choke. So I,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And also I would throw in there, we were talking about, you know, in jamming and lines going on and where the end stops and all this. And he ends with a absolutely perfect couplet of IC penter.
Gideon Rappaport
Correct. Rhyming.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I don’t know
Nick Cagle
if this, I don’t know if this is true, but I, I get the feeling when, when the f consonant is used, there’s a softness to the charact.
And I don’t know if this is right or all, but just listening to you guys do it when, when I don’t know if it’s a softness or a sadness or it, it brings something in my ear when, when characters use a word that starts with f that there’s a difference to the tip of the tongue consonants, which are more direct and you know, it, it feels set back a little bit like false face must hide what? False heart death. No, it feels softer to me. Lemme see this. You
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Do think that means for him there, that it’s supposed to be this like declarative statement, but he is using these soft consonants as pe people who’ve played Macbeth. Like how does that, does, do you feel like that that like, gives it like a caveat? Or is it, you know, is he not as strong as he’s putting on? Or is it,
Mark Lawson
Or it’s hiding maybe in this context?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Mm,
Mark Lawson
Hiding
Nick Cagle
getting into character.
Mark Lawson
That’s
Nick Cagle
Interesting. It’s like she said something when she said shall be a fme and the receipt of reason a limb beck only, I don’t know, there’s something about when, when asks are used that that I sense a change in the song.
Don’t Know.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, absolutely. It’s an interesting consonant
Mark Lawson
To your other observation, Nick dare daggers and Duncan. I mean, how many times are those three words used in this play?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right?
Nick Cagle
Yeah. It, and it, but it, and it musically it sounds like a punch. Like they, they sound, you know, it, it would give me a sense of driving forward when, when I hear t’s and D’s, I, I, I feel that the character is driving towards something. And when I hear Fs and, and softer, you know, things, I feel like it’s pulling me back as an audience member. Or I almost as an audience member, I get a, i I take a breath, I’m like, oh, thank God. You know, like they and softness, you know, something
Mark Lawson
Because you can also, the an f you can, you can spend time on it as well. May.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Maybe
Mark Lawson
that’s it. B and a t are very explosive. Well not plosive, that’s not the right
Nick Cagle
Term, but something about the air, the air isn’t like, I, I feel I’m allowed to breathe because there’s air coming from the actor, maybe.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
I don’t know.
Mark Lawson
You’re Leading something too. Like you’re leading them like, like I’m leading her in this case false face must hide with a false heart death. I, I’m, I’m bringing her along in the idea
Nick Cagle
And, and, and us too, the audience as well. Right. You know, that I, I do, I I don’t know. There, there’s these and, and, but then when, when Lady m is u and when she’s using her s and her Ns, it feels, it, you know, it, it’s very attractive. It’s very, and the
Mark Lawson
Ws
Nick Cagle
seductive in a way. You know,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I think one of the fun things about Fs, just listening to you say them Mark, is that you can spend time on them, but you can also not spend time on them. You can make them staccato. Like it’s such a flexible cons, you know, Paul’s face, you know, doesn’t have to be Paul’s face, you know, it doesn’t have to be long and soft. It can, it can still be, which is kind of a fun, like, it’s like a little arrow
Mark Lawson
Sometimes. I, I think about the way Alan Rickman would use his consonants, particularly when he is playing Snape and just the way that
Nick Cagle
He would punch those F’s. Oh, he would just, just
Mark Lawson
Take a shower in the f
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Can I give you
Nick Cagle
some Fs? I think that there’s a lot of air in that line with, with the Hs as well, with hide and heart, you know, there feels, there feels like wrath in that line. Can
Gideon Rappaport
I give you some Fs from Hamlet,
Nick Cagle
Please? Yes,
Gideon Rappaport
I am thy father’s spirit doomed for a certain term to walk the night and for the day confined to fast in fires till the foul crimes done in my days of nature are burnt and purged away.
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Not soft at all.
Gideon Rappaport
Not soft. But but
Nick Cagle
But then again Paul, Paul Schofield did a wonderful ghost and he took those very soft, he played them very soft. So, I mean, I
Gideon Rappaport
Just wanna say that the, that if you try to give FA universal meaning, you’re gonna force a false meaning on any particular line. The, the secret to this study of the meanings of sounds is in the relation between the sounds and the other sounds around them, and the meaning of the words and the lines they’re in. It’s always that relation. And if you try to mechanize it by kind of general principles, and the, this is illustrated by my, one of my professors, a great American epigram and poet named JV Cunningham, who said, if you spell the glory that was Greece and the grander that was Rome, if you spell the word grease, G-R-E-A-S-E, the whole sound of it is completely changed.
Right. So, because context, the, the meaning of sound depends on context. That’s what I’m trying to say.
Nick Cagle
Absolutely. You can’t make it universal. I understand that for sure, for sure. But I do think that, I do think that Shakespeare uses certain things to, to make the actor certain, certain letters to make the actor breathe in a certain way that can inform the line. You know,
Gideon Rappaport
he makes the, He builds the whole line, not only the sounds of letters, but also the sounds of letters, but everything else, he builds it to make the actor do everything he wants him to do or her to do breathing and everything else. So you’re, you’re right, I’m not, I’m not saying you’re not right, I’m just saying it’s never isolated as one technique that
Nick Cagle
Yeah, you can’t say all the time,
Gideon Rappaport
Always composite.
Nick Cagle
Sure.
Mark Lawson
No, but it’s really, I isn’t exploration a technical exploration just, you know, it’s like singing a song with your tongue out of your mouth so that you can open it up. Like you have to do a run where I’m just gonna do, I’m gonna hit the Ts and then another run where I’m gonna hit the Hs, you know? And, and just explore what that opens up. Because like we’ve been saying, the more you keep your funnel open and you know your your receptor open and listening, the more lightning strikes you in the right moment.
Gideon Rappaport
Right.
Nick Cagle
Beautiful. Well, let’s let, let’s go ahead and, and read that whole scene everybody, and let’s keep all the 9,000 things that we just said in mind and, and Gideon and I will turn our, our cameras off and then we’ll move on to the next scene. And we could take an hour and a half on one line and that one All right,
Mark Lawson
If it were done, when is, Nope, lemme start again guys.
If it were done when ti done, then we, well it were done quickly.
If the assassination could tram up the consequence and catch with his cise success, that, but this blow might be the be all in the end all here.
But here upon this, this bank and shoal of time, we jumped the life to come.
But in these cases, we still have judgment here that we but teach bloody instructions, which being taught return to plague the inventor. This even handed justice commends the ingredients of our poison chalice to our own lips. He’s 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. Besides this Duncan hath born his faculty. So meek Heth been so clear in his great office that his virtues will plead like angels trumpet tongue against the deep damnation of his taking off and pity like a naked newborn babe striding the blast or heaven’s cherub and hors upon the sightless couriers of the air shall blow the horrid deed in every eye that tears shall drown the wind.
I have no spur to prick the sides of my intent, but only vaulting ambition which or leaps itself and falls upon the other.
How? No, what news He
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
has almost sucked. Why have you left the chamber
Mark Lawson
At the Asper? Me?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No you not. He has,
Mark Lawson
We will proceed no further in this business. He has honored 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
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself have it slept since and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely from this time, such I account thy love art. Thou feared to be the same in nine own act and valor as thou art in desire would thou have that which thou is esteems the ornament of life and live a coward in my own esteem, letting I dare not wait upon I would like a poor cat In the adage
Mark Lawson
Gritty peace, I dare to all that may become a man who dares do more is none
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What beast was then that made you break this enterprise to me. 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 vent it here. And yet you would make both. They have made themselves and that they fitness now does unmake you I have given suck and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me. I would while it was smiling into my face, have plucked my nipple from its boneless gums and dashed the brains out. Had I so sworn as you have done to this,
Mark Lawson
If we should fail,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
We fail. But screw your courage to the sticking place. And we’ll not fail when Duncan is asleep. Where to the rather shall his days hard journey soundly invite him his two chamberlains will I with wine and waffle. So convinced that memory, the water of the brain shall be a fume. And the receipt of reason limbic only when in swish sleep their drenched natures lies as in a death. What cannot you and I perform upon the unguarded Dunkin, what not put upon his spongy officers who shall bear the guilt of our great quell
Mark Lawson
Ring forth men children only with eye on daunted metals should compose nothing but males. Will it not be received when we have marked with blood those sleepy two of his own chamber and use their very daggers that they have dumped
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Who dares receive it to other as we shall make our griefs and clamor roar upon his death.
Mark Lawson
I am settled up. I did it again. I am settled and bend up each corporal agent to this terrible feat away and mock the time with Ferris Cho false face must hide what the false heart, death know.
Nick Cagle
Very nice. It’s a lot to think about, isn’t it?
Mark Lawson
It’s a Lot.
Nick Cagle
It’s like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That’s so fun.
Nick Cagle
It is like a, you know, one of the thing that frustrates me about golf is, you know, you ever, like I am not really a big golfer, and if you take a lesson, they tell you 500 different things to do during your swing. Sometimes you just wanna hit the golf ball.
Mark Lawson
It’s funny.
Nick Cagle
So I have a couple of notes. Mark, you really, you, you, it’s funny, you kind of, you started overthinking and then you let it go and let it flow and you it was there already, you know what I mean? Sort of in the middle of your speech, you just kind of started to cook and it was there and then all that stuff came out anyways. ’cause you already know it. It’s already in your head.
Megan, you lost your breath before Kat in the adage.
Yeah, I
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
was trying something different and it was not a good choice. Thank you.
Nick Cagle
No, But what it’s great for this show that we’re doing right now though, you know what I mean? Because it might be interesting and it might be worth your guys’ time to go through and, and, and look at, I, I don’t know, you might like some I I’ll mark breaths and then they’ll change like Mark said. You know what I mean? But it might be interesting to sort of kind of say, where, where should I take a breath? I mean where, ’cause some of that’s a really long breath. I
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
usually breathe after a steam. No, I breathe up. I had a problem before. I was just trying, I was like, what if
Nick Cagle
I all the way through?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And I was like, oh, that’s why
Nick Cagle
I don’t go off the You did, you went, you went from woods all the way to the end, which is fun. Can you, can you read that for,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
For without taking like a grownup breath either. It was terrible.
Nick Cagle
Read it for us in one breath because I mean, that’s where the full stop is. But can you do it just for the audience to hear which you did. It was amazing actually.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, Now I have to get into it.
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Which thou have that which thou is steams to the ornament of life and live a coward and th own a steam letting I dare not wait upon I would like the poor cat in the adage.
Nick Cagle
See, I mean, that’s excellent though. It’s really cool when you do it that way. I mean it, I I see why he wrote it because that, that one phrase I, I don’t know. There’s a beautiful flow to that. What do you think Gideon?
Gideon Rappaport
I I think you’re right. I think I would suggest that you can save a little bit of breath by not hitting the eyes in that next to last line instead of, I dare. And I would just go for letting, I dare not wait upon I would
Nick Cagle
And then
Gideon Rappaport
that’ll save you a little bit of energy to get through to the through adage with enough breath.
Mark Lawson
Wow.
Nick Cagle
It, it was really beautiful. And the reason it caught my eye is be well you were really cooking through that section, but it’s, you know, I I think that you could probably, you could do it, you know, if you, if you wanted to figure out, you know, if you wanted,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I could, I know that I, I don’t know, again, I don’t know if like the juice is worth the squeeze and like in like a, in a theater. I think in a, in a, a venue like this where I’m like, my microphone is six inches from my mouth. I can totally do it, but I don’t know if it’s worth, you know, but it would be fun to play with.
Mark Lawson
But then again, if you’re on your feet, if you’re on your feet and you’re actually true, you know, because this, I find this absorbs everything, right? But if you’re up and moving, plus there’s also the barrage, just, just the barrage of, I can’t get a word in edgewise.
Nick Cagle
I, I’ve watched, I’ve been watching Harry Potter with my, my kids this the, over the past week and it, and I got this, it just feels like you’re shooting a bunch of power out of your wand in that section, you know, until it runs out.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah,
Nick Cagle
totally. And then it, it gives, it makes your privy peace, you know,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Carrie. But I also feel like if she’s not at full force in adage she doesn’t have to say privy peace, like she’s still gotta she’s still gotta have another thing in her.
Nick Cagle
That’s true. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It can’t be, that can’t be the end of it. That’s true. She’s gotta have a whole nother thing coming that he’d like, stop woman.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Lawson
Gotta cut off.
Nick Cagle
That was great. I do think, what was I gonna say? I’m forgetting a little bit. Oh, I, I would also give you a note that I would take a little more time after with the we fail. I, I feel like there could just be a, just a little more beat, just a little extra beat after that, you know, because it, I I feel robbed of that moment if you go to the next line too fast.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Because you guys had, I love it. It just was a beautiful build to that, you know, it’s gonna be okay. You know, like, I, I don’t know. I don’t know exactly. It just feels rhythmically like that. I I would say that the stakes are, are still much higher than this last read from you guys. You know, mark, I think that you can pick up the speed a little bit
Mark Lawson
Okay.
Nick Cagle
On, on all these sections and you will, when it comes to performance time, you know, we’ll basically we’ll work this thing all the way up to the very end. And then the very last read I’ll, I’ll ask you guys to just really give it to us, you know, to give it all to us and really find those high stakes that are happening within the language here.
Beautifully done. Beautifully done. Gideon, do you have something for us? I
Gideon Rappaport
just Have three additional things working from the back line. 59 had iso sworn as you have done to this. Megan, give us the two. Give us the full vowel on two instead of to
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Okay.
Gideon Rappaport
Because I think it just weakens the ending. And have, has you have done to this, the, this is is the kind of climate then back up to line 28. What is it?
Oh, oh, it’s, it’s which or leaps itself and falls on the other mark. You said a pawn again.
Mark Lawson
Oops.
Gideon Rappaport
And it’s fall on because Fall on means to attack.
Mark Lawson
No. Yeah. Yeah. Gotcha.
Gideon Rappaport
And then in line four, this I, I hesitate to go back to the first two sentences, but I really want to hear a pause after success.
’cause you keep, seem to me to keep rushing from success to that. And I don’t get the sense that if the assassination tramble up the consequence and catch with his success, and then you’re giving another version of the same idea that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here, but here upon this be, so it’s like two versions of the same thing. And so I just, I need to hear that you’re starting the same idea again with that, that, but what I’m hearing is somehow catch with his success. That but as if it were success that, you know.
Mark Lawson
Okay.
Gideon Rappaport
And it isn’t success that it’s just, it’s a new thought.
Mark Lawson
It’s, it’s a, it’s a parallel.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. And I, and you could think it, since we’re doing poetry right now, just think of that music that, but this blow, to me that just sounds like a timpani drum. You know? It’s, and there’s a different past to CE success, which is lighter and then that but this blow.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, that’s true.
Nick Cagle
Even use a different inflection. So see success maybe higher in a pitch to that. But this blow I would drop pitch and slow down. Do you know what I mean? Like
Mark Lawson
Yep.
Nick Cagle
And, and find all those places and that will inform that back and forth thought process that’s happening in his head.
Gideon Rappaport
Really
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
This the first time we hear be all and end all in English language that we know of.
Gideon Rappaport
I think so,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Mark Lawson
I think I was gonna ask the same question about assassination. No, that comes from
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Arabic as as, I can’t remember exactly.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s already, it’s already in Julius Caesar, I think.
Mark Lawson
Hmm.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. But it’s not a, it’s a lone word.
Nick Cagle
No, I usually, I usually hear it if the assassination, I don’t know what, you know, instead of not the assassination, if it were done quickly, if the assassination, you know, you kind of touch the pH then you kind of
Mark Lawson
Divide It together, fade into
Nick Cagle
it, you know, a little bit. I don’t know if that, if that’s right or not. I’ve just heard that. No, it is
Gideon Rappaport
Right. It’s how it scan. It’s actually apostrophe tells you that.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Well, I think you can cheat the about too.
Mark Lawson
So
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I’m a, a big fan of cheating about
Mark Lawson
Like, well, I mean I think we’re going back to like,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
But it’s not,
Nick Cagle
Yeah. It feels to me like the speed of that first part is quick until that, but this blow might be the be all in the end. All here is slower just because of the consonance
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And the single syllables.
Nick Cagle
And the single syllables. Yeah. I mean why don’t you, could you try to read that for me one time so that our audience can hear what we’re talking about, mark? Like read, read it. Assassination could tram up that part fast and then slow. Yep. You know, and the higher patient then slow down on the other part. Thanks.
Mark Lawson
Yeah. And rub my belly and pat my head.
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Also walk backwards.
Nick Cagle
Yeah.
Mark Lawson
If you like it in pig Latin, just that line. All right, well I’ll do, yeah, if the, as if the assassination could tram up the consequence and catch with his or c success that, but this blow might be the be all and the end all here.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. I think that that’s really clear.
Mark Lawson
Okay. When
Nick Cagle
you, you know, when you find the distinction between those two. Awesome. Gosh. Well, I don’t even know if we’re gonna make it. Let’s, let’s go on to the next scene and see if we can get a little bit of it in here.
Gideon Rappaport
I wanted to say something about ss in that Lady Macbeth scene that you told us we were gonna talk about today.
Nick Cagle
I know. Gosh, we didn’t even get to any of that. I, go ahead. Please do, please do. Gideon,
Gideon Rappaport
I just, I’ll just give you the one thing. It’s at act one, scene five, line 65, she says, or it’s start line 62, I think.
Mark Lawson
Wait, I’m sorry. Could you gimme that again?
Gideon Rappaport
Act one, scene five, line 62.
Mark Lawson
Thank you.
Gideon Rappaport
She says to be, and Megan, do you have that? Do you wanna read it to us?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No, I just have the first. I thought we were just doing the opening. I don’t have the I’m don’t have any.
Gideon Rappaport
Okay. So I’ll read it and, and I’ll just make the points I wanna make. And then we can go on 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. He that’s coming must be provided for. And you shall put this knight’s great business into my dispatch, which shall to all our knights and days to come give solely sovereign sway and master dom. So what I wanna point out is how rich this is in meaning and sound.
So the last line is solely sovereign sway in master dom is all ss. She sounds like she’s hissing. Why do we think she’s hissing? ’cause she’s already put into our minds the idea of the serpent above looked like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under it. And then all these s’s sound like s sound like hissing. Now what’s the serpent that everyone in the audience knows Lucifer or Satan dressed as a serpent in the garden. And why was Lucifer dressed as a, because he’d been kicked out of heaven. Why was he kicked out of heaven? Because he wanted solely sovereign sway and master dom.
Nick Cagle
And oh, he was defeated.
Gideon Rappaport
So this is Shakespeare using sound as well as meaning to inject into our minds this kind of satanic temptation.
Mark Lawson
Mm. That
Gideon Rappaport
Brady Macbeth is embodied.
Nick Cagle
Amazing. Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of thing that we’re trying to look for today in our discussion. There’s a, there’s a, there’s this wonderful Romeo in, in the Friar scene when he’s banished. He says, how has thou the heart all the time there? And you know, I I had a, he’s, I had a teacher point out that was like, well, you know, when you’re hurt, what do you say?
Ow. You know? And it, it is this breath and this pain that’s coming through the language. And this is the, this is what we’re trying to find within the text today. Right?
Gideon Rappaport
And it’s everywhere in Shakespeare. If we had the eyes to see it and we see some, and there’s always more.
Nick Cagle
Well, let’s see if we can make it through one line of two, two,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That which had made them drunk. Haf made me bold. What have quenched them? Haf given me fire ha. Peace. It was the owl that shrieked the fatal bellman, which gives the cist goodnight. He is about it. The doors are open and the surfed grooms do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged their PTs that death and nature do contend about them. Whether they live or die.
Mark Lawson
Who’s there?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Who’s there? Oh, that’s, I did that every time.
Mark Lawson
Stage hog. Who’s there? What hope?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Ak I am afraid they have awake and it not done it.
Nick Cagle
You know what, let, we, we’re gonna have to go back because there’s so much going on already. Just in that first line. What, what are the words that stand out if you’re scanning that line and you say it super aam. Could you, could you do that for us that witch have made?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Actually I think it’s a trophies. Oh
Nick Cagle
Yes.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Thank You. Witch have made them drunk, have made me bold
Gideon Rappaport
And the, and made me is a spon or have made me bold. It’s a spon. Or not a spon, but it’s a Yeah. The last
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Here or Yeah, spon. Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
The last Foot is a sponte. Me bold.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah, me bold. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
So You start, so we have the trope
Gideon Rappaport
With a spon.
Nick Cagle
Wow.
Gideon Rappaport
All Monosyllables by the way,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
All monosyllables
Nick Cagle
All monosyllables this. So, I mean, I feel like Does that, do you think you could, you could take time. Would you say that quickly? Or would you take time with it?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh, Absolutely. Take time with it.
Nick Cagle
Take time with it. Yeah. So,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
and It’s also like, it’s her entrance in like, it feels like an entrance line
Nick Cagle
For sure. Yeah. I wouldn’t, I I this is when staging is so fun. You know, where I always talk about that. Where, you know, I, I like to imagine where she is and what she’s doing and, and this what, what would you think Megan? Where where is she Right
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
now? Well, this is what we’re talking about last time is I feel like they’re in a, in a liminal space. They’re in the hallway, they’re in, you know, the coming out of the, you know, some, some room going into another room. And, and this is the, the place of, of danger and waiting.
Gideon Rappaport
And the line also is a major distinction between her and everybody else in the castle. Like, she’s right, there’s a big dividing line because of this intended murder. So we have, I think them drunk by the way is also apony. So bump, bump, bump, babu, bu
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Bubu. Yes. Them drunk. Be bold. Yeah. ’cause it’s the double antithesis.
Nick Cagle
Gideon, could you explain to our audience and, and what apony is exactly? Yeah,
Gideon Rappaport
sure. An I am is a metrical foot that is the relation between stressed and unstressed syllables. And a unit of verse in a line is called a foot. The I am is one kind of foot unstressed followed by stress babu. And a troche is the opposite. A stress followed by an non-stress bumpa. Ah, and apondi is two stresses together, bubu.
Nick Cagle
Oh, okay.
Gideon Rappaport
That, that explains what we’ve been saying about this line. There are several others. I’ve actually written a poem to define the different forms of metrical foot in English, which I’ll send to you guys if you want it. But that at least covers the three feet we’re talking about in this line.
Nick Cagle
And, and Megan, you sent us an interesting article that Folger wrote about the creepiest word in Shakespeare.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I did, and I would agree with Givon. He had pushed back against the technology part of it. And I don’t think technology gives us meaning. I think we give us meaning. But the, but somebody did a data analysis and the word that is used most often is the, and instead of saying an undefined article, like, like an owl, we say the owl, which gives it this like, symbolic thing. And I was actually in the last scene we were doing, when she’s talking about the the baby, her baby, she says the a couple of times in that line that I was like, oh, that’s weird. Like, not his, not not, it’s like the whatever it was. But yeah, it, it gives
Gideon Rappaport
everything the Sense dash the brains out
Nick Cagle
Dash
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
the brains out. Thank you.
Nick Cagle
So before we get to the owl line, what, what have quenched them have given me? Fire har peace. Can somebody help me scan that line? Because it seems weird to me. Does it, is it, is there
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Something Well, actually you could, we could throw apy in there if we wanted to. What has quenched them?
Nick Cagle
That’s what I’m saying Though, there which two unstressed syllables, right.
Gideon Rappaport
Is Too unstressed quench them
Nick Cagle
Has Given me fire. Because you wouldn’t say what ha quenched them the right. It, it’s what have quenched, right?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. So there’s the, and you could say it’s a trophy. I I had an interesting, a teacher who, a really wonderful teacher who talked about relative stress that it’s like, it’s never really a spongy, it’s never really a empiric that you could still make an I am out of it and it’s all relative, but in this discussion, yeah, you’re exactly right, Nick, that it’s what have quenched did you say?
Nick Cagle
So since that line scans strange, it it gives me, when I hear it, a sense of unease, a sense of discomfort of maybe fear.
And then she moves on the next line after that is that line where she says it was the owl she did not, not an owl. Or, you know, not just any owl. It’s the owl.
Gideon Rappaport
The fatal bellman.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
The, the fatal bellman. So through that scansion Shakespeare’s setting up that, that next line, it, it seems to me this is the creepiest speech. I think I, i I think that this is really terrifying. All this stuff. Sorry, can you just read that whole little speech again for all of us?
Gideon Rappaport
Wait, Wait one second.
Nick Cagle
Oh yeah,
Gideon Rappaport
I wanna say that there’s, there’s a difference between hark and peace. Yes. Hear, listen. And then peace means calm down, be quiet. Don’t. So I think she hears something. What hath que what have quenched them have given me? Fire hark. And then, okay, peace.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. The har is takes her out of it. And I think that, that all these you were talking about Nick, the, the stress syllables and I just like threw a scan in there and it’s really like, quenched them, give me fire or all har these they’re all stressed.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
You know that she’s in this like zone. And then I hear, you know, she, here’s the thing, oh, and then she comes up with this and the piece isn’t the just the piece of like, oh, don’t worry about it. Or, oh, shut up. It’s the piece of like, oh, now I have this, you know, I’m gonna conjure up the, that this is actually a good omen for us. That this, that it was the owl that
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
the fatal omen. Yeah. That’s,
Gideon Rappaport
that’s good. But I also think that that, that it was the owl is the answer to hark, Right?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. Oh yeah. But I but as opposed to like rushing it might do, oh, it was the owl that shrieked. Yeah,
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, yeah. No, no, no, no.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It’s like, oh no, it’s actually Bouie midnight.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s a good, it’s a, it’s a bad omen for dunking. Right,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
It’s, it’s frightening. The language itself is terrifying. That’s so cool. Scary poetry. Shrink
Gideon Rappaport
and fatal.
Nick Cagle
I, I mean, what, what’s cooler than scary poetry? It’s like, this is where Edgar Allen Poe came from. Right. You know, it, it’s awesome. I like, oh sorry, go ahead
Mark Lawson
Mark. No, I just wanna do a nerd check in. So I go through and I always like, I you can’t see it really, but, but I put all the, the caps from the folio in blue in, and I just wanted to share with you what the caps are on this one. It’s Owl Belman doors, grooms, snores, posits, death Nature. And then a little bit later, daggers father, husband. And then it goes on. But like
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Almost all of the nouns.
Mark Lawson
Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Wow.
Mark Lawson
And I always like to kind of run that through what’s scanning as well because I feel like, you know, I always just like having that mental highlighter on those words. And I, I think it’s, it, it does emphasize the formality of the fatal billman. I think
Nick Cagle
Y yeah. Oh wow. That’s so great. I love that. That’s so interesting. I really like how she says he is about it too. There’s something scary about that. Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
It
Nick Cagle
feels like the hounds of Baskerville kind of, or there’s a sense that there’s a something out there that’s terrifying.
Yeah. Could you just read it again just for me? ’cause it’s so awesome.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Absolutely.
Nick Cagle
And then Mark, we’ll go on from there if that’s okay.
Mark Lawson
We Can take our sweet time. Let her do
Nick Cagle
All right.
Mark Lawson
Rock and roll.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That which has made them drunk, has made me bold, would have quenched them, have given me fire park peace was the owl that shrieked the fatal bellman, which gives the Sterns to goodnight.
He is about it. The doors are open and the surfed grooms do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged their PTs that death and nature do contend about them, whether they live or die.
Mark Lawson
Who’s there? What ho
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Like I am afraid they have awake and has not done the attempt and not the deed confounds us park. I laid their daggers ready. He couldn’t miss them. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had dumped my husband.
Mark Lawson
I have done the deed. Do you still not hear a noise?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did you not speak?
Mark Lawson
When now as I descended
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
A
Mark Lawson
Mark who lies at the second chamber,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Donald ba
Mark Lawson
Says a sorry sight,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.
Mark Lawson
I just wander laugh and sleep. And one cried murder that they did wake each other. I stood and heard them, but they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Era two lodged together,
Mark Lawson
One cried God bless us and ah, amen. The other, as they had seen me with these hangman’s hands listening their fear, I could not say ah. Amen. When they did say, God bless us,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I consider it not so deeply,
Mark Lawson
But where for could I not pronounce? Ah, amen.
Nick Cagle
Let’s stop there. You guys are cooking and I’d like to keep going, but there’s so much to talk about that that’s happening here. You know what I’m, I’m I’m hearing some interesting things though. There’s a different placement of, of the, the consonants in, in lady’s speech than what’s happening in Macbeth’s speech.
Do you see that Gideon is there? Hi. He, he sounds like more lyrical, like he’s reeling in a way that she’s more staccato and more, there’s more sort of forward consonance happening. I I don’t know if it’s, if it’s just the, the readings that I’m getting or if I’m, if I’m hearing that from the characters,
Gideon Rappaport
I’m not entirely sure what distinction you’re making making. So say that again.
Nick Cagle
I I hear a, a difference in, in the sound of the words that come out of Macbeth’s character.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah, I got that. But what, what difference are you hearing?
Nick Cagle
I I, I feel like there’s a, a different, more forward consonants Megan from Lady Macbeth and more vowel sounds. And it could just be the actors that I’m, that I’m listening to, but more, more vowel, more open vowels from Macbeth in the poetry. Maybe we go back again and let’s just look at Lady Macbeth’s. A lack. I am afraid they have awakened speech.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What ak I’m afraid they have awake and has not done the attempt and not the deed confounds us.
Nick Cagle
I hear a lot of T’s and D’s going on in there. Yeah. You know what I mean?
Gideon Rappaport
Lot of D’s in both of them.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
And then
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Kate, yeah, he comes in. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Spark. I laid the daggers ready. It is very, you know, direct in a way like, I’m not sure how to describe it, but, and
Gideon Rappaport
then You get the opposite with resembled father and slept,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right? Exactly.
Nick Cagle
Hmm. Yeah. That’s interesting. So there’s a, there’s a definite change with that line. It’s so interesting to me. We talked about this last week that she, that she, that Shakespeare threw that piece of humanity in for her.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s a foreshadow in Fact world of the relationship in her bottom. It, it’s a foreshadowing in fact of what’s going to happen to her because it’s precisely her humanity that drives her mad because she can’t get rid of the guilt.
Nick Cagle
Fascinating.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
And I just love that they’re both still people, like they’re human, you know, like as much as she’s sworn, you know, her oath to be unsexed and he is a battle hardened warrior. Like they’re people doing terrible things.
Nick Cagle
Yeah. I would say Megan, could you, could you read that section once and then give us like a, like something different on had, had he not resembled my father, you know what I mean?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah,
Gideon Rappaport
yeah. And I would can I just before you do it, challenge you to make the he different from he,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
You know, it was the first time I had heard it when I said it that time I was like, oh, right. He, she’s not using anybody’s names. It’s two different people.
Gideon Rappaport
Yeah.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Yeah. Thank you.
Nick Cagle
Oh, interesting. Wow. Yeah,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I laid their daggers ready. He could not miss them. Had he not resembled my father as he slept. I had done my husband,
Mark Lawson
I have done the deed does now not hear a noise.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak
Mark Lawson
When?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No.
Mark Lawson
Now as I
Nick Cagle
descended I wanna stop you ’cause I just wanna say Mark, that was so great right there, which you, you took those monosyllabic words and you took your time with them. And then the second phrase was quicker and more direct in a different way. And the balance of those two things are just his entire character.
Mark Lawson
And
Nick Cagle
I really enjoyed that. Great read. Sorry. Sorry.
Mark Lawson
Thank You.
Gideon Rappaport
And the whole play is contained in that line.
Nick Cagle
That’s right.
Gideon Rappaport
I’ve done the deed. Oh. Oh
Mark Lawson
That’s funny.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Right
Mark Lawson
from where
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I have done the deed.
Nick Cagle
Oh, Okay. Can you just, just start from, I have done the deed again. Sure. And we’ll just keep going a little bit.
Mark Lawson
I have done the deed, just thou not hear a noise.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak
Mark Lawson
When?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No
Mark Lawson
Is I descendant.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I
Mark Lawson
Park who lies at the second chamber?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Donald Bain,
Mark Lawson
This is a sorry sight.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
A foolish thought to say a sorry sight.
Mark Lawson
There’s one did laugh and sleep and one cried murder that they did wake each other. I stood and heard them, but they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
There Are two lodged together,
Mark Lawson
One cried, God bless us and ah, amen. The other, as they had seen me with these hangman’s hands listening, their fear, I could not say amen when they did say, God bless us,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Consider it not so deeply.
Mark Lawson
But wherefore, could I not pronounce ah. Amen. I had most need of blessing An amen stuck in my throat.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
These deeds must not be thought after these ways. So it will make us mad.
Mark Lawson
Thought I heard a voice cry. Sleep no more Macbeth does murder. Sleep. The innocent sleep. Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life. Sore labor’s, bath balm of hurt minds. Great nature. Second course. Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What do you mean?
Nick Cagle
Okay, let’s stop there you guys before what I think since we’re, we’re at the end of our session now today and I would hate to end on a working note ’cause I really like to hear you guys perform it a little bit before we, before we close out. So could we keep these things in mind and, and we’ll start back from the top. Gideon, do you mind? And then we’ll just let them barrel through this scene.
Gideon Rappaport
That’s funny. Fi fine. The only thing I would say, mark, is that in line 35, innocent sleep and so on, just discover each of those things as a new wave of, of frustration that you’re not gonna have that. That’s, that was my only note there. So yeah, fine. Go ahead.
Nick Cagle
Awesome. You guys keep all the things in mind that we said and have a great time.
Mark Lawson
Hmm. Yeah.
Nathan Agin
Thank you guys. Thank you.
Nick Cagle
We’re gonna, we’re gonna do, we’re gonna read the scene one more time here. Oh, you’re gonna read it one more time.
Nathan Agin
Okay,
Nick Cagle
great. Is that okay? We got two minutes left.
Nathan Agin
Sorry, I, I came down to the, the stage too quickly. I’m sorry. Lemme get, lemme run back to another darkened seat.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Creepy groom.
Mark Lawson
Groom.
Nick Cagle
Alright,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
That which have made them drunk have made me bold. What has quenched them have given me? Fire park peace. The owl that shrieked the fatal bowman, which gives the stern goodnight. He is about it. The doors are open and the surfed rooms do mock their charge with Sonos have drugged their PTs that death and nature do contend about them, whether they live or die.
Mark Lawson
Who was there? What? Oh,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Alek. I’m afraid they have awake and has not done the attempt and not the deed confounds us. Ha I laid their daggers ready. He could not miss them. Had he not resembled my father as he slept. I had done my husband.
Mark Lawson
I have done the deed. Does thou not hear a noise?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did you not speak
Mark Lawson
When?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
No.
Mark Lawson
Has I descended?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I
Mark Lawson
Park who lies at the second chamber?
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Donald ba.
Mark Lawson
This Is a sorry sight.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
A foolish thought to say a sorry. Sight
Mark Lawson
As one did laugh and sleep and one cried murder that they did wake each other. I stood and heard them, but they did say their prayers and addressed them again to sleep.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
There are two lodged together.
Mark Lawson
One cried God bless us and Ahm and the other. As they had seen me with these hangman’s hands listening their fear, I could not say Ah. Amen. When they did say, God bless us,
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Consider it not so deeply.
Mark Lawson
But wherefore, could I not pronounce Amen? I had most need of blessing and ah, men stuck in my throat.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
These deeds must not be thought after these ways, so it will make us mad. He
Mark Lawson
thought I heard a voice cry. Sleep no more Macbeth does. Murder, sleep. The innocent sleep. Sleep that knits up the raveled sleeve of care, the death of each day’s life. Sore labor’s bath balm of hurt minds. Great nature’s second course Chief nourisher in life’s feast.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
What do you mean
Mark Lawson
Still? It cried. Sleep no more to all the house eth murdered sleep and therefore corridor door shall sleep. No more Macbeth shall sleep no more.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Oh, was it that? Thus cried by worthy saying, you do unbend your noble strength to think so brains sickly of things.
Go get some water and wash the, this filthy witness from your hand.
Why did you bring these daggers from the place? They must lie there. Go carry them and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.
Mark Lawson
I’ll go no more. I’m afraid to think what I’ve done. Look on again. I dare not
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
In firm of purpose. Give me the daggers, the sleeping and the dead are but as pictures, which is the eye of childhood that fears the painted devil. If you do bleed, I’ll guild the faces of the grooms with all for it must seem their guilt.
Mark Lawson
Just that knocking. I whispered with me when every noise appalls me. What hands are here? They pluck out mine eyes will all great Neptunes will, will all great Neptunes oceans wash this blood clean from my hand?
No, this my hand will rather the multitude and the seas in Carine making the green one red.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
My hands are of your color, but I shame to wear a heart. So white I hear a knocking at the south entry retire. We to our chamber. A little water clears us of this deed. How easy is it then? The constancy has left you unattended.
More knocking. Get on your nightgown. Let’s occasion call us and show us to be watchers. Be not lost. So poorly in your thoughts.
Mark Lawson
To know my deed. Were best not know myself. Wait, Duncan, with thy knocking, I would the k, the patented Nick Kegel applause. You guys are
Nick Cagle
really, really wonderful actors. Thank you. No joke. Like you’re really just nailing this so hard. It’s, it’s, it’s a joy. It’s an absolute joy to watch and listen to.
Gideon Rappaport
Absolutely. Wonderful.
Nick Cagle
Congratulations. That was a beautiful read. You know, mark, you made, you made a mistake and you took it back before sort of green, one red area. But you might wanna look at taking a pause right there where that mistake happened. It may have been a happy accident because it really worked. You know what I mean? You took this moment and then you, you went on and it, it was beautiful. Like it, I don’t know. Every now and then the something like that happens and it’s the language informing you for sure what, what it wants you to do. Great work. Bravo. Thank You.
Mark Lawson
Well, it, I mean, I think it’s, it was a full stop and I think how they pluck out my eyes, it feels like, you know, previously it’s been one that I wanted to just kind of get to the juicy, get to the juicy language, right? But, but letting it sink in for just a second before I said it, I think really
Nick Cagle
helps. And it gave gave a a a the audience a a moment to breathe. You guys are both really finding those, those beats be Megan, you have a wonderful sense of urgency, but keeping it quiet at the same time. And I really, I’m really enjoying all the layer. I see all the layers that you’re playing with and thank you really, really great. I, I love, yeah, I really want you guys to do this show so bad. Oh my goodness. We have to produce this. Come on, Nathan.
Nathan Agin
Find as a venue Nick. We will be there. I i I there’s a lot of little, a lot of open land on, on in Hawaii. Right.
Nick Cagle
You can just do that a show somewhere.
Nathan Agin
There you go. Perfect.
Nick Cagle
I do think it’s a Christmas show now though though. It’s a
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Christmas show.
Nick Cagle
It’s a Christmas show. Never.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
I think it would, so like, I mean, you think would
Nick Cagle
when she was, but wouldn’t that be like super creepy? Yes.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
If it was
Mark Lawson
be with wo and
Nick Cagle
I show so creepy. Oh,
Nathan Agin
well. So something to definitely consider about what I, what I really enjoyed or what I really enjoy about these sessions in, in general is, at least for my money, it’s, it’s not about necessarily trying to make this right, quote unquote. Of course you want to like figure out what the characters are saying and, and, and, and all of that. But it, it’s so much more about having the time to do the work that really explore this stuff as in depth as you guys are doing. And, and it is just been a really fascinating and, and educational for me too, just to hear you unpack all these lines and look at the, look at the consonants in, in depth or, or look at the rhythms and, and just so many of the things that you just never have time to do in a production, but you just, you, you’re, you’re allowing yourself to kind of indulge in that stuff right now, which I think is great because it can open up so many other ideas and choices and things to, to consider.
So yeah, no, great, great work this evening everybody. Really.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
Thank you, Chris. It was a blast.
Mark Lawson
Thank you. Yeah.
Nick Cagle
Bravo. Bravo. Perfect. And thank you so much for your wonderful insight into this language. We’re really great.
Gideon Rappaport
It’s, it, it’s unlimited. What Shakespeare has to offer us is unlimited. So there’s no, there’s no end to the riches.
Nathan Agin
I almost thought you were gonna say what, what you know is unlimited Gideon, which is pretty, it seems pretty close. I
Gideon Rappaport
Don’t know. No, that is far from the truth. I just know where to look things up.
Nathan Agin
Good. Well that’s great. Well, perfect. For those watching, I hope you really enjoyed this session. Come on back for session four, while we call it the final session. It’s, it’s not a final performance. There’s, there’s nothing definitive about anything people are doing. It’s just the next step in the process and, and where everybody’s at with their work. But I think it’ll just continue to blossom and get richer and deeper and hopefully you’ll continue to en enjoy and learn things about these scenes. So yeah, thanks for a, a great, another great session tonight and we’ll, we’ll see you guys back here next week.
Meaghan Boeing (she/her)
See you next week.
Nick Cagle
Bravo everybody.
Mark Lawson
Thank you guys. Good
Gideon Rappaport
work. Good work.
Nathan Agin
All right. Bye-Bye
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