For 'tis my limited service.
Having an audience this weekend was so instructive and exciting. And the show jumped to a whole new level. What sets theatre apart from other art forms is that it is a living breathing artistic endeavor and there is almost always growth during the run of a play. With Jack directing, there will never be a time to sit back and rest on our laurels. And that's one of the things I admire most about him. It's all journey, after all.
And the journey for me has been a little bit crazy already. When Jack called me up to offer me the role, I had just accepted a role in "Dinner with Friends" at Little Fish Theatre. I didn't see how I could do both. But Jack had a feeling about me in this role, and he called back. After checking the schedules against one another, I thought I could make it work. The hold up would have been our closing weekend at LFT. So on a whim, I emailed the director of DWF and asked if there was any chance that I could be understudied for closing. (I said that "no" was a perfectly legit answer). Well, the lovely Little Fish people moved heaven and earth and actually changed the closing dates for me so that I could do all the shows. And so for the first few weeks I was rehearsing two shows simultaneously. As we were going into tech for "DWF," we found out that our electrical grid had been damaged by the California storms, and the show had to be postponed. So Little Fish has been upgrading the electrical system for the last month, and we will be opening on May 10th now. But I can't express how grateful I am to work with two wonderful companies that care for me enough to double check availability, and move things around to accommodate me. Nor can I calculate how unhappy I would have been to have missed out on this amazing experience only to have my show bumped anyway. But now I am doing both and couldn't be happier. And after you come see Macbeth Revisited, come see Dinner with Friends. Here's the link.
http://www.littlefishtheatre.org/wp/dinner-with-friends/
Macduff's journey is an interesting one as well. We don't learn a lot about him before he shows up pounding on the door for the Porter scene after Macbeth kills Duncan (spoiler alert). He's Thane of Fife, and we learn from Ross (always the harbinger of crappy news) that Norway and the disloyal Thane of Cawdor besieged Fife until Macbeth came in and kicked their asses out of there. No mention is made of Macduff's role in the war. He shows up. Bangs on the gate a million times until he is admitted. Jokes with the porter and then Macbeth shows him the door to Duncan's rooms. Macduff jokes about his "limited service" in the great conflict being to wake up the king and continue the journey. And then he finds him murdered. And everything changes. He is the first Thane to abandon Macbeth as king, not going to the coronation and refusing to attend the feast. He instead heads to England to attempt to convince Malcolm to return to Scotland and fight the tyrant. In doing so he leaves his family vulnerable. He is one of many who underestimates Macbeth's ability to do the unconscionable. After Macbeth visits the witches again and hears that he should fear the Thane of Fife, he has Macduff's family and everybody who works for him savagely slaughtered. (spoiler alert...I should probably put these before the spoilers, but hey the play is 400 years old and taught in school). He pays the ultimate price, goes on the classic hero's journey and in the end faces the tyrant. It's been a great journey to take as an actor. Jack and John both have talked about this play defying expectation. You walk into a scene expecting one thing, and then something horrible happens and you are a different person leaving that scene. This is likely true of every character in the play, but I know first hand that it is the absolute truth of Macduff. Finding that journey and being open to those forces has been, at times, daunting. We experimented with a variety of responses and non-responses to the news of the slaughter of Macduff's family. What best tells the story? And as I think I mentioned in a previous blog, we all entered this process knowing that this scene is a show killer. (and not in a good way). It is one of many things which need to be solved to make this play work. (I will write about that in a future blog, as I am super impressed by how we have solved so many of the traps that live in this play).
We are still working and will continue to do so. I was really humbled by the comments made to me by people who have seen the show as to the effectiveness of that scene. And delighted by Steven Stanley's review in which he singled that very scene out. Read that here:
http://www.stagescenela.com/2017/04/macbeth-revisited/
Ok, this blog went in a lot of different directions, but as I am spending most of this year working on this play, I am figuring things out as I go. Please come and see the show. Second weekends are always tough for audience. You can order online at http://www.newamericantheatre.com/tickets.html If you can't afford to pay full price, you can use my discount. mbcast15 for $15 dollar tickets.
The journey will continue next week. And I may even mention other people. But this blog, for now, continues to be Patrick-centric.
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