0:03 If this workshop's done anything, I I
0:06 hope it's it's scotched the u in my view
0:09 wrong belief that
0:12 Shakespeare's verses music and all you
0:14 have to find out is the tune and
0:15 everything will be all right. Rather, I
0:17 believe that if you look after the
0:19 sense, the sounds will look after
0:21 themselves. I saw Maritzio Pellini play
0:24 a late Beethoven sonata recently and I
0:28 had a a strange feeling for about five
0:30 miraculous seconds that I didn't know
0:32 whether he was putting the music into
0:34 the piano
0:36 uh or whether he was taking it out of
0:37 the piano
0:41 and acting at its best. Shakespeare I
0:43 think is
0:46 of that nature that the actor is the
0:48 playwright and the character simultaneously.
0:51 simultaneously.
0:54 Uh this can only be achieved by the
0:57 actor having total awareness of all the complexities
0:58 complexities
1:01 uh uh of Shakespeare.
1:03 So if we take a speech like McBth's last
1:06 saliloquate uh tomorrow and tomorrow and
1:09 tomorrow which uh to crudely summarize
1:13 is is a is a description of total
1:17 blackness, total despair uh that life is
1:20 finite. Uh it isn't enough just to say
1:22 that and put that quality of despair
1:24 into the voice and just hope it and and
1:26 just follow the rhythms. You've got to
1:28 do many more things as well. You have to
1:31 think and have analyzed in rehearsal uh
1:33 totally so that your imagination uh
1:35 being fed by the concrete metaphors
1:39 concrete images pictures uh can then
1:41 feed through into the body into gesture
1:44 into uh tambber of voice into eyelids
1:46 into every part of the actor's makeup.
1:50 So that it does seem as just said that
1:51 he is making it up as he goes along
1:53 although the actor of course knows that
1:55 he isn't. But to start at the top with
1:58 the first line and I'll try as far as
2:00 possible to relate this to blank verse
2:02 but it will be impossible for me not to
2:05 mention uh imagery and also all sorts of
2:07 other uh literary devices which we
2:09 haven't been talking about generally today.
2:12 today.
2:16 Um Satan says to McBth the queen my lord
2:17 is dead.
2:20 And McBth replies she should have died
2:23 hereafter which is a short line. she
2:26 should have died hereafter
2:27 indicating that there should be a pause
2:29 I think and during that pause in
2:31 performance uh with the audience rather
2:34 around me as you are now I used to take
2:36 that advant uh advantage of that pause
2:39 uh to catch the audience's eye uh and
2:43 begin the siloquy which is uh mcbth me
2:46 the actor to talking directly sharing my
2:49 thoughts with you the audience hereafter
2:52 is introduces one element of time the
2:54 future future.
2:56 Let me get a regular blank verse line.
2:58 There would have been a time for such a word.
3:00 word.
3:02 There would have been a time stressed
3:05 time. This speech is about time for such
3:08 a word. Word is the last line. Uh what
3:10 word? Uh is it she the queen? Is it
3:12 hereafter? Is it time? There's something
3:15 about that line which trips in Hamlet's
3:17 words. Tick tocks like a clock. There
3:18 would have been a time for such a word.
3:20 It's leading on to the next line. And
3:22 here comes the word which is important. Tomorrow
3:24 Tomorrow
3:28 and tomorrow and tomorrow. There only
3:31 two words uh in that uh uh line an
3:33 irregular line
3:37 given weight by its uh repetition three
3:39 times and the tripping of there would
3:41 have been a time for such a word slows
3:45 down on tomorrow and tomorrow and
3:48 tomorrow. The rhythm is important.
3:51 It's also a non nonsense word if you say
3:53 it three times or if you say it 20 times
3:55 like a kid skipping tomorrow and
3:56 tomorrow and tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
3:56 tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
3:57 tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow tomorrow
3:59 tomorrow. What does that word mean
4:02 tomorrow? It's beginning to have
4:05 the lack of meaning I think that McBTH
4:08 detects in his own life at this point
4:10 creeps in this petty pace from day to
4:14 day. And here comes the first metaphor,
4:16 the first image.
4:19 And uh the rhythm is beginning to creep,
4:21 is beginning to plot like someone
4:24 plotting along uh plotting along a
4:26 country lane. Its footsteps now, not the
4:29 tick-tock of a clock creeps in this
4:34 petty pace from day to day.
4:36 Well, we've had tomorrow. We've now got
4:39 today at the end of the line from day to
4:42 day. But it leads on to the next line to
4:46 not day but the last syllable of
4:48 recorded time. And it slows up even more
4:50 ending up with a very important word
4:53 time at the end of the sentence.
4:56 Sy bell. I wonder if bell isn't the bell
4:59 of a clock which records time. And we
5:01 get a regular line. And all our
5:04 yesterdays have lighted fools. Yesterday
5:06 we've had tomorrow. We've had today.
5:07 We've now got yesterday. We've got the
5:10 whole complex of time. McBth is not just
5:11 talking about himself. He's talking
5:13 about eternity and going to say
5:16 something about it.
5:19 All our yesterdays have lighted fools
5:22 the way to dusted death. And that's
5:24 where the sentence ends in the middle of
5:27 the next line.
5:29 But one has to carry on uh and speak it
5:32 as a line and a half. All our yesterdays
5:35 have lighted fools the way to dust to
5:36 death. What is the image there that I
5:40 must have clearly in my mind so that I
5:42 can get the right emotion of despair?
5:45 It's what? It's a fool walking along a
5:49 dusty path, plotting, creeping with
5:52 petty pace. A fool is what? A village idiot
5:54 idiot
5:56 wandering along a country lane with
5:57 what? A guttering candle. I don't know,
6:01 a lantern. Uh fool is a pun. Of course
6:05 uh fools uh like Leah's fool festy uh in
6:07 12th night are professional entertainers
6:09 that will be relevant in a moment and I
6:11 have to contain in my mind as I say the
6:14 word fool that it is a pun see two sorts
6:17 of fools
6:22 that line is completed with the shock of
6:25 the harsh rhythm of out
6:27 brief candle
6:29 the fool's
6:31 candle has caught uh a gust of wind and
6:33 is blown out and he collapses into a
6:36 dusty death in the unmade road of
6:38 Elizabeth and England. The last candle
6:40 or light we saw in the play is Lady
6:42 McBth's candle which she was carrying in
6:46 her sleepwalking scene and she is dead.
6:48 It's Lady McBth's death which is being
6:51 talked about in the speech. It is the
6:53 fool's death,
6:55 village idiot's death. It's going to be
6:57 McBth's death. It's going to be
6:59 everybody's death.
7:02 Uh it's at this time about this time
7:03 that Shakespeare wrote McBth that
7:07 candles will be used in indoor theaters.
7:10 Uh and that may be relevant too when we
7:11 get on to the next line which is life's
7:17 Walking gentleman is a phrase we still
7:19 use in the theater meaning someone who
7:21 is available in any company to walk on
7:23 and play a meager part. He's the
7:25 lowliest member of a company. But life
7:27 is not even a walking gentleman. is a
7:29 walking shadow less than even the
7:31 meanest player.
7:35 And the line is completed uh by a poor
7:37 player. Life's but a walking shadow, a
7:40 poor player that struts and frets his
7:44 eye upon the stage. And although
7:46 although McBth is talking about time
7:51 about life, Shakespeare is bringing that
7:55 those vast uh um uh vast concepts very
7:58 concrete, very particular,
8:01 not just to McBTH himself, but to the
8:04 actor who is playing McBth. Because
8:06 we're now talking about players and the
8:08 audience who know they are an audience
8:10 know that Mckllen playing McBth is an
8:13 actor. They are beginning to be drawn
8:17 into McBth's uh dilemma as McBth relates
8:21 it uh to a player to an actor.
8:23 That's a regular line that struts and
8:25 frets his out upon the stage. And we're
8:28 reminded perhaps of the King Kambises
8:31 and Marloian regular verse and people
8:35 who do stamp out the rhythm as they uh parade
8:38 parade
8:41 that Strats and Frets is our
8:44 concept of time upon the stage and then
8:46 is heard no more.
8:49 End of sentence, end of thought. middle
8:52 of the line. However,
8:55 it is a tale
8:57 told by an idiot.
9:00 Idiot um reaches back into the fool who
9:02 was walking along the country lane with
9:06 a candle that went out
9:10 full of sound and fury. End of line. And
9:18 And the beats of the rest of that
9:21 pentameter are not there because at the
9:23 end of the speech is total silence,
9:27 total oblivion, total emptiness.
9:28 So much one could say about it. But just
9:31 let me run through the last lines of the
9:34 last words of each line and you'll see
9:36 that they add up to what the speech is
9:39 all about. Hereafter
9:42 word tomorrow
9:46 today time fools
9:56 nothing
9:59 I must have all that in my mind as I'm
10:01 going through it not so that you the
10:03 audience can understand those
10:04 complexities because I'm not giving a
10:07 lecture I think the poetry and the
10:09 rhythm them and all those devices that
10:10 Shakespeare uses are not for the
10:12 audience's benefit. They are for the
10:15 actors so that having absorbed them into
10:17 his heart and his mind he can then
10:19 express them with all the other things
10:22 at his command which are his body his
10:24 facial expression and if the production
10:26 is working well the way the uh
10:28 production is blocked is arranged the
10:30 way the scenery is painted and the way
10:33 the lights are lit
10:36 the queen
10:38 my lord
10:51 There would have been a time for such a word.
10:52 word. Tomorrow
11:09 creeps in this petty pace from day to
11:14 day to the last syllable of recorded time.
11:16 time.
11:19 And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
11:20 fools
11:24 the way to dusty death
11:40 A poor player that struts and frets his
11:43 hour up on the stage.
11:47 and then is heard no more.
11:53 It is a tale told by an idiot,
