Macbeth Trailer Transcript Assembly 01

AM - we are very early in rehearsals but I think Macbeth is basically what it says on the tin. AM - It’s very straightforward, the language is not too convoluted, it’s blood, it’s gore, it’s power and strength and greed and all that kind of stuff. LPW - it’s perhaps one of his less complicated plays, and it’s interesting that he doesn’t use some of the word play that he uses in other plays LPW - it’s such a good story that I think it bears the retelling and that every time an audience sees and hears it it yields different things LPW - my job is to stand out of the way of the play and let the play speak for itself LB - when you’re confronted with a great play and a great part obviously there’s pressure, but the only way I’ve learned over the years to cope with that idea of [inaudible] famous parts is that you just have to put that stuff out of your head TITLE - Macbeth LB - He starts the play as a general, a soldier. He’s the Thane of Glamis... in the course of the play he becomes Thane of Cawdor as well, and then King. He’s a husband and becomes a tyrant. LPW - . I have this image in my head that Macbeth was written for James VI (or James I) and that Shakespeare was writing quite a bespoke play and perhaps James VI liked James Bond films and wanted a kind of action herotype play AM - Liam’s just such a fabulous actor to play Macbeth. AM - we’ve just such an electricity and there is such a passion AM - a real passion with him and I in the rehearsal room AM - The great thing is that we just work so well together and I’m not scared by him and he’s not scared by me, so the first day of rehearsal there was snogging, there was throwing each other around the room, we’re very free with each other TITLE - Lady Macbeth LB - it’s nice to have a just an ease with someone from day one so you don’t have to pussyfoot about snogging or whatever, it’s lovely to have that at ease with someone LB - I think she’ll bring a passion and an intelligence to it

AM - I think first and foremost she’s a wife, she’s a homemaker, she’s a very very intelligent woman. AM - I think she’s a very strong woman who’s the backbone, the crutch of Macbeth and I think has been, not just in the things that happen in the play but I think in their marriage she’s been the backbone of him and... yeah, a very shrewd customer! LPW - I think I see them in terms of being a reasonably young couple LPW - a couple who are very much in love, and there’s a strong possibility that things could go well for them, but of course Macbeth’s ambition gets in the way. TITLE - A Fall from Grace LB - I think one of the tragedies of the play is that relationship, that marriage being wrested apart, because it seems to me that in the beginning they’re very very close and tight and together, but their appalling decision to do this rends them asunder LPW - we’re very keen that the actors really know what they’re talking about so that they have the thoughts in place and that allows them to convey the sense to an audience so even if an audience doesn’t get every single last word they’ll get the sense of what they say. AM - The audience have to have an affection for this woman to be able to see how far she and her husband fall. TITLE - The World of Macbeth LPW - Lucy Osborne and I got together and started to think about what the world of Macbeth might be and I felt very strongly that I wanted to set it in a kind of traditional way because it’s very often there are lots of productions perhaps quite recently that have been wonderful but set in very modern contemporary settings. LPW - so we ended up talking about medieval Scotland which is the sort of imaginative world that Shakespeare set it in, and taking being in Scotland that seemed like a fantastic place to start. AM - So that’s what we’re trying to do here – a very... not “straightforward” production, but a very “shooting from the hip”, you know, it is... bold, it’s a very bold production we’re doing here LPW - the image of the Scottish warrior and his broadsword seemed to be a wonderful place to start

LPW - So the set has a feeling of a .....[inaudible] feels like a medieval castle but it’s also a medieval castle set in a rather wild strange landscape which is I would say kind of the witches’ landscape LPW - And because it’s set in a medieval world it’s the idea that there are evil spirits lurking in the undergrowth is completely reasonable TITLE - Wartime LPW - I’ve been very lucky because I’ve worked with Terry King who’s a great sword choreographer and fight director LPW - I said we’re thinking about a kind of medieval world, and he said well you’ll want, they’re not quite broadswords but they’re kind of in that area and he said to me that there are about five in the country that are really good ones – shall I book them? So we have the five best fighting swords in the country LB - one of the fascinating things I think about this play is that although you are and you should be appalled by what he does and what he becomes, we’re still I think hopefully fascinated by him because he keeps turning to us in the soliloquies and telling us how he feels to be where he’s ended up LB - he’s very articulate about what it feels like to be this kind of monster, butcher, killer LPW - Terry and I and the actors talk about what the story of the fight is LPW - it’s not just a fight that’s kind of plonked in like a kind of strange piece of dance that comes from nowhere LPW - and then obviously he takes the actors and works through very slowly the moves, so we have a kind of strange thing where they appear to be working in slow motion and then they get faster and faster and faster LPW - to begin with it looks like the rest of the company are like “why are they doing it in slow motion?” and you’re like “just you wait, it’ll be very fast!” AM - A lot of testosterone on that stage... and in rehearsals, yes a lot of testosterone!