Ngaio Marsh - Light Thickens

Macbeth was superb. The triumphant soldier — a glorious figure: ruddy, assured, glowing with his victories. Now, face to face with evil itself and hailed by the title. The hidden dream suddenly made actual; the unwholesome pretense, a tangible reality. He writes to his wife and sends the letter ahead of his own arrival.

Enter the Lady. Maggie was still feeling her way with the part, but there were no doubts about her intention. She had deliberately faced the facts and made her choice, rejected the right and fiercely embraced the wrong. She now braces herself for the monstrous task of screwing her husband to the sticking-place. She knows very well that there was no substance in their previous talks although his morbidly vivid imagination gave them a nightmarish reality.

The play hurried on: the festive air, Macbeth’s piper, servants scurrying with dishes of food and flagons of wine, and all the time Macbeth is crumbling. The great barbaric chieftain who should outshine all the rest makes dismal mistakes. He was not there to welcome the King, is not in his place now. His wife has to leave the feast, find him, tell him the King is asking for him, only to have him say he will proceed no further in the business and offer conventional reasons.

There is no time to lose. For the last assault she lays the plot before her husband (and the audience) — quickly, urgently, and clearly. He catches fire, says he is “ settled ,” and commits himself to damnation.

Seyton, with the claymore, appears in the shadows. He follows them off.

The lights will be extinguished by a servant who leaves only the torch in a wall-bracket outside the King’s door. A pause, during which the stealthy sounds of the night will be established. Cricket and owl. The sudden crack of expanding wood. A ghostly figure, who would scarcely be seen when the lighting was established, appears on the upper level, enters the King’s room, waits there for a heartbeat or two, reenters, and slips away into the shadows… The Lady.

An inner door at ground-level opens to admit Banquo and Fleance and the exquisite little night scene follows.

Bruce Barrabell had a wonderful voice and he knew how to use it, which is not to say he turned on “the Voice Beautiful.” It was there, a gift of nature, an arrangement of vocal chords and resonators that stirred the blood in the listener. He looked up and one knew it was at the night sky where husbandry was practiced and the candles were all out. He felt the nervous, emaciated tension of the small hours and was startled by the appearance of Macbeth attended by the tall shadow of Seyton.

He says he dreamed of the three weird sisters. Macbeth replies that he thinks not of them and then goes on, against every nerve in the listener’s body, to ask Banquo to have a little talk about the sisters when he has time. Talk? What about? He goes on, with sickening ineptitude, to say the talk will “ make honour ” for Banquo, who at once replies that as long as he loses none he will be “ counsell’d ,” and they say good-night.

Peregrine thought: Right . That was right . And when Banquo and Fleance went off he clapped his hands softly but not so softly that Banquo didn’t hear him.

Now Macbeth is alone. The ascent to the murder is begun. Up and up the steps, following the dagger that he knows is a hallucination. A bell rings. Hear it not, Duncan .

Dougal was not firm in his lines. He started off without the book but depended more and more on the prompter, couldn’t pick it up, shouted “ What !” flew into a temper, and finally started off again with his book in his hand.

“I’m not ready,” he shouted to Peregrine.

“All right. Take it quietly and read.”

“I’m not ready .”

Peregrine said: “All right, Dougal. Cut to the end of the speech and keep your hair on. Give your exit line and off.”

“ Summons thee to heaven or to hell ,” Dougal snapped and stamped off through the mock-up exit at the top of the stair.

Reenter the Lady at stage-level.

Maggie was word-perfect. She was flushed with wine, overstrung, ready to start at the slightest sound but with the iron will to rule herself and Macbeth. When his cue for reentry came Dougal was back inside his part. His return at stage-level was all Peregrine hoped for.

“ I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise ?”

“ I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. Did not you speak ?”

“ When? ”

“ Now. ”

“ As I descended? ”

“ Ay. ”

“ Hark! Who lies i’ the second chamber? ”

“ Donalbain. ”

“ This is a sorry sight. ”

“ A foolish thought to say a sorry sight. ”

She glances at him. He stands there, blood-bedabbled and speaks of sleep. She sees the two grooms’ daggers in his hands and is horrified. He refuses to return them. She takes them from him and climbs up to the room.

Macbeth is alone. The cosmic terrors of the play roll in like breakers. At the touch of his hands the multitudinous seas are incarnadined, making the green one red.

The Lady returns.

Maggie and Dougal had worked together on this scene and it was beginning to take shape. The characters were the absolute antitheses of each other: he, every nerve twanging, lost to everything but the nightmarish reality of murder, horrified by what he has done. She, self-disciplined, self-schooled, logical, aware of the frightful dangers of his unleashed imagination. “ These deeds must not be thought after these ways: so it will make us mad. ”

She says a little water will clear them of the deed, and takes him off, God save the mark, to wash himself.

“We’ll stop here,” said Peregrine. “I’ve a lot of notes, but it’s shaping up well. Settle down, please, everybody.”

They were in the theatre. The stage was lit by working lights, and the shrouded house waited, empty, expectant, for whatever was to be poured into it.

The stage manager and his assistant shifted chairs onstage for the principals and the rest sat on the stairs. Peregrine laid his notes on the prompter’s table, switched on the lamp, and sat down.

He took a minute or two, reading his notes and seeing they were in order.

“It’s awfully stuffy in here,” said Maggie suddenly. “Breathless, sort of. Does anybody else think so?”

“The weather’s changed,” said Dougal. “It’s got much warmer.”

Blondie said: “I hope it’s not a beastly thunderstorm.”

“Why?”

“They give me the jimjams.”

“That comes well from a witch!”

“It’s electrical. I get pins and needles. I can’t help it.”

Ascendant thunder, startling, close, everywhere, rolled up to a sharp, definitive crack. Blondie screamed.

“Sorry!” she said. “I’m sorry.” She put her fingers in her ears. “I can’t help it. Truly. Sorry.”

“Never mind, child. Come over here,” said Maggie.

She held out her hand. Blondie, answering the gesture rather than the words, ran across and crouched beside her chair.

Rangi said: “It’s true, she can’t help it. It affects some people like that.”

Peregrine looked up from his notes. “What’s up?” he asked and then, seeing Blondie, said, “Oh. Oh, I see. Never mind, Blondie. We can’t see the lightning, can we, and the whole thing’ll be over soon. Brace up, there’s a good girl.”

“Yes. Okay.”

She straightened up. Maggie patted her shoulder. Her hand checked and then closed. She looked at the other players, made a long face, and briefly quivered her free hand at them.

“Are you cold, Blondie?” she asked.