The curse of Macbeth
26 May 2004
By
GREG DIXON
It
is best to talk about dark things in bright sunlight. And Shakespeare's
Macbeth, a thing exploring the darkest corners of power and corrupt
ambition, certainly has a lingering menace, a black soul.
So
Michael Hurst and I have dragged a couple of chairs into the benevolent
warmth of this autumn day. Albeit we've dragged them out into
a chipsealed carpark out the front of a dank, frigid rehearsal
hall behind Auckland's Motat.
But
the morning's blue sky is best for shedding light on what makes
the Scottish play the most malevolent of the Bard's tragedies.
Theatre
tradition, of course, has its malevolence cast in the shroud of
bad luck. And certainly Hurst - who opens his third version of
Macbeth at the Maidment Theatre tomorrow - might claim to have
felt its touch.
When
he first played the infamous Scotsman as a 28-year-old in the
1986 Theatre Corporate production, he walked off the top of the
set, smashed his knees and could hardly walk for a couple of performances.
Then he got a lung infection that meant he had to hide inhalers
all over the set.
When
he directed (though did not star in) the play at the Herald Theatre
in 1992, a boy fell off the set and broke his leg.
Only
the gods - or perhaps demons - of theatre know what awaits this
production, but Hurst, who takes the lead and directs, claims
not to be superstitious about Macbeth.
If
it has a reputation for bad luck - and speaking its name or quoting
it in the theatre dressing room traditionally invokes a silly,
convoluted ritual to dispel the curse - then it is more likely
the superstition comes from the history of its playing rather
than the play itself.
"The
best explanation is that throughout its history, when theatres
were struggling, one of the plays they would always do was Macbeth,
because it was popular," he offers.
"So,
as a play, it is associated with bad times in the theatre. That
makes sense to me."
But
there is no doubting there is a heart of darkness inside Macbeth
as he and wife, Lady Macbeth (Anna Hewlett, who played Ophelia
to Hurst's Hamlet in last year's lauded production), plan then
execute regicide.
"The
quote that I'm using from some critic I don't remember is that
[it's about] knowingly waging mortal war on your own soul.
"That's
what it's about - that [moral] decision and that, in spite of
knowing completely what's going to happen, still doing it.
"And,
I suppose, it's about succumbing to that temptation we all know
is at the very edges of our consciousness, though few of us go
there - well, not many people who are sane go there. But people
should not make the mistake of thinking Macbeth goes mad, because
he does not go mad. He's clear right to the end."
Which,
of course, is what evil is. And Hurst says that is the terrifying
thing - there is no excuse for Macbeth's actions.
Since
his first foray across Macbeth's black heath in his 20s, his and
other productions he has seen in London and here have all left
him with a sense of boy's own adventure.
What
he wants with this production is a crawling horror, a sense of
damnation. He is on a mission to explore the tragedy's darker
psychology.
"In
Macbeth it doesn't just get dark, the light 'thickens'. When he
says that, that's the feeling we should be having in the theatre.
I'm trying to give that a go. Yes, there's a big fight at the
end to satisfy the dramatic nature of the piece. It comes ready-made
with witches, horror, ghosts, blood. You'd have to be an idiot,
really, not to make the play flow on that level.
"But
it is the deep level that we've got to find. Yes, we can do boy's
own adventure, yes, we do witches. It's easy, it's in there. But
ultimately, the play isn't called The Witches, or Banquo, or Ghosts,
it's called Macbeth.
"What
is that? I haven't got all the answers, but I'm getting there.
Maybe I won't have all the answers by the end of the production."
He
says he is at the right age to at least go looking for the answers.
His
younger self played a highly physical and extremely action-packed
Macbeth in a memorable performance yet even then he could feel
something not quite there. He felt he needed to be in his 40s
(he's now 46) to fully explore the character.
"When
I played him when I was younger, I was valiant and a man who was
nice, or a good man trying to make it that way. But he's not a
nice man."
Indeed.
Macbeth doesn't just kill the king, the first thing he does after
that is do in two servants, then he murders his best friend Banquo
(Mercy Peak's Peter Daube).
There are rumours of people hanged from trees, and he orders the
murder of children.
It
is a play soaked in blood and intense immorality. But Hurst says
the miracle of Macbeth is that although he does all these things,
incredibly, we still admire this character.
"We
feel for him when he gets killed. That's the miracle of the verse
- it is odd. I think the genius is in the fact that the more he
starts to do this, the less he feels.
"And
that's the thing that pains us, that agonises us. By the time
he hears of the death of his wife and he does that famous 'tomorrow
and tomorrow' speech, he is saying that life is nothing. And to
me that is one of the most important words in the play after 'blood',
the word 'nothing'.
"This
Macbeth will look to find a way to explore the despair, not out
of beating your breast, but out of nothingness. He has nowhere
to go, but at the end he summons up this extraordinary bombastic,
weird speech and then he has to be squashed like a bug because
we can't allow that sort of evil in the world.
"It's
the strain of evil, which provides a there-but-for-the-grace-of-God
quality, that makes the play so appealing. We want that as an
audience, we want to exorcise the demons. We don't want him to
take us any further into this miasma of evil, yet we can't resist."
©Copyright
2004, New Zealand Herald |