Season Seven: Week 13

Tuesday

We were a little unfocused to begin with tonight, but we got back on track pretty quickly after playing one of our favorite circle games. It got very silly, to the point where nearly everyone in the room was laughing. Then, feeling more relaxed and ready to work, we got back to exploring scenes from the play.

We began with Banquo’s murder. As the women moved through the scene on its feet, it became clear how complicated the scene is even though it’s so brief. More often than not, the facilitators take a somewhat passive role as the ensemble members work out staging challenges, but this scene presented so many challenges and so few obvious textual clues that I jumped up to help before anyone could get too frustrated. And honestly, at this point in the process I feel okay about doing that. There are some women in the ensemble who have an innate knack for staging, but most do not, and seeing examples of how it can be guided helps to spark ideas in them. That leads to confidence in taking over later.

That said, once I nudged them in a certain direction, they took it over and further developed the ideas. I stepped away and simply encouraged rather than continuing to put forth my own ideas.

We moved on to Act III Scene i. Before anyone could even ask who wanted to work, one of the women said, loud and clear, “I wanna be Banquo.” Another woman said, “You just read Banquo.” “No,” said the first woman firmly. “I mean I wanna be Banquo. For real.” It’s really exciting to see her becoming so invested in the play and so assertive about her role in the ensemble. She was in the ensemble last year, and it took awhile for her to come out of her shell. At no point, though, did she assert herself like she’s doing this year. The entire nine-month process is important, and this is why performing at the end is imperative: that’s when things crystallize for most of the women. She behaved very differently after our performances, even in our wrap up, and she came back this fall with fierce dedication, ownership, and enthusiasm.

We read through the scene before putting it on its feet. It went well, but I didn’t realize that the woman reading Banquo had wanted to read through it by herself beforehand because she has trouble processing the language while reading aloud. The others jumped in to encourage her and give her some tips. One woman reminded her to breathe on the punctuation – something we talk about a lot, but that is tough to remember in the moment. Another woman suggested that she also take a moment to breathe whenever things start moving too fast. “Take a breath, then keep going,” she said. A longtime ensemble member recommended working with the language on her own as well. “I like to walk around in the rhythm of the words,” she said.

The woman playing Macbeth absolutely nailed the “To be thus is nothing…” soliloquy. So far she is the only person who’s expressed interest in playing the part. I’m curious about whether people are staying away from it in deference to how much she wants it and how beautifully she performs it or because they truly don’t want to play Macbeth. She’s not domineering in the least – I have no doubt that if someone decides they are interested, it will be a friendly “competition” – but I’m not sure that’s going to happen.

I asked them how the scene had felt. The woman who’d read Lady Macbeth said of Macbeth, “It’s like he’s angry, but he’s also scared.” The woman who’d read Macbeth shook her head and said, “Less angry, more fearful. And yet he’s also king, and that makes him pompous.”

There was some more back and forth, and, while it wasn’t heated, there was clearly some frustration building. “Maybe we can marry what you two are seeing,” I said. “Could we maybe call it ‘intensity’ rather than ‘fear’ or ‘anger?’” They agreed that that word was accurate.

It was a great night. We took the time we needed to get on the same page and then worked collaboratively and effectively. While we are generally not overly “productive” during this season, that’s not the point. Until we get on the other side of the holidays, it’s really about easing tension and stress, and continuing to develop our bonds as an ensemble.

Friday
 

Tonight during check-in, one of our ensemble members read us a poem she had written. It absolutely floored us; several of us had vocal reactions throughout. We enthusiastically praised her when she had finished – the poem was raw and real; gritty and elegant. It was a wonderful moment of coming together for all of us, and, I hope, provided a deeper sense of comfort with the ensemble for the woman who’d read.

We continued our exploration with Act I, Scene iii, in which Macbeth and Banquo meet the witches and are then informed that the prophecy about Macbeth becoming the Thane of Cawdor has come true. The first three women to read the witches decided to begin sitting on the floor, which they envisioned as an open field, just kind of chilling and talking. That was interesting and gave us a very different perspective on the witches’ relationship.

We were in a classroom tonight, so we worked in the round. The woman reading Macbeth said that she had felt strange taking the asides while being so physically close to the others on stage, but another woman said it had worked well because Macbeth had turned her back to the others each time; it had made the separation very clear.

We talked then about how we could build upon what we had just done. One woman envisioned the witches circling Macbeth and taunting him. Her idea gave me the idea that the same effect could be accomplished by having them do the opposite – moving away and making him follow. Another woman said that that would be effective in actually leaving Banquo out. Either approach could tell that story visually.

That led to a further discussion about the witches’ delivery and pacing. Should their three “hails” be delivered slowly? quickly? overlapping? We decided to try it a few different ways.

Our witches began seated again, but they got tongue tied and stopped. I encouraged them to start over and really enjoy themselves. Another woman suggested that they jump up for the story about the sailor and his wife.

“It seemed more real,” one of the witches said afterward. “You guys were feeding off each other,” said another woman. The woman reading Macbeth had also gained some clarity. “He’s weighing the pros and cons,” she said.

We then switched up casting, and I ended up reading one of the witches with two longtime ensemble members. We’ve been working together for years and have a chemistry that definitely enhanced our exploration. And it was so fun to read with them. Two of us began by crawling out from under the tables, and we improvised together very effectively; for example, we all began circling Macbeth at the same time without planning it, and we laughed at many of the same lines.

But, as usual with these two, as soon as the scene was over they focused on the others who’d read. The woman reading Ross had, in a moment of totally unexpected inspiration, read his lines as if she were extremely bored. It had actually seemed painful for her to speak the words. “I loved how you did that, man,” said one of the women who’d read a witch. “It was so freaking dope.”

But the group steered us back toward talking about the witches. “Did I move too much?” asked one. Everyone emphatically said no. “I liked that you were having fun,” said Kyle. The first woman said that she’d fed off of the two of us, particularly my physical commitment. “Do you know how much I was holding back?” I asked her. “With more rehearsal, we could all go even further.” One of the women likened our interpretation to the sisters in Hocus Pocus. She had even decided which sister each of us was.

We then looked at Act I Scene ii, specifically the Captain’s speeches. The woman who first read that part had previously been very focused on Hecate and upset that the entire character might be cut. Kyle had been working with her to identify another role that would satisfy what she wants to accomplish, and this was one of them. She lolled in a chair and delivered her lines clearly and effectively. “It felt great!” she said when the scene was over.

One of the women then jokingly nagged another woman who has been hesitant to read very much thus far – she had quietly told me earlier in the evening that she’s been trying to make room for the others since they have been so excited. But she was convinced to try the Captain tonight. The woman who’d done the convincing turned to me and said, “See, Frannie? I got the skillz.”

And she was FABULOUS. She read that part like a trained actor. There were levels vocally; she relished the language; she painted pictures; she took her time. It got us really revved up.

Throughout the evening, I approached each ensemble member to get an idea of what roles they’re interested in playing. I was intrigued to find that there is no overlap so far in people’s first choices. It’s possible that that will come – there were a few people absent – but it’s equally possible that we could cast this the old-fashioned way: just sitting in a circle and talking it out. That would be so fabulous. We’ll wait and see, but I don’t think casting is far off.

Season Seven: Week 12

Tuesday

 

We began tonight with a fairly long check-in. This is a particularly difficult time of year for incarcerated people, and we tend to relax our structure to make room for everyone to share and get as much support as she needs.

We’ve been so focused on reading the play that we haven’t done as much improv as we’d like, so we spent some time playing “Freeze,” which is a fantastic game for getting used to thinking on our feet. It’s also really fun. Even though some of the scenes were duds (… many of those were mine. I was the weakest link tonight, without question.), we had a good time and gave each other a ton of support. During one scene in which two women were running a marathon in Africa while being chased by wild animals, several women who were watching started making animal noises to give the actors more to work with. In one quiet moment, one woman made some… interesting… “animal sounds.” The woman next to her slowly turned to look at her, barely containing her hilarity, and said, “Dude, what kind of animal was THAT?” The woman who’d made the sound shrugged her shoulders – she didn’t know, either – and we all laughed.

As we reflected on the game, a new ensemble member shared that she was worried about making a mistake on stage – improv experience or not. Those of us who’ve been through the mill on this reassured her in our usual way: we’ll all have your back; the audience generally won’t even know you’ve screwed up; we’ll all do it; some of our favorite moments are our biggest mistakes. And then, of course, we had to spend a little time reminiscing about those screw-ups – how funny they were, how we dealt with them, and how much we treasure those memories – even more so than the “perfect” moments.

The first scene we explored was the first scene of the play. It’s so brief that we were able to go through it a number of times. We experimented with the rhythm of the language and finding physical movement. One woman suggested that perhaps the witches operate “like the Fates in Hercules – they already know what each other is thinking.” Some of us were into that idea, and we tried it out. It worked pretty well, and we’ll definitely continue to experiment!

We then moved on to Act II Scene iv, in which the characters mull over the night’s strange events and what’s happening with Macbeth. The women jumped into it pretty quickly, and then one of them stopped so they could take some time to look over the language and start over. After clarifying some of the more challenging passages, they tried it again, and we understood what they were talking about much better.

I guess I was really enjoying the conversation after that and not taking notes, so I’m not sure where this came from, but one of the women joked, “Angus. You know his daddy was the steak guy.” There was a pause. Then Kyle said, “It’s true. Angus is the Thane of Steak.” We all burst out laughing. The silliness of the improv game clearly had not worn off.

We reflected a bit more on the scene. One woman felt that when Macduff enters, he should be tired and worn out. “Like he’s coming in and just sitting down at the bar,” she said. We all liked that idea. Another woman, who is older than many of the others, resisted the idea that the Old Man needs to be played as extremely elderly. She reminded us that “old” would have meant something a bit different in Shakespeare’s time. “Just because he’s ‘old’ doesn’t mean he’s decrepit,” she said. Then she darted a sardonic look at a younger woman who frequently needles her for being an “old lady.” That woman jumped, laughed, and said, “What?! I didn’t say anything! YOU’RE A LOT OLDER THAN ME! That’s all I’m saying!”

We gave the Captain’s speeches a go, with a longtime ensemble member playing the Captain. She said she wasn’t sure if she could do it. “You’ve done this before!” I said, reminding her of a particularly tricky monologue in The Taming of the Shrew that she absolutely nailed. “Paint the pictures just like you did then.”

And she did. A few others stayed in the playing space with her to listen and react. One of the women took that quite literally, gasping, jumping, even grabbing her arm each time she shared new information. This, in turn, led the Captain to become more and more animated, which, again, fired up the woman reacting. We were loving it. They kept playing off of each other, gaining steam. The listener even began to react with words, albeit words that I probably shouldn’t write in this blog… They all came from her heart, and it was hilarious, but out of context some of it might seem offensive. It wasn’t, though. It was great.

“Yeah!” said one woman after they’d finished (and we’d finished laughing). “I could feel it. Even without following along… And the audience was giving back to her, too.” The two women agreed that they’d felt extremely connected. The listener said, “Everything she was giving me, I just had to give it back.”

“That’s acting!” I said excitedly. “You connect with your scene partner, and each time she gives you something, you build off of it. And then she builds off of that. You feed each other. That’s what it’s all about!”

We gathered, then, to raise our ring of energy back up. We knelt together, slowly lifting the ring, and as we let it go and I thanked them for their work, the young woman said to the older woman, “Oh, man. That was a heavy one. I was worried about you for a sec. I didn’t know if you were gonna make it, old lady.”

Friday
 

Meeting the day after Thanksgiving is always a little iffy, but, given how challenging the holidays are for our ensemble members, we always make sure at least one facilitator can attend so that whomever needs it can take a break with us and have some fun. Tonight Matt and I were both there.

The beautiful CBS Detroit piece about our program aired Thanksgiving morning, and most of our ensemble members got to see it. So did most of the prison, apparently – an announcement over the PA system let everyone know that the piece would be on about twenty minutes before it aired.

Everyone loved it, although there were some jokes about how “the camera really does add ten pounds.” One woman said, “Even [name] and Frannie looked like that, and they’re tiny!” “Hey!” I said, “I thought I looked good!”

Several of them shared that friends at the prison weren’t the only ones who saw the piece – friends and family at home did, too. Some of them got phone calls from loved ones right away saying how proud they were. Those women were absolutely beaming. What a gift.

We spent a long time playing goofy circle and improv games. We just really needed to have a good time together. The improv game we chose was a bit challenging, but it provided some great opportunities to learn more about each other. It was one woman’s first time ever being on stage, and we gave her a huge round of applause. Another woman had difficulty getting through the scene, and the others began shouting suggestions and encouragement to her. Afterward, she said she felt bad about her performance, and the others jumped in to tell her all of the things she’d done well. Another pair did a hilarious scene in which they were students on a field trip sneaking around the White House. It ended in chaos as they tried to hide from a teacher. “I mean, everyone knows that if you go to the Oval Office, you’re gonna get tackled,” said one of the women.

One of the women has been wanting to explore the scene in which Lady Macduff and her son are killed. She played Lady Macduff, and she found herself becoming extremely angry during the first part of the scene and staying in that heightened state. When the scene ended, she shook her head. She said she had realized that if she’s going to get that angry, she’s also going to have to calm it down. “I’m angry at his father for leaving me,” she said, “But that ‘What wilt thou do for a father…’ That’s not angry. That’s, like, she’s upset, and her son’s being a smart alec.” We ran the scene again with her new approach, and it worked much better for her.

We asked the woman who’d played the son how the scene had felt to her. She said that the hardest part was the beginning – she hadn’t been sure of what she should have been doing. After that, she felt that some of what she had done worked.

This led to a debate about how old this kid is. Several women’s instincts were that he is a preteen, while some of us thought of him as being younger. We looked at the text for clues and found evidence for both interpretations. So how should we do it? “It all depends on how you want to tell the story,” I reminded them.

One woman wondered if maybe this is a situation where a little kid overhears his mother’s conversation and she doesn’t realize it till he calls her on it. There’s evidence in the text to support that. We tried it, and it worked well. A couple of us then tried playing the son at different ages and decided that we’re going to have to see how anyone interested in that role feels – playing a little boy is not natural for all of us!

We ended on a good note, and I was really glad that we were able to have such a fun night together. It’s never easy getting through this time of year, but that doesn’t mean we back off. We never back off!

Season Seven: Week 11

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Tuesday
 

Written by Matt

Today we had a journalist and videographer from Detroit’s local CBS station at our meeting. Despite his trunk full of equipment, we got into the prison in record time. In the programs building, we were met by a group of administrators, including the warden himself.

Far from being thrown off by the camera and administrators in the room, the women seemed energized as they came in. It has usually been true that the worries they have about being on camera while doing the—often silly—things we do in warm-ups usually disappear in a few minutes. Soon after we begin, few women glance at the cameras, and our meetings proceed mostly as normal.

The biggest difference this time was that for much of the session, as we explored scenes and talked about characters on stage, the camera was trained on a series of interviews. Frannie interviewed several of our participants, and was herself interviewed, as the rest of the ensemble continued as usual. The interviewees seemed a bit jittery but happy to discuss the program. More about those interviews from Frannie below!

As the interviews went on in the back of the room, it was business as usual on stage. We focused on having fun with the scenes today, letting them live a bit onstage, and getting used to inhabiting the characters rather than on the mechanics of blocking or staging.

First up, a new member performed the Porter’s long monologue from II.iii, and with gusto! Her Porter was a mix of wit and physical comedy, sassy and brash and plenty inebriated. Her clear understanding of every word in the text—even in this looping and complex speech—was on full display as she emphasized the Porter’s dirty jokes both with her intonation and body language. It was a tour-de-force, and it got the attention of everyone in the room, even momentarily interrupting the interviews that were being filmed.

Act II, scene iii turns dead serious with the discovery of Duncan’s corpse, and the women playing the entourage that files on after the Porter finally lets them in transitioned sharply from slapstick comedy to horror and political intrigue. Afterwards, a few of the women mentioned that they found a lot of humor—dark humor—even as the dead king is discovered and the characters mourn (or, in the Macbeths’ case, dissemble). We agreed to return to the balance of pathos and humor in that scene later, when we could discuss it with the entire group.

Act IV, scene i is the witches’ last official appearance in the play—and the source of the famous “double, double, toil and trouble” incantation—and we went at that scene with an eye simply to making it fun. The witches threw themselves into their sing-song speeches, and several women played apparitions, warning Macbeth of the coming dangers, though he doesn’t understand their import yet. After the scene was over, we agreed that it would be both exciting and challenging to stage—so much is happening, there are so many characters and so much important information given to Macbeth and the audience. We noted that we might need to spend extra time working on making the scene clear without losing the spectacle of it.

Finally, we delved into II.iv, which follows the discovery of Duncan’s body and the flight of Malcom and Donalbain. One member, in her third season, took the lead as the Old Man at the center of the scene. Fully embodying the Old Man’s world-weariness and humorous outlook, she resisted suggestions that her character’s warnings about horses eating each other and other unnatural events were completely serious.

“I think he just likes telling stories,” she said. “He’s seen a lot. There was a just a war and a whole lot of chaos, and this feels like entertainment to him. What does he have to lose?”

After the third or fourth run-through of this short scene drew to a close, so did the evening. As the prison administrators filed out, we put up the ring and left.

From Frannie

The ensemble had previously agreed that they would be more comfortable being interviewed on camera if I were asking questions rather than the reporter (who was wonderful!), and he graciously agreed to do it that way. He gave me questions to ask that addressed much of what we talk about on a regular basis, and their answers were genuine, beautifully worded, and full of the passion, insight, and determination that I’m privileged to see on a regular basis. It was fun and touching to do this with them.

When it came time for my interview, a longtime ensemble member who thrives on being a goofball asked if she could interview me. She ended up being the person to whom I spoke during the interview, even when the reporter asked the questions, and that was a truly moving experience as well. I make no bones about how nervous I always am about being interviewed on camera, and she supported me through those nerves the same way in which I’ve always supported her. That was an incredible feeling.

I’m asked these kinds of questions frequently, but it rarely happens in the room with these remarkable women – and never in exactly this way. She took notes as I spoke (jokingly aping the way that I constantly take notes during our meetings), and she stopped at certain points just to beam and smile back at me. I wish I could do every interview this way. I always mean every word I say, but those words felt like they had more gravity when I said them directly to her.

Friday

After a long check-in, during which several ensemble members shared some upsetting experiences they’ve had recently and others jumped in to support them, we dug back into our play, determined to finish reading it.

This was an interesting evening for me, as a longtime ensemble member had brought in her reflections and stream-of-consciousness writing following last Friday’s emotional discussion, and I split my focus between reading that and participating in the reading and discussion. Even though I had to multitask, I was floored by the depth and beauty of what she had written. She reflected on each person who had shared – what she knew of them, their past behavior, and their history with SIP – and she reflected on the impact that the evening had had on her. Then came the poems and the songs. She’s spent years in the group and has never had a night like that. I haven’t either. And I’m so grateful that she shared her thoughts with me.

We revisited Act V scene v, as many ensemble members left last week before we had finished it. One woman was immediately incensed by the treatment of Lady’s death. She felt that she is such an important character that this merits more than just two lines. I asked her why she thought Shakespeare wrote it that way. “Because she’s a woman,” she said immediately, bitterly, sarcastically. She got very heated about this seeming dismissal of a character who arguably drives many of the play’s events. She was particularly miffed that the death happens off stage.

Another woman said, “Just because it’s one line doesn’t mean it can’t be made into more.” She said that she thought there was a possibility of staging the scene so that Macbeth would see the suicide happen toward the edge of the stage in a somewhat symbolic manner.

“Do we know it was suicide?” I asked. “It says it was,” said one woman. “Where do you see that in the text?” I pressed. Several people started combing through the scene to see where they’d gotten that idea. “I don’t think it’s there,” I said. A few women tossed around opinions about why Lady would have committed suicide; one said that her guilt had made her weak. Another hesitated and then said, “It takes strength to commit suicide. It really does.”

Before we could continue down that path, one woman said, “Oh!” She had found the direct reference to suicide – in the No Fear Shakespeare character description. “Yeah, that’s where I got it, too,” said another woman.

“Oh, that’s so interesting,” I said. I reminded them that this version of the play is meant to be a study guide to aid people in understanding the content, and there’s little (if any) nuance to it. “It’s a widely accepted interpretation that she commits suicide,” I said, “And I think that’s why it says so in that description. But it’s really not in the actual text, is it?” We all agreed that it isn’t.

One woman shared that she really didn’t think it was suicide. “I think she died of a nervous breakdown,” she said, referring specifically to a possible cardiac arrest while sleeping. We pondered that, tossing ideas back and forth. There were many differing points of view.

“This is what’s so cool about this play,” I said. “Remember when we read the first scene, and we said that we immediately felt apprehensive and off balance? We’re meant to feel that way throughout the whole thing. Nothing is settled – everything is up for interpretation. It’s disorienting. And that’s the point.”

The woman who had initially been so upset about Lady’s death was even more infuriated now, continuing to focus on the mention of suicide in the book’s character description. “Why’d they have to put that in my head?” she said. She wished that she had gone in without that idea – she wondered what her own interpretation would have been.

I was really excited by this discussion – I talked a lot tonight! I jumped in here, saying that this is a great example of what happens when these plays are approached by people who think they “know” them – who’ve been taught what they’re “supposed to be.” It shuts down creativity and discovery in a big way. “That’s one thing that I love about working on these plays with you,” I said. “Most of you approach them without those centuries of tradition bogging you down, and you interpret them in these original and eye-opening ways… I’ve learned so much in this group. You’ve all taught me so much.”

It turns out that there are quite a few people in our ensemble who agree that Lady’s death should be given more attention. We toyed with the idea of staging the death as a pantomime. The woman who first introduced the idea said, “It would be a silent scene to the audience can get an interpretation of what’s going on.” Many of them felt that it could be overlooked otherwise.

We went back to the play, reading through the final battle scenes and applauding when we reached the end. “Thoughts?” I asked.

“What happened to Fleance?” asked one woman. “Aha!” I exclaimed, accidentally throwing my pen in the air (like I said, I was really excited), “That’s always the first question!” Another woman said, “I’m just thinking… Finally! I was ready for that dude to die.”

But the conversation stayed focused on Fleance (this happened immediately upon finishing the play this summer at Parnall – nearly the exact same conversation). “Maybe the witches said that stuff about Banquo just to sir Macbeth up,” said one woman. “Maybe it’s not actually true.”

“Or Malcolm might give the throne to Fleance because he doesn’t have any sons,” said another woman. “Or he could give it to any descendant of Banquo.”

What about Donalbain, asked one person. “Donalbain’s just out – he’s not coming back,” said another woman emphatically. “I don’t think Fleance is either. He doesn’t know who he can trust, who set up Banquo, who’s in it with Macbeth. It could still be dangerous for him in Scotland.” Another woman disagreed, saying that she thought that Fleance would get the throne and Donalbain would return.

We wrapped up at that point. I remarked that, while we are thrilled to have our wonderful male facilitators, there is something nice about meeting just as a group of women. “I know,” said one woman. “I like them, but I’m more comfortable when they’re not here. I feel like I can open up more.” I said that I got where she was coming from, adding, “The thing is, though, those guys might as well be women.” A longtime ensemble member laughed, nodded, and said, “They really might as well be.” The first woman smiled and said, “I know. It’s just different.” I said again that I knew what she meant and assured her that if she ever wants to open up more with them here, I just want her to know that she’ll be safe. She said she’d keep it in mind.

Since the ensemble first decided in 2013 that they wanted to bring in male facilitators, we’ve touched base frequently about how that works. The consensus has always been that we value having their perspective, which is different from ours, but that we need to be very picky about which men we bring in – they need to have a great deal of sensitivity, warmth, and respect for women. So far, so good – these guys are really fabulous. I do understand what she means, though. And I’m really glad that she was honest about it.

Season Seven: Week 10

Tuesday
 

The ensemble began with a couple of improv games this evening, continuing to build trust and laugh together. But we want to get to the end of this play, so before long we hunkered down to read some more.

We got those who were absent on Friday up to speed on Act IV scene iii, and then we continued on to Act V scene i, the famous sleepwalking scene. Several women mused that passion used to bring Lady and Macbeth together, and now guilt is tearing them apart.

“That sucks,” said one woman. “They just can’t deal with the consequences. I just don’t understand how they didn’t even think about how they would feel after they killed him.” Another woman replied, “I didn’t think about how I would feel after I tried to commit my crime. I got caught, thank god. If it had gone through, I don’t think I could have lived with myself afterward. But you don’t think about that stuff before.”

Another woman said, regarding her crime, “I knew what I was going to do and why.” Drawing a parallel between herself and Macbeth, she continued, “If I get caught, I could lose a lot, but if I do it, I could gain so much more… When I did get caught, I refused to see the actuality of my crime. And then when my guard was down when I was asleep, my Banquo would come to me… Thank god I had help and didn’t kill myself, but I could have got there. It was slowly driving me insane, and I had to get ahold of myself… Once I accepted responsibility, my ghosts subsided.”

In response, Kyle asked what Lady Macbeth could have done to take responsibility. This same woman replied, “She has to see that she’s the one who set the ball rolling. But she could have stopped it from going as far as it did a long time ago… ‘Honey, maybe we’re going too far… Maybe it’s time for us to allow things just to happen.’” Another woman agreed that Lady could have intervened, but that she would not have asked for outside help. “You can’t just tell on your old man,” she said, and the first woman agreed.

Another ensemble member took it back a few minutes in the conversation. “You were caught and doing time when you were talking in your sleep,” she said. “You have a conscience. Maybe this is her finger print to get caught.” We asked her to elaborate. “Maybe it’s because nobody knows… When people commit crimes and leave fingerprints, they get caught. Her fingerprint is talking in her sleep.” Another woman, pointing to a particular passage, said, “That’s what the doctor says.” She read the lines aloud to us. “Pillows talk,” she said.

We returned to the ongoing theme of how responsible each character is for the play’s events, focusing on the witches. One woman argued that the responsibility is really not on them. “They also planted a seed in Banquo’s mind,” she said. “Macbeth is responsible.” She took the metaphor further to illustrate her point, saying that Macbeth took that seed and cultivated it while Banquo just let nature take its course. And she brought that back around to her own experience. “Someone else gave me the idea to do what I did. And I went, ‘Hmm…’ But I did what I did.”

One woman maintained that the witches are still in there somewhere, pulling strings. She’s not the only one who thinks that, but I’m getting the sense that the majority of the women are drifting away from an interpretation that leans heavily on the witches’ “magical” influence.

“They have bad communication skills also,” said one woman, explaining that they should have talked things through instead of letting this chasm grow. “They’re not talking to each other, and it’s making their crazy even harder… Even if you’ve really fucked up, you can still make an effort to fix it… You can still try to do better.”

“You could be in the same room with someone, and be going through the same thing, and have no idea. I’ve been there,” shared another person.

The conversation wrapped up as our time ended. We’re all excited to keep rolling on Friday – we should be able to finish this first reading very soon.
 

Friday
 

We continued on with Act V tonight but did not end up finishing the play due to an extremely intense but important conversation.

We began with Act V scene ii, which is pretty straightforward (the rebels obscure their numbers by shielding themselves with tree branches), and then we rolled into Act V scene iii, in which we hear from Macbeth that he is ready for battle and completely unafraid.

“He’s becoming overwhelmed because of his conscience… He’s kicking his own ass,” said one person. Another said, “He knows he messed up… He doesn’t care if he lives or dies because he doesn’t have the friends and loyalty he used to have.” The first woman said, “Who would have thought of a C-section?” Another said, “He’s cocky. He’s too sure of himself.”

I asked about the intent behind the prophecies. One woman said she thought the witches were trying to appease Macbeth. Another thought that they were trying to throw him off. I posited that it’s worth exploring how literal the prophecies are versus how he takes them.

The conversation continued. “I feel like cuts have been made,” said a longtime ensemble member. “It seems like there’s stuff missing. Lady Macbeth goes from this dominant person to, like, this fragile vegetable.” Another woman agreed. “You don’t really see what happens to Lady Macbeth. But you see all of Macbeth.”

I asked if maybe, when staged, we could see the beginning of Lady’s unraveling during the banquet scene. Then the sleepwalking wouldn’t come out of nowhere. Or, I pondered, is it better if it does come out of nowhere? Maybe there’s a reason for that. “Maybe she does see the ghost!” exclaimed one woman.

Another ensemble member asked us to return to the prophecies, making a joke about being constantly interrupted by another woman (who laughed). She said it really hadn’t occurred to her that “of woman born” would exclude a C-section. I asked everyone what they had thought when they first read the scene.

“I thought Hecate was going to bring the trees to life,” said one woman, citing specific parts of the text that gave her that impression. “Because his head was getting too big and she was finna bring him back down.” Another woman thought that the witches would employ trickery, while another thought that the prophecy about Birnam Wood referred to an earthquake or landslide. Yet another woman asserted that she’d immediately thought about soldiers cutting trees down to use as weapons and shields; she said also that the “of woman born” language brought to mind “test tube babies.”

We also talked about the conversation between Macbeth and the doctor regarding Lady Macbeth’s mental state. “He’s becoming cold to her,” said one person. “She’s the least of his worries,” said another. The first woman nodded, saying, “She’s not important to him anymore. She’s not – I just think he don’t have time for her to lose her mind.”

“It’s like Richard in the scene with all the messengers coming at him,” exclaimed one of last year’s ensemble members. “He’s gonna haul off and smack the doctor.”

We read Act V scene iv, which is another straightforward “going to war” scene. And then we arrived at Act V scene v. We made it as far as the “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” monologue, and then we paused to let that passage sink in a bit.

I encouraged one woman to read it aloud slowly, allowing herself to really feel the language and breathe into it. “He’s just done,” she said afterward. “Life comes and goes, and it’s nothing but an illusion… Almost like it’s not real. It’s just –“

“Maybe he feels like it’s not real,” another woman interjected. “He’s not in the moment.” The first woman nodded, saying, “He’s on the outside watching it happen.” Another woman chimed in, “He might be numb to what is happening… It’s her as well as him.”

Another woman volunteered to read the piece a second time, and, again, I encouraged her to take her time and let the words do the work. “It feels like he’s just done,” she reflected afterward. “He’s stepped outside himself. Whatever happens is gonna happen – nothing he can do about it.”

“You get what you get, you do what you do, and then you end up dead… He’s empty. He’s drained. There’s nothing left,” said one woman. “Oh my god,” said another, “I’ve been there.”

“It makes me think of my family’s reaction to my crime,” said another woman. Softly, from the other side of the room, I heard someone say, “Oh my god, that’s what I was thinking.” The first woman said that her family had “seen something coming” and that that wasn’t the same as being numb. She told us about this in more detail, but I’m not recording it here in order to avoid identifying her.

“I remember that gut-empty feeling when my sentence was handed to me, and sitting all night in the tank just empty. I imagine that felt pretty similar [to Macbeth],” said another woman. Another woman continued to ponder numbness. “We have expectations,” she said. “People let you down, and let you down, and let you down… It makes you numb.” A new ensemble member agreed, saying, “You keep people at arm’s length.” Many others nodded.

The woman who spoke of her family’s reaction took it back to the feeling of being sentenced and going to prison. “I’m sure you were feeling so much,” she said. “I’m not sure… It’s a shock. When I hear numb – to me, that means you don’t care. But numb is, it hasn’t hit you yet, and you’re afraid of what you’ll do when it does hit you.”

“You go through little shit all the time, but then something big happens. And till something else hits that level, nothing else compares,” said someone else. Again, there was nearly universal agreement.

One woman then said that the worst thing ever to happen to her was prison, and several people said they disagreed – that prison had benefited them in some way, as horrible as it is – for some, it saved their lives, gave them a wakeup call, and/or taught them surprising things about themselves. Prison is terrible not just because they are missing out on their own lives, but because their friends and family are missing out their lives, too.

But that was not what that first woman had meant, and she was determined to make us understand. She detailed the lead up to her crime and the crime itself – that time in her life and all of the decisions she made that led her to prison – that was what she meant by saying that prison was the worst thing that had happened to her. She was brutally honest with us and was clearly becoming upset.

Another woman agreed – she emphatically said that she agreed, locking eyes with the woman who’d been speaking. She also committed a violent crime, and she told us in graphic detail about events in her life that built up until “all of that from my past came out on one person.” She drew clear parallels with the first woman’s experience, again emphasizing that she had been heard and understood.

Another woman shared that prison itself wasn’t the worst thing that has happened to her, but the accompanying loss of faith was. That said, she’s become more self-reliant, and she recognizes that as being a good thing. Another shared her own experience of having survived trauma and committed a crime, only slowly coming to fully understand its gravity and feel remorse (as opposed to the others, who felt it immediately). She said that “feeling is a good thing because it makes you realize what you’ve done so you don’t make the same mistakes.”

A new ensemble member then began to describe her past and her crime, and as she spoke, the words poured out faster and faster, the emotions coming from deeper and deeper within her. The trauma she’s survived is nearly unspeakable – I don’t know how she had the strength to speak it – and she feels intense remorse for her crime. A longtime ensemble member who sometimes struggles to feel or express empathy for others jumped in as things started to spiral, drawing on her own experience to reassure this woman that she understood what she was saying. And then she began to emphasize that there is hope in this woman’s situation – that she will go home some day and have the opportunity to make things right. The longtime member spoke only to the woman who’d been sharing, focusing on her completely, not speaking to the rest of us at all. She did not give up eye contact – she held it firmly. She reached with her energy deep into the woman’s heart and caressed it, lifted it up – that’s the only way I can describe what this looked and felt like.

The new ensemble member was clearly affected by this, and she shared more with us. Her emotions became difficult for her to control. She began to shake and cry. Another woman quietly went to her and gave her a (completely appropriate) hug. “You’re okay,” she said quietly, and the other woman placed her hand on the encircling arm, closing her eyes, calming down.

I really don’t know how to describe these moments except to say that the air felt full of that embrace – that compassion, deep empathy, and reaching toward healing came from all of us and was palpable. I’ve never felt anything like it – not in our ensemble; not anywhere.

Still holding the new ensemble member, the woman who’d embraced her said, “We need to give her some wooshes.” This is an exercise we do in which we encircle one ensemble member and make a large physical gesture of lifting them up while saying, “Woosh!” It sounds silly – it is kind of silly – but it really does make us feel better. We “wooshed” our new ensemble member, who said it felt weird but smiled. We wooshed a few others, too.

Intense – incredibly intense. Unprecedented. While we’ve had many honest and emotional conversations over the years, we’ve never had one like this, with so many people giving so much of themselves, in such detail, and lifting each other up as they did. I’ve been processing this evening for days now, and I don’t feel like I’m done. I’m so grateful have been included in this kind of introspection – to have been allowed just to sit, listen, and give all of my energy to people sharing so bravely. I don’t know what else to say about it – I don’t know that I have the words. But if I find them, I’ll let you know.

Season Seven: Week 9

Friday

Tonight two of our ensemble members checked in to let us know that they are temporarily leaving the group. One is a new member who has apprehensions about working specifically with Macbeth, and she says she’ll be back in the fall. The other is a woman who stayed on from last season. Her reasons for leaving are personal and have to do with taking the best care of herself that she can right now. She also intends to return next fall.

In cases like these, we regret that we won’t be able to work with these folks anymore, but we celebrate their decisions because they reflect empowerment – and that is our goal. These women know what they need right now, and Shakespeare is not part of that. And that’s completely fine.

We read Act V scene i, in which Malcolm tests Macduff, the latter finds out that Macbeth has massacred his family, and the two decide to get revenge. It’s a long scene, and the only one that takes place outside of Scotland. Why is it here?

“Maybe it’s the light at the end of the tunnel,” said one woman. “And then they go back to the darkness.” Another woman built on that, saying that it reminded her of a superhero movie in which the bad guys create a state of doom and gloom, and the good guys make a last ditch effort to save everyone. “It’s the turning point,” she said.

“It’s a safe zone,” said the first woman. This inspired a riff from me (facilitators will absolutely contribute to these discussions and spitball while welcoming others to jump in and build). I pondered the consequences of Macduff’s leaving – his being in a safe zone while leaving his family behind – and how that space is polluted by the news of his family’s deaths. Nothing is clean in this play – the fog and filthy air follow him. The chaos is so intense that one can’t get away from it – it follows one everywhere.

The ensemble liked these ideas and kept building on them, which led to a discussion of how that chaos is created. “Macbeth goes total kamikaze,” said one woman. “He wants to destroy everything. We still get to that point as people… ‘Let’s kill ‘em all.’ I know I do. But I don’t think about the consequences. I just think I’m tired of the headache, people getting killed… It’s a good thing I’m not God.”

The conversation continued, fleshing out what she’d said. And she continued to wrestle with her thoughts. “He has no counsel. You need counseling – people who will motivate and calm you down and convince you not to do that crazy thing. You’ve gotta have counsel. I don’t do that stuff because I have you guys.”

He has the opposite of good counsel. One woman asked if the witches could have put a spell on him. Lauren pondered that such a spell could have been simply words or actual magic; either way, they’re playing puppet master. The woman who had been more or less leading the conversation said that the witches narrow things down in a way that is typical of abuse. “People manipulate you to think you have less choices than you do. They make it black and white.”

The conversation moved from the witches to the couple. Is Lady Macbeth the one doing the manipulating? One woman thought so: “It’s like… Power, money: let’s do this.” Another woman asked if we thought that Lady and/or the witches truly plant the seeds or if Macbeth has always been like this. Lady says he’s always had ambition but no drive to do the unsavory things he needs to do to accomplish his goals, but we need to take that with a grain of salt. Is it there waiting to be brought out? Or does she force this to happen?

“I know that has never worked with my husband,” said one woman. She told us a story about her husband allowing someone to take advantage of him (in a very minor way) because he felt that they needed what they needed more than he did. She smiled and said that he’s incredibly “nice” and a pushover, but that’s part of why she loves him. “Humans are humans,” said one woman. “Yeah,” said the first woman. “I’ve been trying to change him for 31 years.”

I jumped in and asked how this woman’s insight could affect our view of the Macbeths – if her husband truly does not have the ability to be anything other than “nice,” there is no way she could bring that out. But Lady does the opposite for Macbeth.

We returned to the topic of thinking before we speak and somehow controlling our rage. We reflected that while Macbeth overanalyzes at first, he progressively stops doing that and simply reacts in the moment.

We talked about the “illusion of certainty,” which led one woman to ask why, if Macbeth thought that what the witches said was certain, he didn’t just “chill and have babies.” He does at first, we reminded her. “But everything we do or don’t do changes the outcome of things,” said one woman. Another woman brought up how hard it is to just trust that things will happen. “If we as humans did that, probably none of us would be here [in prison]. You get a thought in your head – you want something – you manifest it. You get to the point where you’re just gonna do it. And then… How am I gonna keep people from finding out? And you keep doing things… Lies upon lies… If I would have just said that, I never would’ve been here.”

The conversation meandered at this point to a place where we were simply talking and getting to know one another better – laughing and poking good-natured fun. Although the topics moved away from the play, these moments are extremely valuable for building trust in the ensemble.

Somehow we got onto the topic of our performance of Romeo and Juliet years ago. One woman shared (as she does frequently) how much she loved that show. “I was jumping up and down and yelling the whole time,” she said. “When Mercutio died, I was like, ‘Oh no! He’s dead!’”

“Wait!” I said. “That was you? I’ve been telling this story for years!” We all laughed and she asked how I could not have realized that it was her. “I was back stage! I couldn’t see who it was!” I said. “Also, I’m pretty sure what you actually said was, ‘Oh, shit! That dude just DIED!’”

“You guys were so awesome,” she said. “I signed up for Shakespeare right away. That show changed my life.” How freaking cool.