Season Seven: Week 26

Tuesday
 

After we checked in, we decided to finish our stumble through of the play. The group dispersed a bit, talking in small groups. One woman repeatedly tried to wrangle everyone but failed—she was a little quiet, and people couldn’t hear her or weren’t listening. Finally another woman who has a wonderful, booming voice, called everyone to focus, saying specifically that the other woman had been trying to get something going and asking them to listen to her.

We got a little stuck on the scene in which Malcolm and his army arrive at Birnam Wood and decide to cut down boughs to hold and disguise their numbers. The first staging was a bit awkward, with people unsure of what to do, or even where to place the “forest.” One woman gave suggestions to improve the acting in the scene, pointing out that the idea to use the branches is spontaneous, and they should think about how they would react. “Put yourselves in the position of that so it’s more spontaneous and not rehearsed,” she said. “We don’t want it to look rehearsed.” Another woman pulled two faux trees that are in the auditorium to the center of the stage. There actually is one branch that is unattached, and they decided to use that as well.

They went for it again, and, as one of the actors said, it “felt blah.” The woman who’d given suggestions about spontaneity jumped up, talking through a complex staging idea that would incorporate this scene and the two after. It involved several entrances and exits, as well as using the fluorescent lights above the stage to isolate each side of the performance area, depending on where the focus needs to be.

As we geared up to work through all of this, I pulled our Macduff and Malcolm aside and suggested that they work on taking up space—that they’re warriors—powerful women playing powerful men. They don’t need to apologize for standing strong and being loud. “We’re sensitive, too,” said our Malcolm, and as I nodded, our Macduff said, “I know! All my pretty chickies!”

We worked through the next scene with Macbeth, and then our Malcolm, Macduff, and a woman standing in for Siward made their way back stage for their entrance. I joined them and referred back to something our Malcolm had said earlier, encouraging them to “go total Braveheart.” They did, and it worked fairly well, but not as well as we wanted. I went back stage again and asked them how they felt. “I’m nervous,” said our Malcolm. “I don’t know… I’m scared of rejection.” This woman has come a long way from the quiet, shut down person I met in the fall of 2016, but she still has a lot of fears. The difference is that now she has the confidence to push through them. Our Macduff and I reminded her that she was in a safe space to be strong, loud, and to screw up if that’s what happened. “You’ve gotta rally an army. Use the audience. We’re on your side,” I said. “Take back your country! Take back your castle!”

I ran back into the house (I was excited), and the scene began. Malcolm strode on stage, moving quickly and powerfully, delivering her lines in a voice that carried right through to the back of the house. She stood downstage center and didn’t back off. The others matched what she was doing, and Macduff instinctively built on her energy. It was incredible, particularly for our Malcolm. I don’t think we’ve ever seen her take command of the stage like that. One woman, who joined the group in January, leaned back to me and said, “Good job, Frannie. I love how you got them all hyped up.” I accepted the compliment—I know that sometimes it’s my ridiculous excitement that gives people permission to harness the fire that’s already in them—and reminded her, as I always do, that the real work is being done by the participants, who don’t need to listen to me in the first place!

Even though we were improvising through the staging, the battle scenes were high energy and engaging. When we got to the final scene, that energy dropped. I went and sat beside a woman I’ve known for more than two years, who used to be extremely afraid of giving her opinion and getting on stage. But things are different for her now. I asked if she was feeling the same as me; if this scene felt like it dragged at all. She said that it did, and that there probably was nothing the actors could do to keep it from feeling like a letdown—it needs cuts. Then we all applauded when Macduff said, “Hail, King of Scotland,” somehow forgetting that Malcolm still had a monologue. Our Malcolm looked down at her script and wryly said, “I am not gonna be saying this shit,” but then gamely gave it a go for this rehearsal.

She did a great job with it, but afterward I posed the same question to the entire ensemble: does this scene drag after the previous ones? All agreed that it did. I suggested that our Malcolm’s instinct not to read her monologue might be a good one; if we all applauded after Macduff’s line, our audience probably would, too, and perhaps that’s the point at which to end the play. We agreed to look for other cuts, too.

As we circled up to brainstorm about costumes, set, and props, one woman leaned over to me and said, “You know what my favorite Shakespeare quote is?” She continued, “My bounty is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep. The more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.” I couldn’t resist saying it along with her. It’s one of my favorites, too. She said she found it in a novel she was reading and loved it so much that she memorized it.

We have some really great ideas for the look of the show; the challenge will be making it all happen with the budget and resources we have. We’ll keep developing these as we get closer to performance. I’m very excited about where we are.

Friday
 

Even though it was a small group tonight, check in took a long time. Two ensemble members told me before we circled up that another ensemble member has been breaking confidentiality and sharing very personal information about others in the group. It’s made them feel understandably unsafe and, as longtime members, angry about the violation and the disrespect they feel it shows the entire ensemble and the program as a whole. I asked if they would like to address this with the other person or with the group at large, and they opted for the latter.

Though the person in question was not present after all, one of those ensemble members chose to share her feelings anyway. We’ve had issues in the past with others doing something similar but clearly identifying the “offending” party, even without using a name, but this woman has been in the group long enough that she knows how to avoid doing that. “I just really need to get this off my chest so maybe I won’t be so upset,” she said, and shared what happened in a general way, focusing on her own feelings. “This is where we come to get away from prison, and this needs to be a safe place,” she said. One woman praised her for “speaking of us collectively.” We agreed that we would talk about this with the larger group on Tuesday. The woman who was upset said, “When we talk about this, we’re going to be civilized, because for us there’s nothing else.”

Another woman who’s been incarcerated for more than 10 years, brought up how impressed she was by the way in which this ensemble member, who’s been in prison even longer, was handling the situation. She said that the first time she met her, she’d just come back from solitary and immediately attacked someone else before she’d even put her stuff down. She used to be unruly and unreasonable, and now here she was, calmly addressing an extremely upsetting situation as constructively as she could. It’s a remarkable transformation. “To watch you change helps me believe that I can change,” she said. Those of us who’ve known her for a long time agreed. “You’re on your way to something big,” said another woman. “Just keep being a superstar.”

We spent the rest of our time talking through costumes and props and covered nearly everything by the time we left. Even with a small group, we’re generally very productive, and tonight was no exception. We’ve just got a few more things to figure out before we submit our performance proposal. June is getting closer!

Season Seven: Week 25

Tuesday

The ensemble member who was cast as Young Siward let me know before we began that she needed to leave the group. Another ensemble member had been interested in playing that role, but deferred, accepting the roles of understudy for that character and playing Fleance as well. When she saw the other woman turning in her books, she approached me quietly. “Is she leaving the group?” she asked. I told her that she was. “So… Can I play Young Siward? I mean, since I was already understudying, can I just play the part? Is that okay?” I said it wasn’t up to me and encouraged her to ask the group. She is much more buoyant and confident this season, but this still intimidated her a bit. So, with her standing right next to me, I turned to the group and said, “I have a question to ask on behalf of [her name].” She started giggling and blushing, but she didn’t leave the stage. I told the ensemble that the woman who’d been cast as Young Siward had left and asked, “Are we all okay with [name] playing Young Siward, since she was already the understudy?” No one objected. She was so excited. It is such a thrill to see her this way. I have loved every moment of working with her, even the difficult ones—and those hard times have made these moments that much more pleasurable. I can’t help but smile every time she smiles. And she smiles a lot now.

One of our ensemble members asked me to come to the back of the auditorium with her to work on cutting some lines. As I got up to go with her, our Lady Macbeth said, “No! Uh uh, Frannie. We’re about to do the sleepwalking scene!” I asked the other ensemble member if she needed to leave early or if the cuts could wait for a few minutes, since it was important to Lady M that I be able to give feedback on that scene. She said that was totally fine, even though she was clearly anxious. She struggles a bit with impatience, so, even though this was a little thing, it was a big deal.

Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene is a challenge for any actor, but it presents a different sort of challenge for people who’ve committed crimes. I knew when we chose Macbeth that this scene might be a little loaded, and I’ve been prepared since then to work through it with whomever played the role. Our Lady Macbeth is a longtime ensemble member with whom I have a very strong bond, and I’ve talked through the scene with her on several occasions, knowing (as much as I can) where she’s coming from as she approaches it.

When she and I spoke about it on Friday, we agreed to try the scene as if she were underwater, moving slowly, weighed down, and seeing things around her distorted. We decided that there also should be (in Michael Chekhov terms) some sort of shivering or vibrating object in her ideal center (chest) to help her experience the character’s anxiety without having to call up her own emotions or experiences. She also told me during that conversation that she knows she’s not a good actor, which is absolutely not true, and I told her that. I said that she has always been a solid actor, but the program hasn’t always been in a place that allowed her to explore that. But people started taking things more seriously during Othello. That discipline grew during Richard III. And now we have an ensemble made up of people who are extremely committed to doing their best work—individually and as an ensemble. They conduct themselves just as seriously as any professional ensemble. They do it with less theatrical experience, but they also do it in a setting where it is much, much more challenging. I admire them so deeply for that.

But back to our Lady Macbeth, and our conversation last week. She smiled and accepted what I said about her acting, and I encouraged her to dive in as much as she was comfortable. She was ready to go on Friday night, but we ran out of time. Now, though, it was her turn.

Two women stood in for our absent Gentlewoman and Doctor. Lady Macbeth entered slowly, carrying her script in one hand and a drumstick (as candle) in the other. This woman, who can be so powerful physically and vocally, was purposefully quiet and sad. The character was clearly disturbed, but not crazy. At one point she dropped the drumstick, and we all jumped as it clattered—she’d sort of put us in a trance!

When the scene ended, we talked about how well so much of it had worked. She said she had felt good, but was annoyed by how physically close the Gentlewoman and the Doctor had been to her. The woman standing in as the Gentlewoman agreed that they needed more space, but they struggled to find a solution. A woman who has a co-director role said that many of us have a tendency to hover. She got on stage to demonstrate some ideas of when the two of them could get close to Lady M and then jump away. Another woman gave suggestions of where to begin and end the scene.

A third woman pointed out that Lady M hadn’t been washing her hands, which is an important aspect of the scene. Lady M said that she couldn’t when she was holding her script, which is, of course, a great point. I asked if she’d like to run the scene with me “dropping in”—standing just beside or behind her, feeding her lines one by one so she wouldn’t have to read her script. She said she would. Our co-director gave her some specific ideas to try out, including talking to herself as if into a mirror at one point.

We began the scene a second time, but just as Lady M entered, she stopped and said, “Oh, no, hold on! I’ve got a better idea! Hold on!” She grabbed her coat and put it over her shoulders. “Okay, now you can go,” she said, and re-centered herself as the scene began again. I couldn’t watch her performance—I had to keep my eyes glued to the script—but I could feel how powerful her energy was. At one point she sank to the ground, washing her hands, then tore the coat off her shoulders and used that to wash her hands as well.

The group was enthusiastic about how it had gone. The Gentlewoman and Doctor said it had felt good to keep more of a distance and be more intentional with their movements. Lady M said the scene had felt more or less the same for her—but it had been good both times!

We started to move on, but then Kyle jumped in. Again, this woman has been in the ensemble for a very long time—longer than Kyle—and he wanted to make sure she knew how impressed he was with her work. He told her how good it was to see her challenging herself, owning her power, and developing as an actor. He said (truthfully) that she’s set a high water mark for the whole ensemble—that it’s really just technique for her now—and as I looked around I saw all the others nodding, taking no offense, honoring the place she’s earned in the group due not just to her longevity, but to her commitment (redoubled this year after a brief absence). I told her that I agreed—emphatically—and that her ability to give so much of herself was (as she and I discussed last week) also a testament to the seriousness and supportiveness of this ensemble. There is much for everyone to be proud of in her continued growth and success.

I then joined our Macduff in the back of the auditorium to work on those cuts, per her request. Our Malcolm was absent, but they’d been looking at this together outside of SIP, so we were able to work without her. Last week, they asked me to go through and look for cuts as well, so we were really just comparing notes. They were nearly all the same.

She had an idea about Malcolm that I don’t think she’s shared with her scene partner, and I’m interested to see if this is going to play out at all. “I think Malcolm’s feeling some kinda way because he’s a virgin,” she said. “I mean, come on,” she continued, “He’s got his crown stolen. He’s banished to a country of refuge… And he’s a VIRGIN. He’s gotta be feeling some kinda way about that.”

When we arrived at the part of the scene when Macduff finds out about his family’s slaughter, she said, “I don’t really know what we can cut. I feel so bad for him here. Like, he’s so disoriented and emotional.” I told her that she was right—that’s exactly how he feels, and we probably don’t need to cut anything. She did suggest that we cut his lines about “all my pretty chickens and their dam,” and before I could stop myself, I said, “Oh, no, no, no! You need that!” I then smiled at her, took a breath, and told her that of course she can cut those lines if she wants, but I think they’ll help her give the performance I know she wants. I said again that she was right about Macduff’s state and showed her exactly how the language backs that up. I walked her through the emotional breakdown, evident in those lines about the chickens—and their parallel to Lady Macduff’s comparing her family to defenseless birds. I guided her through the way the language toward the end of the scene, when it clearly shows him moving from outright grief to anger and tension. As we talked, she lit up, excited to learn how right she’d been without even knowing how to analyze the language this way.

We left the rest of the cuts for when our Malcolm is present. As our Macduff rose from the table, she paused, looked down at me, and said, “It’s good to know that we see eye to eye on this stuff.” I’m seeing a change in this woman as she learns to trust all of us more. She’s very energetic; sometimes a little loud and brash. I think she’s used to rubbing people the wrong way and expects it. But any time I’ve noted it, I’ve also seen the people who’ve been irritated doing their best not to let her see it: taking deep breaths (subtly) or finding something else to do so they wouldn’t engage and hurt her feelings. And it seems like, because she hasn’t gotten the negative reactions she’s used to, she’s dropped some of the defenses that contribute to that brashness. Because she’s done that, the others have become more open to her. And now she’s becoming more open, calmer, and better able to realize when she needs to take a step away or speak with someone in private. Or even just to speak gently, like she did with me. This progress hasn’t been totally linear, and it probably won’t be going forward, but I’ve noticed it. I’m watching it.

Friday

Attendance tonight was low due to some special events and illnesses. We just received permission to make a short film for The Sonnet Project: US, so we decided to spend tonight brainstorming. Running through the final scenes of the play would be difficult with so few people present.

I handed out copies of a few sonnets that reminded me of things we’ve talked about in our group. The idea of these films is that they be location-specific, and, since our location is a prison, the options I chose had specifically to do with themes that come up in conversations with a group of incarcerated women. I asked how we should approach this, and one woman said we should read all of them out loud. “You have to have someone else read it to understand it,” she said.

We read #109 first. Two of the women liked it right off the bat. One of them said, “Especially being in prison—it plays to the part, like, our heart’s in absence right now. Another woman added, “It makes you think about your family and loved ones.”

#29 was next. One woman said, “It’s speaking from the heart.” Another said she liked how it flowed. A third, who was kind of on edge, said, “It’s about isolation. You’re isolating yourself—talking about your friends and stuff, but you’re cursed. Your fate is not what theirs is. You’re putting yourself in a category by yourself.”

All but one ensemble member disliked #19. The one who enjoyed it said she’d liked it enough to read it to herself twice, but admitted that it had jumped out at her because it mentions a tiger, and she loves cats.

#35 hit everyone very hard. As the reader finished, one woman said, “That’s SO deep,” and another exclaimed, “I LIKE THAT ONE!” They identified with the conflict in the poem, even without breaking it down for its specific meaning. “It’s like going between my old life and my new life: before prison and after prison,” said one woman. “All men have faults,” said another woman. “We all fall short.” Another added, “This is prison. We don’t know whether we’re coming or going. We’re back and forth between the dark and the light.” Another said, “That describes everything… Addiction… Everything…”

We read a couple others, but it was very clear that #35 was the one. Give how unanimous the women in the room were, we were confident that the others will feel the same.

The poem is this:

No more be grieved at that which thou hast done:
Roses have thorns, and silver fountains mud;
Clouds and eclipses stain both moon and sun,
And loathsome canker lives in sweetest bud.
All men make faults, and even I in this,
Authorizing thy trespass with compare,
Myself corrupting, salving thy amiss,
Excusing thy sins more than thy sins are;
For to thy sensual fault I bring in sense--
Thy adverse party is thy advocate--
And 'gainst myself a lawful plea commence:
Such civil war is in my love and hate
    That I an accessory needs must be
    To that sweet thief which sourly robs from me.

We went through the sonnet in depth. In it, they saw others—and themselves—trying to forgive them. At the core of this poem, we found the idea that we all make mistakes, and we are all deserving of forgiveness. They are struggling to believe that. They are living it. “This poem could be the poster child for codependency,” said one woman.

“I think that’s why this hits home for everybody,” said another woman. “A lot of us are in for drugs and stuff, and we’ve been forgiven more times than maybe we deserved.” Another agreed. “That’s our problem. We love others more than ourselves.” Another, responding directly to language in the sonnet, said, “A lot of us have seen that we may be roses, but… with the drugs and stuff… we can grow some thorns.”

We began to brainstorm ideas of how to translate this to film, and we started to stray pretty far afield from our initial reactions. I put it out there that all of these ideas were interesting, but that our first impulse was that this poem was about us.

One woman said, “I see more than one or two people playing into this. With the actions here, I see three or four people here. I see a group collectively consoling each other here.” She said that there could be a few specific stories, “but in the end, it all comes together.” Another woman interjected, “Why don’t we end with The Ring? The Ensemble Ring?” We all responded strongly to that.

“We’re all together. Everyone can play a part,” said one woman, just as the first woman said, “We all come together.” She added, “Each of us—we’ve hurt somebody. We’ve hurt somebody sometime.” We then agreed that we should enter from various directions to become the Ring, with the poem read as a voiceover.

We got a little hung up on literal images of conflict that would need to be forgiven, and it got a little frustrating, but not to the point where anyone was irritated or wanted to give up. We simply knew we needed input from the rest of our ensemble.

We lifted our Ring back up, and people started to leave. Our Malcolm reminded me that we had cuts to look at, and we did. We’re definitely on the same page. She paused before she left. She’d shared with us earlier that her TV had broken, and she was pretty upset about it. “But I’ve got a lot to do,” she said, tapping her script on the table. “I feel like maybe my TV broke for a reason. So I can focus more on this. I really want to do a good job with my acting this year.”

Season Seven: Week 24

Written by Kyle

Tuesday

All in all, it was a very productive night. There is something about this play that has the ensemble moving. We were able to complete the banquet and witches’ cauldron scenes (the famous “Double, double, toil and trouble…”), each of which I thought could take an entire session on its own. Even though we are not really blocking “for keeps,” each scene contain a lot of logistical problems that are difficult for students and professionals alike to navigate. Don’t get me wrong, the scenes need work and are far from completed, but I see a general shape emerging; we’re not moving at this pace because of the facilitators, it’s the ensemble that is pushing us along.

We discovered a lot of the usual pitfalls, though: How is it that Macbeth doesn’t see Banquo when he calms himself? Where on stage does he confer with the murderers that makes it look like the rest of the guests can see? Where does he confer with Lady Macbeth in a place that makes sense? All of these questions need to be ironed out, and I can’t wait to see the end result. Our Banquo has great instincts and continues to wipe blood from her face; there are so many references to blood, and she is really playing into them in a way that is really exciting.  

The real rallying point for me came with the 4.1 (“Double, double, toil and trouble…”), which the women in the scene created one hundred percent on their own. Two groups huddled on either side of the stage before beginning, planning things out based on ideas they had a while ago. They looked more like football huddles than a theatre troupe. The women playing Macbeth and Lennox couldn’t understand why Lennox was in the scene, and came up with an “amazing, collaborative idea:” the witches “bring the cave” into Macbeth’s bedroom, and the whole interaction could be a dream—or not. It clears up why Lennox is in the scene and doesn’t manage to see the witches, and it explains how Macbeth just magically knows where to find their coven. Most masterfully, though, it places Macbeth at the center of the stage while the witches move around him, thereby making him the charm they are conjuring. It’s brilliant. I couldn’t believe how effective it was action. If that weren’t enough, IT ALSO MEANS WE DON’T HAVE TO SOURCE A CAULDRON!

The staging needs some work to bring it to where it needs to be; one woman in particular said that the witches need to own the space--that it belongs to them, not Macbeth. We all felt that Macbeth spent way too much time down stage center to give that impression, so when we go back and put together the final staging, we need to keep that in mind. The performances were great as well. All the witches seemed to really be jumping headfirst into their roles. One woman in particular, who openly struggles with low self-esteem, took some really bold risks with her physicality. She had the whole ensemble singing her praises during and after the run. It seemed as though the Shakespeare Holy Ghost visited again tonight, and is hopefully here to stay.

Friday

Tonight I talked to one of the women about some of the heavy-duty stressors that come with prison-life. There was much talk of it on Tuesday as well with another member. For the sake of anonymity, I’m omitting the details, but I feel like amidst all the success we are having with the ensemble, a clear picture of all that the program entails needs a mention. Despite all our great work in the group, ensemble members often come in with a level of stress that is hard to really describe, and even harder to imagine. Despite spending so much time with them, I’ll never really understand the daily decisions they are faced with that leave lasting imprints on their psyches, spirits, and sentences. The stakes of most of my decisions often seem so small, and the majority of what I worry about seems so trite. I feel very blessed and humbled by their willingness to share their vulnerability and to keep showing up.

We worked the Lady Macduff murder scene, which, to be honest, always makes me a little nervous. There is a very gruesome murder of a woman and her child on stage, and it just always gives me pause. I think it has the potential to be a high-voltage issue for many in the ensemble, so I always tread a little lightly whilst we work. But it also happens to be a very difficult scene to actually stage. The timing is precarious, the child actor has to be really advanced, and there can be a really high frequency of “bad guy” acting from the murderers.

It was difficult enough to wade through how cumbersome the scene can actually be that most ensemble members struggled to make much of a connection to the content of the scene. Perhaps it was for the best, as it gave whomever might be struggling with the scene more exposure to it before it’s set.

After that, we worked on the Malcolm/Macduff scene, in which the two join forces and decide to take down Macbeth. In the grand tradition of everyone who has ever played that scene, it dragged. We talked a great deal about cuts, and I was happy with the conversation. So frequently, cuts are imposed on us (someone can’t remember the lines, we have to cut for time, or any number reasons), but tonight we really tried to address what mattered most in the scene. We decided that this was determinedly Macduff’s scene, and that the climax is when he learns of his family’s massacre at the hands of Macbeth.

This led us to start to think about what the most important elements in the scene were. From those questions sprang others. At one point, the actor playing Macduff said, “I don’t even know where we are! Are we at a bar getting drinks? Are we under an apple tree? What are we actually doing?” The need for some “stage business” came up, as well as a discussion about the complete lack of consensus that the ensemble’s natural directors have about the scene’s setting. It highlights a big change from past seasons in the ensemble’s process of devising this production. I feel like, even last year, ninety percent of the cuts were done by ten percent of the ensemble. Now we had the whole ensemble chipping in and having a lively debate. It makes for such a nice change, and it’s one of the many ways in which I see this program expanding and solidifying right before my eyes.

Season Seven: Week 23

Tuesday

We continued our stumble-through of the play tonight and made some great discoveries as we went!

The plan was to work through the scenes chronologically, no matter who was absent, and we stuck to that. At first we sped along, deciding to leave discussion till we’re ready to truly stage things. Then we got to Act I Scene iii: the scene that follows Duncan’s murder. Nearly all of the people in these scenes were absent, and others eagerly stepped up to fill in.

A longtime ensemble member volunteered to read the Porter, despite having only a cursory familiarity with the role. She is an extremely gifted performer, though, so she had us laughing hysterically throughout. That set us up to continue to laugh our way through the scene, which was fine—we do have to have fun! When Lady Macbeth entered with her line, “What’s the business?” we, once again, could not keep it together. She has been speaking the line in a very contemporary way – emphasizing and prolonging the first syllable in “business” – and it just cracks us up.

I asked the group if maybe we should attempt to take the scene seriously, since we’ve determined that we want to tell the story that way, and this exercise is meant to give us ideas of how best to do that. We shook it off and started over. Now Lady Macbeth’s line wasn’t funny, and the scene began to take shape. The movement was mostly static—it’s tough to know how to move on stage when you haven’t had much experience—but there was a great moment when Macbeth said, “I do repent me of my fury, that I did kill them,” and Lady Macbeth moved quickly to him, putting her hand on his arm; Macbeth then pulled away.

Afterward, I asked everyone how they felt about the scene. This seemed like one we should talk about before moving on. One new member said she felt that it needed movement, but she wasn’t sure where. A longtime ensemble member said, “I think we should use Kyle’s triangle theory.” We’ve talked through this staging concept in years past, but not yet this season. “You wanna explain it?” I asked her. “Kyle can explain it better than me,” she replied, looking to Kyle. He looked right back at her and, totally deadpan, said, “I forgot.” We all laughed, and then she explained what she meant to the group.

Our facilitator Sarah suggested, too, that everyone on stage should be engaged in active listening. One woman said that if she were one of the characters in the scene, she wouldn’t just be listening, she’d be whispering to the others to see if anyone knew who had committed the murder. Another woman built on that, saying, “People should group up with whoever they feel safe with. If it was me, I’d group with my brother because I’d feel safest with him.” We talked a bit about various characters’ reactions to the assassination. Does this kind of thing happen often? Or did it happen out of nowhere?

We tried the scene again, keeping all of that in mind, and it began to work a bit better. The woman standing in for Banquo did something totally unexpected toward the end of the scene, speaking very quietly to Malcolm and Donalbain when she “should have” been speaking to the entire group. Interestingly, this seemed to raise the stakes, and everyone went right along with her. It was really cool. Afterward, she apologized for not understanding that part of the scene, but we reassured her that that was one of those mistakes we hope for. It changed our understanding of the scene for the better.

One of our ensemble members recently returned to the group. She went through a rough time last season and left for a while, but when she came back, she did so enthusiastically and vocally, promising us that she’d be fully committed this time and take on a significant role. She used to be very quiet and often succumbed to stage fright, and that’s not the case now! She volunteered to read the old man in Act III Scene i but immediately gave the role to another woman who hadn’t heard her. Just after that, though, I looked right at her when we needed a Banquo, and she jumped at the chance to step in. That would never have happened a year ago. I’m so happy that she’s feeling so much better!

Speaking of participation, two new members began to take ownership in totally different ways this evening. One has been volunteering to read in just about every scene. “I just want to get as much practice as possible!” she laughed, and it’s obvious that that’s what’s going on. She has no ego about this – she just wants to learn and excel. Everyone is very welcoming of that and happy to let her read even if it means they don’t get to as often. Another woman, who recently confided in me about her fears of messing up the lines, declined to read one of the servants, but what she said was, “Not tonight.” She’s not counting herself out! She just knows she’s not ready quite yet.

We were maybe a little slaphappy by the time we got to Act III Scene iii, in which Banquo is killed. The woman filling in for Banquo, on reading the line, “It will be rain tonight,” rubbed her arm as if complaining about arthritis. That struck me as so funny that I kind of lost control, and then the rest of the group started laughing, and the scene just kind of tanked from there in a really hilarious way. We left feeling just wonderful!

Season Seven: Week 22

Tuesday
 

We finished our reading of the play tonight! Everyone present chose a role to explore – including one of our ensemble members who had been conflicted about whether she should stick with Shakespeare or rejoin another program that she loves. We are all incredibly excited that she’s made this choice, and she’s taken on a great role to boot. The other woman who was thinking of leaving decided to stick with an off-stage role, saying she wanted to help our resident “director.” She explained, “I am really good at being bossy. I’ll give good off-stage critiques!”

We started musing about our concept again, and we realized that we’ve got a fast-approaching deadline if we want to get everything approved by the facility in time. One ensemble member suggested that we stumble through the entire play, beginning to end, not worrying about blocking; focusing just on establishing the plot the story we want to tell.

Someone asked, “Can we do that?” I said, “We’ve never done that before! But let’s do it! Screw the past six years!” This is something I treasure about Shakespeare in Prison: we’ve established a structure that works well, but we never hesitate to deviate from it when we realize something else might work better. We know that things can change from year to year, and we stay open to that. We’ve all learned a TON of flexibility this way.

As we began our stumble through, a few members of the ensemble took charge in a big way, reminding everyone to pay attention to cues in the text (i.e., Macbeth says the witches put their fingers over their lips) and to try to stay open to the audience. I spent most of the remaining time one-on-one with an ensemble member, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see how well everything was being handled, and how much of it was being handled by people other than facilitators. That’s a really positive thing to be happening in February, particularly as we were trying something new!
 

Friday

After a long (much-needed) check in, we decided to get right back to our stumble through. One of our new members approached me, saying that she didn’t yet have a role but wanted to take on something pretty small. She said she was afraid she would “garble the dialogue.” I told her she probably would – that we all do! – and that by the time we get to performances, she’ll be totally comfortable. She smiled and said, “I’m known for having can’t-do-it syndrome.” I suggested that she think of this as a challenge rather than as something “hard.” She said she liked that, and that she’d try.

Meanwhile, no one was on stage! People were sitting in small groups, either talking or looking over their scripts. “Who’s gonna get the ball rolling?” I asked. At this point in the season, facilitators take a back seat as much as possible, so we sat around some more waiting for someone to get us started. Finally, a returning ensemble member stood up and tried to get people’s attention and focus, but the stage remained empty. She looked over at me. “Get up there – they’ll follow you!” I said. “But I’m not in this scene!” she replied. I smiled and said, with more emphasis, “Get UP there! They’ll follow you!!!” She did, and they finally did, too.

When we got to Act I Scene v, our Lady Macbeth got tongue tied during her monologue. We asked her to slow it down and remember that these are all new thoughts. She did, and she and our Macbeth got through the scene, but she wasn’t happy with it. “I didn’t feel prepared. There wasn’t all the emotion,” she said. “What do you suggest, Frannie? What do you propose, ensemble?”

“Do it again, with the holy ghost!” said one ensemble member, hearkening back to when our Lady Macbeth had risen to her feet and engaged with such power in another scene recently. “This is not the holy ghost scene!” said Lady Macbeth. “EVERY scene is the holy ghost scene!” I said.

“Be you! Give it to us!” said that same ensemble member, and Lady Macbeth took on the challenge. She looked at her script, smirked, and said, “I’m gonna prep it this time. There’s this thing Frannie taught me...” She put her hands on either side of what Michael Chekhov called the ideal center (between breast bone and spine), and it was clear that she was only semi-joking. “If you’re gonna do it, let’s do it!” I said, running on stage to be with her. We turned our backs to the audience, and I coached her through some centering visualizations and breathing. I encouraged her to take her time and stay grounded, and then I went back to the rest of the group, asking that we all give focus even before she began.

She turned to face down stage, looked at her script, and took a deep breath. Quietly but insistently, our Macbeth said, “You got this.” Our Lady Macbeth then gave a powerful performance, much more connected to the text, and much more believable. When the scene ended, the woman who’d told her to get the holy ghost shouted, “THERE we go, [name]! That was IT!” Lady Macbeth clearly felt much better, and we got into some detail about how her performance can grow from there. We revisited the need to breathe on punctuation and went through some examples. This woman, our longest-serving ensemble member, lit up and said, “This remind me of Romeo and Juliet – the Nurse monologue… Even or odd, of all the days of the year, come Lammas eve at night…” I jumped in, “Shall she be fourteen!” She laughed and said, “Yeah, Frannie!”

We moved on, and when we got to Act I Scene vii, I asked our Macbeth (who is off book for this scene) if she was going to do her pre-beat (described earlier in this blog). She nodded and ducked into the stage left stairwell, which has a door leading downstage of the actual stage. I asked the group again to give focus so that when she came out, she wouldn’t be distracted. She came storming in, paused, shook her head (in character; definitely in character) and walked back out. We stayed silent. She burst back in, strode to center, and then paused, taking us all in.

“If it were done, when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly…” This piece has come a long way from the last time we saw her do it. She was confident and played Macbeth’s warring emotions to great effect. It seemed she’d gotten the “holy ghost,” too. We were rapt. She sank to the steps, and then Lady Macbeth entered, towering over her. The scene moved; they connected deeply and spontaneously with each other; the energy was electric. It crackled. We all whooped and clapped when the scene ended. “I’m dropping an F-bomb in my notes!” I shouted. One ensemble member shook her head and smiled, saying, “[Macbeth], you moved me.” I asked her to elaborate. “She just… killed it. She murdered it,” she said. “You were doing the speech, and debating it, and trying to give excuses, and she was like, ‘What?!’” Another woman said, “She was back and forth on the decision… The conflict. You felt it all through the scene.”

I told them that this is exactly what Shakespeare should be: authentic, connected, in the moment, letting the text do the work and just rolling with it. We started citing specific moments that had most affected us. Our facilitator Lauren noted how effective it was when Lady Macbeth got in her husband’s face on, “We fail?” and then backed off as she went into the plan. Lady Macbeth said she wasn’t sure what to do with those two words. “I’m just disgusted by failure, in real life,” she said. “We… FAIL?” she continued, wrinkling her nose, drawing out the word. “Do it that way!” I said, noting that that short phrase gets an entire line of verse, so she has plenty of leeway to linger for as long as she wants.

“This scene feels like a transition,” she said, and we all realized how valuable this stumble through is at this point in the process. This is why I feel – and know – that I’m always on a learning curve in this program. I forget how hard it is to “get” the arc and breadth of any of these plays without seeing or walking the entire thing. Up until last year, there was always at least one ensemble member who wasn’t able to put all the pieces together until our first performance. But this year, we’re seeing the scenes in order in February. It makes me really intrigued about how this will impact the rest of our process. I’m so glad we decided to change things up this way!