Light Thickens. Ngaio Marsh
weak as Macbeth was overcome.
‘Weak?’ asked Dougal Macdougal. ‘You think him weak, do you?’
‘Weak in respect of this one monstrous thing he feels himself drawn towards doing. He’s a most successful soldier. You may say “larger than life”. He “takes the stage”, cuts a superb figure. The King has promised he will continue to shower favours upon him. Everything is as rosy as can be. And yet – and yet –’
‘His wife?’ Dougal suggested. ‘And the witches!’
‘Yes. That’s why I say the witches are enormously important. One has the feeling that they are conjured up by Macbeth’s secret thoughts. There’s not a character in the play that questions their authority. There have been productions, you know, that bring them on at different points, silent but menacing, watching their work.
‘They pull Macbeth along the path to that one definitive action. And then, having killed the King, he’s left – a murderer. For ever. Unable to change. His morbid imagination takes charge. The only thing he can think of is to kill again. And again. Notice the imagery. The play closes in on him. And on us. Everything thickens. His clothes are too big, too heavy. He’s a man in a nightmare.
‘There’s the break, the breather for the leading actor that comes in all the tragedies. We see Macbeth once again with the witches and then comes the English scene with the boy Malcolm taking his oddly contorted way of finding out if Macduff is to be trusted, his subsequent advance into Scotland, the scene of Lady Macbeth speaking of horrors with the strange, dead voice of the sleepwalker.
‘And then we see him again; greatly changed; aged, desperate, unkempt; his cumbersome royal robes in disarray, attended still by Seyton who has grown in size. And so to the end.’
He waited for a moment. Nobody spoke.
‘I would like,’ said Peregrine, ‘before we block the opening scenes to say a brief word about the secondary parts. It’s the fashion to say they’re uninteresting. I don’t agree. About Lennox, in particular. He’s likeable, down to earth, quick-witted but slow to make the final break. There’s evidence in the imperfect script of some doubt about who says what. We will make Lennox the messenger to Lady Macduff. When next we see him he’s marching with Malcolm. His scene with an unnamed thane (we’ll give the lines to Ross) when their suspicion of Macbeth, their nosing out of each other’s attitudes, develops into a tacit understanding, is “modern” in treatment, almost black comedy in tone.’
‘And the Seyton?’ asked a voice from the rear. A very deep voice.
‘Ah, Seyton. There again, obviously, he’s “Sirrah”, the unnamed servant who accompanies Macbeth like a shadow, who carries his great claidheamh-mor, who joins the two murderers and later in the play emerges with a name – Seyton. He has hardly any lines but he’s ominous. A big, silent, ever-present, amoral fellow who only leaves his master at the very end. We’re casting Gaston Sears for the part. My Sears, as you all know, in addition to being an actor is an authority on medieval weapons and is already working for us in that capacity.’ There was an awkward silence followed by an acquiescent murmur.
The saturnine person, sitting alone, cleared his throat, folded his arms and spoke. ‘I shall carry,’ he announced, basso-profundo, ‘a claidheamh-mor.’
‘Quite so,’ Peregrine said. ‘You are the sword-bearer. As for the – ‘
‘ – which has been vulgarized into “claymore”. I prefer “claidheamh-mor” meaning “great sword”, it being – ‘
‘Quite so, Gaston. And now – ‘
For a time the voices mingled, the bass one coming through with disjointed phrases: ‘…Magnus’s leg-biter…quillons formed by turbulent protuberance…’
‘To continue,’ Peregrine shouted. The sword-bearer fell silent.
‘And the witches?’ asked a helpful witch.
‘Entirely evil,’ answered the relieved Peregrine. ‘Dressed like fantastic parodies of Meg Merrilies but with terrible faces. We don’t see their faces until “look not like the inhabitants of the earth and yet are on’t,” when they are suddenly revealed. They smell abominably.’
‘And speak?’
‘Braid Scots.’
‘What about me, Perry? Braid Scots too?’ suggested the porter.
‘Yes. You enter through the central trap, having been collecting fuel in the basement. And,’ Peregrine said with ill-concealed pride, ‘the fuel is bleached driftwood and most improperly shaped. You address each piece in turn as a farmer, as an equivocator and as an English tailor, and you consign them all to the fire.’
‘I’m a funny man?’
‘We hope so.’
‘Aye. A-weel, it’s a fine idea, I’ll give it that. Och, aye. A bonny notion,’ said the porter.
He chuckled and mouthed and Peregrine wished he wouldn’t, but he was a good Scots actor.
He waited for a moment, wondering how much he had gained of their confidence. Then he turned to the designs and explained how they would work and then to the costumes.
‘I’d like to say here and now that these drawings and those for the sets – Jeremy has done both – are, to my mind, exactly right. Notice the suggestion of the clan tartans: a sort of primitive pre-tartan. The cloak is a distinctive check affair. All Macbeth’s servitors and servitors of royal personages wore their badges and the livery of their masters. Lennox, Angus and Ross wear their own distinctive cloaks with the clan check. Banquo and Fleance have particularly brilliant ones, blood-red with black and silver borders. For the rest, thonged trousers, fur jerkins, and sheepswool chaps. Massive jewellery. Great jewelled bosses, heavy necklets and heavy bracelets, in Macbeth’s case reaching up to the elbow and above it. The general effect is heavy, primitive but incidentally extremely sexy. Gauntlets, fringed and ornamented. And the crowns! Macbeth’s in particular. Huge and heavy it must look.’
‘Look,’ said Macdougal, ‘being the operative word, I hope.’
‘Yes, of course. We’ll have it made of plastic. And Maggie…do you like what you see, darling?’
What she saw was a skin-tight gown of dull metallic material, slit up one side to allow her to walk. A crimson, heavily furred garment was worn over it, open down the front. She had only one jewel, a great clasp.
‘I hope I’ll fit it,’ said Maggie.
‘You’ll do that,’ he said, ‘and now – ‘ he was conscious of a tightness under his belt – ‘we’ll clear stage and get down to business. Oh! There’s one point I’ve missed. You will see that for our first week some of the rehearsals are at night. This is to accommodate Sir Dougal who is shooting the finals of his new film. The theatre is dark, the current production being on tour. It’s a bit out of the ordinary, I know, and I hope nobody finds it too awkward?’
There was a silence during which Sir Dougal with spread arms mimed a helpless apology.
‘I can’t forbear saying it’s very inconvenient,’ said Banquo.
‘Are you filming?’
‘Not precisely. But it might arise.’
‘We’ll hope it doesn’t,’ Peregrine said. ‘Right? Good. Clear stage, please, everybody. Scene 1. The witches.’
II
‘It’s going very smoothly,’ said Peregrine, three days later. ‘Almost too smoothly. Dougal’s uncannily lamblike and everyone told me he was a Frankenstein’s Monster to work with.’
‘Keep your fingers crossed,’ said his wife, Emily. ‘It’s early