Performance x Macbeth

                                                                          Macbeth xUAL

What are we starring in now

                                                                              
This play has about five acts and around seven scenes in each act. In the beginning Macbeth was a Thane of Glamis. He met three witches that told him "you will become king." He didn't believe this, but the witches also told him he would become the Thane of Cawdor, which did happen. Then Macbeth began to believe them (a little). Next he thought "Being King wouldn't be too bad," so he and his wife, Lady Macbeth, planned to kill King Duncan. They did and put the blame on the King's gaurds. That plan went successfully.
The King had two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain. They fled after they heard of their father's death. Once Macbeth became King, he thought he had no worries. But Macbeth knows that Banquo knew of his plan to kill Duncan, so Macbeth hired three murders to kill Banquo and his son Fleance. They killed Banquo, but Fleance got away. After Macbeth heard of the success of the murder he became insane.
Macbeth went to the witches to see what he had to fear. The witches showed him some apparitions, which told him what to fear. There were three of them. The first one said to look out for the Thane of Fife, which was Macduff. The second apparition said that none born of a woman would kill him. Last the thrid one said to not worry until Great Birnam (the forest) comes to your castle. Macbeth thought he had it made from what the apparitions said.
Just to be safe, Macbeth tried to find ways to get Macduff to come back so he could kill him. Macbeth had Macduff's family murdered. Once Macduff heard of this, he wanted Macbeth's head. So Macduff went to his friend Malcolm, who was in England. They talked and came up with a plan to get Macbeth. Macduff said "I want to kill Macbeth." Malcolm and Macduff got an army ready and left for Macbeth. Macbeth heard of the plan Malcolm and Macduff made and was planning to hold them out. Well once Malcolm's army got to the castle they planned to cut branches off trees from Birnam forest and use it as cover. Macbeth's army started leaving him and going to Malcolm's side.
Macduff got inside and was on the look for Macbeth. Once he found him they began to fight. Macbeth said "You can't defeat me. None born of a woman can harm me." But Macduff wasn't born of a woman, he was cut out of her womb early. So Macbeth knew he was doomed. After the fight Macduff cut off his head, and the castle was back in the right hands. Malcolm became the new king

Month  1
One week sober from the cherry orchard we where able to move onto the next stage of recovery and that was a whole entire new play. Macbeth I thought that I had been set free from the infamous play but nope. But this time is different it is much more then expected from our pervious plays because we are going full out and I mean costumes, dressing rooms etc. First things first  role assignments. just like in the previous play I really wanted to push myself even more with the different roles. I just felt like I was not staying true to myself through the characters instead of it being fake I wanted it to feel real.
So thanks to my requirement to Rob about how I wasn't staying true to my character he gave me 3 characters to play. this will help me to pull through some Stanslevki methods and broken heart theatre method acting skills to help me out.

Witch 1: Witch 1 in the play  is an evil, mystical role in the play.The witches have the ability to see into the future and predict that Macbeth will become the king of Scotland. Their prophesies jump-start Macbeth's murderous ways. Shakespeare gives the witches supernatural abilities but forces the audience to consider whether they dictate Macbeth's outcome or if Macbeth seals his own fate -- raising the question of free will. The witches are creepy, manipulative and evil and enjoy watching Macbeth fail as a husband, friend and leader. They set a moody, pessimistic tone for the play and foreshadow Macbeth's impending doom.

Lady Macduff:Lady Macduff is Lady Macbeth's opposite. She's a loyal, devoted mother who prioritizes the raising of her children. She rebukes her husband for leaving the family to pursue vengeance on Macbeth for killing Duncan. Lady Macduff knows that two wrongs don't make a right and desperately wants to save her family, knowing that Macbeth is intent on killing them all. Shakespeare uses this female figure to show positive traits -- devotion, goodness, high moral standing, unselfishness and inner strength. Lady Macduff's strong mental state provides a stark contrast to Lady Macbeth's increasing madness.

Murderer 1: Murderer 1 is the leader or the other murders who carry out banquos death for Macbeth.So basically they do Macbeth’s dirt work for him.

Porter: Drunkered Gate Man 

In the first month it was pretty relaxed and calm we were just really trying to analyse and break them

  down to our own understandings. Rob also wanted to try something new instead of performing the regular way where the audience will be to one side he had the creative idea to perform in a circle instead. In my opinion its a real  challenge because your back will be turned a lot to the audience so if it does not work out then there will be an alternative. In subject of finding similarities with my characters I could only connect with Lady Macduff because of her purity and real love for her family so me channelling her pain when her family separating felt so real to me and the confusion of it all was the icing on the cake for me. But for a bigger impact I realised that I needed more insight to I turn to the resources such as Digital theatre to help me to get in character for her role.in conclusion to the first month I was all about strict script analysing character analysing and group preparation. 

Month 2:

the second stage of our Macbeth performance preparation started off in a whole new fresh year leaving behind all negativity(aka the Cherry Orchard)😅. The year did start off rocky seeing as our teacher had gotten really ill that he was not able to teach so we were given a substitute teacher instead of our regular teacher Rob. So our lovely sub Shenagh to take over our class. With the class motivated to still give our 100% commitment to the end performance we were able to start acting out scenes from the play finally. In this month we realised that if we tried to modernize the play it will help us understand what we where saying. This definitely helped me learn my lines better and keep my characters all different in there own individual way. 

Act 1 Scene 1 is the one of the most important scenes of the place because it sets that demonic tone to the play of the prophecies and the dark magic that the witches portray. Me and the other witches found it a  bit hard to channel the inner witch in us because we are not even close to evil. But watching  other Macbeth versions of the  plays the witches didn't have to look or even sound demonic. So they made it their own ,during our research into the 3 witches we decided on 3 different unique personalities to help us to connect with our characters.
 






MODERNISING THE PLAY

During my research the best site used to help modernise the play no fear Shakespeare which really captures the real messages in the scenes

FIRST WITCH When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?	FIRST WITCH When should the three of us meet again? Will it be in thunder, lightning, or rain?
SECOND WITCH When the hurly-burly’s done, When the battle’s lost and won.	SECOND WITCH We’ll meet when the noise of the battle is over, when one side has won and the other side has lost.
THIRD WITCH 5That will be ere the set of sun.	THIRD WITCH That will happen before sunset.
FIRST WITCH Where the place?	FIRST WITCH Where should we meet?
SECOND WITCH Upon the heath.	SECOND WITCH Let’s do it in the open field.
THIRD WITCH There to meet with Macbeth.	THIRD WITCH We’ll meet Macbeth there.

  In conclusion of the second month it was honestly we were really trying hard to capture how we would ,make this play our own using ideas from previous plays we have done a creating spider diagrams for referring. My group and I were able to to block a practice until,half of the play where lady Macdcuff was murdered. Blocking the scene helped use with using using different techniques such as Stanislavski "objectives have actions" to improve our blocking with scenes.

In months 3-4 it was crunch time so all scene were blocked and rehearsed to perfection. in the past 2 months we had intense rehearsals back to back in the last week we were receiving feedback from our teacher to make sure that we are going the extra mile.

So to go the extra mile our teacher Shenagh was able to schedule some time for a stage fighting teacher to come in and rehearse different fighting scenes for Banquos death scene.In our group we c

kept things very simpler with a traditional approach so swords and cut throats very Henry the 8th. 

"Overall all lines are rehearsed blocking with technical input are set . but we have to try not to bore the audience we need to entice them in the play  keep them guessing and remember acting is behaving truthfully in imagined circumstances"

With that feed back given to us we sat down as a group and brainstormed. We came up with using different voice tones for the witches scenes and different coloured lights to have the audience engaged in the play and to not settle less with our characters. For example for me more porter scene is funny even though I see how "stealing out of a French man hose"is funny but i had to make it absolutely drunkenly funny so we use props like an alcohol bottle rough clothing.

In conclusion to to the end performance i can say that the dedication that was put into the play , having four outfit and wig changes and characters as a group we pulled it off staying true to my characters. 
                         https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpnSKMyirtQ