by Greg Egan
All hail the new technology: total control at last in the hands of the mob. Skim through the boring bits, revisit the climaxes in stilted slow motion again and again.
They watch the Nostromo explosion, frame by frame, and laugh with obscene glee at the animator’s art revealed. They gawk at every split-second shot for an endless time.
I just hope that the editor of the film never has to witness such a revolting scene. Every decision he made has been undermined: his job has become a do-it-yourself craze, but the idiots with the replay buttons and the freeze-frame switches are not likely to achieve an improved version.
Time means nothing, never will again.
I quit the Media class. What could they possibly teach me? They are Neanderthals, barbarians. Let them watch soap operas and play with Super 8 surfing films. It’s just a sick joke.
I won’t let it become a cruel one, not for me.
English is not so easily disposed of. It’s either that or Literature, which is more of the same, only worse. So, within my brain, I build a thick-walled vault where I seal away my thoughts about the books she is about to maim and disfigure. I rescue and repair her first victim, by dipping back into older, as yet unsoiled, memories. Her poison is seeping through my mind, but I am too fast for it. I am king here, and the walls I build are impervious to it.
She doesn’t like what I write about The Catcher in the Rye.
—Didn’t you hear anything I said about it?
No comment. I shrug, almost apologetically.
Coward. Should have said, ‘No. Not any more.’
My Media teacher is very disappointed.
—I thought you liked films!
—I do.
(—That’s why I’m quitting, vivisector!)
Coward.
Now about those international atrocities. Maybe, sometime in the future, when I’m a little less busy …
The tall American politician smiles.
It’s what happens when I try to think things through.
Chapter 17
REHEARSALS
I am standing outside Room O which is above the canteen. I am leaning on the railing, looking down at people moving across the quadrangle. Then I look up, and see, just below the railing outside Room H, on the other side of the quadrangle, red letters which have been taped to the white-painted concrete. They say:
FAIR IS FOUL AND FOUL IS FAIR
A shuffling, hunched figure cackles as it limps through a doorway, out of the quadrangle. I swallow nervous fear.
It takes a few seconds to click. It is the School Play this year. They always put unsubtle hints in red letters below the railing outside Room H. It’s a kind of tradition.
Five years ago, I tried to direct Macbeth myself. I rewrote the play as a screenplay, and then I tried to persuade classmates to be in the cast. I got plenty of volunteers, but they spent all their time bursting into fits of uncontrollable laughter at the lines. And I couldn’t blame them … some of those lines are hilarious.
A flash of inspiration: This is my chance for a really novel way of filming Macbeth! I could, of course, go and see the play when it is put on, and sit there with a telephoto setting capturing it all from the audience’s viewpoint. But there is a better way! If I could get on the cast then I could film it all from the inside … including the players waiting nervously behind the stage, the producers tearing their hair out at each mistake, the reactions of the audience …
So I go for an audition.
There are two producers who are also directors. Bloody theatre terminology, I can never get used to it. They are both English teachers (but not my knife-happy crucifix-mad one), and they are both spinsters. But they’re not quite the knitting types …
Miss Mulligan is Irish, energetic, dominating, with a volatile temper. Miss McDougall is Scottish, quieter, spectacled, with a soft but bitter voice perfect for making ironic observations.
Miss McDougall ushers me into her office, offers me a chair.
—Now, why do you want to be in the play?
An obvious question. How can I answer? The truth? I gave up doing that long ago. Well, then, which lie is best for the occasion? A stream of intellectual crap about old Shakespeare’s relevance to my life, to my need for creative activity? The School Patriotism angle? I Want To Get Involved In Something? To broaden my experience of life? Which lie is best?
—I don’t know
I say, which is the honest answer to a different question.
—Mmmmmm.
She looks suspiciously at me through her washed-out blue eyes and thick, shiny lenses. She’s about to make some biting comment which will crush me. I tense myself.
Then Miss Mulligan breaks into the room.
—Occh, he flared his nostrils! Sorry, I lost the key!
she exclaims. She stares at me delightedly.
—Can yer do it again?
she pleads.
I can’t. She looks disappointed. I do it. She cackles with joy.
—Ah, but we must have him if he can flare his nostrils!
—But, he …
Miss McDougall gives up. Arguing will get her nowhere.
—Give him Lennox’s part
says Miss Mulligan.
—He says lots of little things all through the play
explains Miss McDougall.
—You know, there’s a great soccer player called Bobby Lennox!
exclaims Miss Mulligan. She begins a rapid commentary/mime of some imaginary vital soccer match. I want to send out a viewpoint so I can see the expression on my face but I am afraid that it will make me laugh.
So now I am Lennox.
For three weeks, at lunchtimes, we crowd into the office and go through the play … not reading it, but putting very thick blue lines through fifty per cent of the dialogue, and occasionally adding a word or two.
Macbeth is tall and thin, with a gaunt, haunted face.
Lady Macbeth has jet-black hair, pure white skin, and eyes like a doe’s.
When the rather drastic adaptions have finished, we start to read scenes, starting with Act II. Act I is being ‘looked at closely with the possibility of some major revision’ says Miss Mulligan. How it can be revised further when it is already unrecognisable I do not know.
Act II starts with Banquo, a Scottish General, and his young son, Fleance, standing in the courtyard of Macbeth’s castle in the early hours of the morning. It is hard to feel the atmosphere in a small, stuffy, sunny room.
—Don’t try and put feeling in the lines now
warns Miss Mulligan.
—That’s our job. You just learn them now, and we’ll get around to all that later.
The lines are still hilarious, and sometimes when we mispronounce archaic words, Miss Mulligan becomes helpless with laughter.
Miss McDougall titters quietly.
—What’s the joke?
demands someone.
—I … I …
Tears stream down her cheeks. Miss McDougall has recovered fully, and and is sitting with her back straight and an appropriately prim expression on her face.
—You … you …
gasps Miss Mulligan, sobbing.
—It’s absolutely disgusting! I could not explain it in a million years!
Then she falls onto the floor and lies on her back taking deep breaths until she has regained her composure.
Lady Macbeth begins Act II Scene II in a sober, wary voice.
—Stop!
screeches Miss Mulligan.
—This is how you do it!
She presses her tongue against the roof of her mouth, tilts her head forward, begins nodding loosely and speaking in a tipsy, lisping voice:
—That which hath made them drunk hath made me bold!
Her head falls onto the desk. She snores once, then jerks her head up again.
Well …
—Wot haf qwenched them haf given me thire, sire!
She belches loudly.
—Hark! Peace!
> She looks around the room like a frightened Marty Feldman.
—It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the stern’st good-night.
—Cawww, cawww!
crows Miss McDougall, her hands folded over her mouth and nose.
—Toooo, toooo!
she hoots.
—He is about it!
Miss McDougall picks up a chair and drops it, then knocks a stack of books noisily onto the floor. Then she screams piercingly. In the distance, police sirens.
—Like that
says Miss Mulligan.
And that sort of thing.
… Later:
—It was a rough and feverous night
says Macbeth.
Miss Mulligan elbows Miss McDougall sharply in the ribs, winks, and says:
—Aye, it was indeed, was it not, Agnes!
Miss McDougall looks sullen. Miss Mulligan cackles softly.
And that sort of thing.
… Later:
—What is amiss?
asks Donalbain.
—A Miss is a lady who’s had a rough night!
cackles Miss Mulligan.
Miss McDougall starts to cry.
The rehearsal finishes a little early.
From that moment on, there is a special sort of tension in the air every time that line is read. Sometimes Miss Mulligan grins mischievously, but only if Miss McDougall is not looking.
Eventually we start to physically act out scenes, without props or costumes, in the drama room beneath Room H. There is an imaginary stage, an imaginary audience, imaginary sheets of cardboard hiding us from the imaginary audience.
Macbeth is in the middle of a long philosophical soliloquy when he takes a few steps too many. Miss Mulligan, in a flash of movement, rises from her chair, rushes up to him, and pushes him over onto the floor.
—What the hell did you do that for?
he asks, stunned and bruised and bleeding and dying and …
Sorry.
—You fell off the edge of the stage
she says innocently.
—I ran to catch you before it was too late, but you’re much too heavy for a poor old lady like me. You should be much more careful in future.
Lunchtime soon becomes too short for any serious rehearsals, so they move to the evening.
The school is dark but peaceful as the night-school classes are all at the other end of the building. I pan freely as I approach the drama room. Lights are on in all the rooms but they do little to penetrate the beautiful blackness of the quadrangle. Somewhere in the distance a cleaner whistles.
The drama room is locked and dark. Nobody has arrived yet. I lean against the wall and whistle ‘Mrs Robinson’ for a while.
Miss Mulligan arrives, smoking a chain, and unlocks the door. Then Macbeth and Lord Ross appear, and a few seconds later, the Porter. We start piling up desks and carrying them out of the room. Miss Mulligan gets a record-player from her office and puts on a record by The Chieftains. The music is eerie and uncomfortable in the silence and night-coolness.
Then we sit and wait. Nobody else arrives.
When we have waited one hour, Miss Mulligan packs up her record-player and takes it back to the office. We get the hint and put all the desks back. And we go home.
The next day she quietly and calmly screams her head off.
The next week, everybody turns up for rehearsal.
One night:
We have nearly done all we can with Act II without starting work in the hall, and we are sitting on the floor drinking coffee.
—Shall I hit them with the heavy stuff?
Miss Mulligan asks Miss McDougall.
—Go ahead, dear, you sock it to ’em!
says Miss McDougall.
—Why are we doing this? All right, it’s the school play, and it’s something to take up your spare time, and it’s a bit different and it’s fun, but why are we doing it?
—To give pleasure to the people in the audience
suggests Malcolm.
—Really! Then you are all nothing but prostitutes!
Miss McDougall titters.
—To enjoy it ourselves
suggests someone else.
—That’s worse! You’ll go blind!
Miss McDougall grins and blushes simultaneously.
—I don’t think any of you really understand what Shakespeare was trying to do or say with this play, or how we can achieve something with it ourselves.
Her hair stands on end from sheer intensity.
—Now, you must think about the sort of audience we’ll be having. There’ll be your friends from school, and your parents, and your friends’ parents, and teachers, and teachers’ wives and friends and concubines and brothers and sisters and parents. Now what can a play set in Scotland around the eleventh century say to those people, people of, for the most part, the twentieth century? Remember, we’ve got people from all sorts of backgrounds, all sorts of races, colours, and creeds. Lots of Italian Market Gardeners
She elbows Miss McDougall roughly …
—and those sort of people. I don’t expect you to come up with any instant answers, but I want you to think about these sorts of things, because if you don’t, the play will not be a success no matter how big, no matter how enthusiastic the audiences are.
Then we start rehearsing in the hall.
There is an enormous raised wooden stage at one end of the hall, with a white wall at the back with a wide corridor behind it. There is a fair bit of invisible space to either side of the stage. These two spaces both lead by stairs to underground dressing rooms, make-up rooms, costume-storage rooms.
—Into the very bowels of the hall
mutters someone as we fumble for the light switches.
The stage is to be extended by a whole series of wooden boxes placed on top of each other. The result is a multi-level structure with a long, low tongue protruding from one side, right up to the audience, where profound soliloquies are said under a single spotlight.
We spend most of the time at each rehearsal unpacking the boxes and setting them up, because they cannot stay there during the daytime. They would interfere with basketball games.
Ho hum.
The boxes are plywood frames which fold out to be fitted with heavy wooden tops. Fingers are snapped and battered as we drop the thick rectangles into place.
All of the acting is to be done on this extension, and on the very front of the permanent stage, the rear regions of which are to be used for the dancing scenes. A curtain of grey-dyed styrofoam chains separates the two areas. As people move back and forth with heavy pieces of wood, the bottom links are all trodden on and broken and crushed, and the stage is littered with tiny pieces of foam.
Then evenings become too short and we rehearse on Saturday afternoons.
Props are minimal: swords, daggers, a bucket of water, a banquet table.
There is music and sound effects and lighting to plan in detail, and soon there are dozens of assistants and helpers involved, dashing around with messages and notebooks.
One afternoon I help carry a table from the library into the hall, for the sound equipment. Miss Mulligan sees me and says sharply:
—You’re listed on the program as a Thespian, not a production assistant!
Two weeks ago she had told us:
—Last year the play became very complicated and messy because too many people were involved, too many people were so specialised that they didn’t know anything about the play except what they actually had to do; their strictly defined tasks. This year I’ll want you all to help with props and equipment and make-up changes and everything, so we can have fewer people and less confusion.
Ho hum.
The days we are sure will never really come get closer. We are measured for costumes. The extension to the stage gets precedence over basketball games! The script is finalised.
And that sort of thing.
—Seward will come soon. To strai
ghten things out. Believe me, it’ll be really bad
says Macbeth. He was in last year’s play.
—What do you mean?
—Every year, at about the second-last rehearsal, he shows up and takes over. Mulligan and McDougall just go and stand in some corner. Then he makes us go through it, yelling ‘Speak up!’ all the time as if we had voices like his. And he changes everything.
—You’re kidding!
I am horrified.
—No … but it’s all OK … we ignore all the changes later on. The whole idea is just for him to feel important, to think that he’s our ultimate mentor. We don’t ever do it like he tells us, even on opening night when he’s there, and nothing ever happens. It’s just some kind of fantasy for the poor old bugger, I guess.
I won’t go. I couldn’t stand it.
But I can’t not turn up for the second-last rehearsal.
Ugh.
We have a make-up rehearsal with all the lighting and music as it will be. Then the costumes arrive and we try them on and the main characters pose for photographs for the local press.
The entire school throbs with the approaching play. Everyone in the cast is constantly questioned by everyone not in the cast, about such rumours as: Are the swords really razor-sharp? (They are quite blunt, but still dangerous; thankfully I never have to do any fighting with mine.), Is there really a passionate scene on a water-bed? (A salacious rumour seeded by Miss Mulligan to encourage ticket sales.), and Will there really be an actual beheading on the final night? (Well, anything’s possible.).
Miss Mulligan gets hold of a copy of Roman Polanski’s Macbeth and the cast (and the school’s Literature students) are all invited to the screening. It is not the bloodthirsty violence of the film that makes me feel sick, it is the awful cheering and whistling of the audience during rapes, murders, and executions. There is one shot where Macbeth plants an axe in a soldier’s groin; the projectionist, a Chemistry teacher who is also our Properties Manager, quickly stops the film, runs it backwards for a few seconds, and tries to display the scene again. I’ve had quite enough of that sort of thing. The film jams in the projector, and has to be cut to get it moving again.
Poetic justice!
I grin about it for a day.
On the night of the second-last rehearsal, there is a lump in my stomach as big as the Death Star. Miss Mulligan is late, and we all sit around feeling glum. Miss McDougall arrives.
