by Ngaio Marsh
“Well, suppose we were to offer a performance of the play on your — what do you call it —”
“The marai?”
“Yes. How would you react?”
“To the invitation or to the performance?”
“Well — to the performance, I suppose. Both, really.”
“It would depend upon the elders. If they were sticklers, really orthodox people, you would be given formal greetings, the challenge and the presentation of the weapon. It is possible —” He stopped.
“Yes?”
“It would have been possible, I believe, that the tahunga — that’s what you’d call a wise man — would have been asked, because of the nature of the play, to lay a tapu on the performance. He would do this. And then you would go away and dress and the performance would take place.”
“You don’t mind about using — well, you know — eyes, tongue, and everything in the play?”
“I am not entirely orthodox. And we take the play seriously. My great-grandfather was a cannibal,” said Rangi in his exquisite voice. “He believed he absorbed the attributes of his victims.”
A complete silence fell upon the table. Perhaps because they had been rather a noisy party before, their silence affected other patrons, and Rangi’s declaration, quite loudly made, was generally heard. The silence lasted only for a second or two.
“Four beers and two tomato juices,” said Ross, returning with the drinks. He laid the tray on the table.
Chapter 3
THIRD WEEK
In the third week the play began to consolidate. The parts that were clearly spurious had of course been taken out — the structure fully revealed. It was written with economy: the remorseless destiny of the Macbeths, the certainty from the beginning that they were irrevocably cursed, their progress, at first clinging to each other, then separated and swept away downstream to their damnation: these elements declared themselves in every phase of this destructive play.
Why, then, was it not dreary? Why did it excite rather than distress?
“I don’t know why,” Peregrine said to his wife. “Well, I do, really. It’s because it’s wonderfully well written. Simple as that. It’s the atmosphere that it generates.”
“When you directed it before, did you feel the same way about it?”
“I think so. Not so marked, though. It’s a much better company, of course. Really, it’s a perfect company. If you heard Simon Morten in the English scene, Emily, saying, My wife kill’d too? Then when Malcolm offers his silly conventional bit of advice, Simon looks at Ross and says, He has no children.”
“I know.”
“Come down to rehearsal one of these days and see.”
“Shall I?”
“Yes. Do. At the end of next week.”
“All right. How about the superstitions? Is Nina Gaythorne behaving herself?”
“She’s trying to, at least. I don’t mind betting she’s taking all sorts of precautions on the side but as long as she doesn’t talk about it… Barrabell — he’s the Banquo, you know — feeds her stories, I’m quite sure. I caught him at it last week. The scrap shed down by the river was struck by lightning, you know.”
“No! You never told me.”
“Didn’t I? I suppose I’ve clapped locks on anything that looks like superstition and don’t unfasten them even for you. I caught Barrabell nicely and gave poor old Nina the shock of her life.”
“What were they saying?”
“He was going on about one of the witches — Blondie — making a scene and getting the jimjams during the storm. Some people do get upset, you know — it’s electrical. They always say they’re sorry and they can’t help it.”
“Was Blondie all right?”
“Right as rain when the lightning stopped.”
“How unfortunate.”
“What?”
“That there should be a thunderstorm.”
“You don’t mean —?”
“Oh, you know how I feel about all the nonsense. I just thought how unfortunate from the point of view of the people who do.”
“The silly fatheads have got over it. The theatre wasn’t struck by lightning. Being fixed up with a good conductor, it wouldn’t have felt it anyway.”
“No.” After a short silence, Emily said: “How’s the little boy behaving?”
“William Smith? Very well. He’s a good actor. It’ll be interesting to see what happens to him after adolescence.
He may not go on with the theatre but I hope he does. He’s doubling.”
“The Bloody Child?”
“And the Crowned Child. They’re one and the same. You should hear him wail out his Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hi-i-ill shall come against him.”
“Golly!”
“Yes, my girl. That’s the word for it.”
“How are you working the scene? The apparitions?”
“The usual things. Dry ice. A trapdoor. A lift. Background of many whispering voices: Double, double. Strong rhythm. The show of Kings is all Banquo’s descendants. Each wears a Banquo head — Gaston’s handiwork, of course. The scene ends with And points at them for his. The next bit in the script is somebody’s incredibly silly addition. I should think the stage manager’s for a fourth-rate company in the sticks. It’s a wonder he didn’t give the witches red noses and slapsticks.”
“So you go on with — what?”
“There’s a blackout and great confusion. Crescendo. Noises. Macbeth’s voice. Sounds, possibly drums. I’m not sure. Footfalls, maybe. Lights dim up with Lennox at the door. Macbeth comes out. Rest of scene as written.”
“Smashing.”
“Well, I hope so. It’s going to need handling.”
“Yes. Of course.”
“It’s the only tricky one left from the staging point of view.”
“Could Gaston be a help? About witchcraft?”
“I daren’t risk asking him. He could, of course, but he does so — so go off at the deep end. He is a teeny bit mad, you know. Only on his own lay, but he is. He’s God’s gift when it comes to swords. What will you think of the fight? It terrifies me.”
“Is it really dangerous, Perry?”
He waited for a minute.
“Not according to Gaston, always making sure the stage is right. He’ll keep a nightly watch on it. The two men have reached an absolute perfection of movement. They’re getting on together, man to man, a bit better, too. Maggie had a go at Simon, bless her, and he’s less crissy-crossy when they are not fighting, thank God.”
“Well,” said Emily, “nobody can accuse you of being superstitious, I’ll say that for you.”
“Will you? And you’ll come next week when we’ll take it in continuity with props?”
“You bet I will,” said Emily.
“I don’t know what you’ll think of Gaston. I mean, of what I’m doing with him. He’s the bearer of the great ceremonial sword — the claidheamh-mor. We’re making a harness and heavy belt for him to take the hilt. It’s the real weapon and it weighs a ton. He’s as strong as a bull. He follows Macbeth everywhere like a sort of judgment. And at the end he’ll carry the head on it. He is watching Jeremy’s drawings for his costume with the eye of a hawk.”
“What’s it like?”
“Like all the other Macbeth menage. Embryo tartan, black woolen tights, thonged sheepskin leggings. A mask for the fights. In his final appearance with the head on the sword, he — er — he suggested a scarlet tabard.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake, Perry!”
“I know. Where would he change and why? With fighting thanes milling all around. I pointed this out and for once he hadn’t an answer. He took refuge in huffy grandeur, said it was merely an idea, and went into a long thing about color and symbolism.”
“I feel I must meet him.”
“Shall I invite him for tea?”
“Do you like him?” she asked incredulously.
“Oh, one couldn’t exactly do that. Or, I don’t think o
ne could. Collect him, perhaps. No, he might just turn into a bore and not go home.”
“In that case we won’t ask him here.”
“Or bring the Macbeth’s head with him to show you. He did that to me. When we’d finished afternoon rehearsal. It was in the shadows of the wardrobe room. I nearly fainted.”
“Frightful?”
“Terrifying. It’s sheet-white and so like Dougal. With a bloody gash, you know. He wondered if I had any suggestions to make.”
“Had you?”
“Just to cover it up quickly. Fortunately, the audience only sees it momentarily. He turns it to face Malcolm, who is up on the steps at the back. It’ll be back to audience.”
“They’ll laugh,” said Emily.
“If they laugh at that they’ll laugh at anything.”
“What do you bet?”
“Well, of course they have in the past always laughed at a head and the management always says it’s a nervous reaction. So it may be but I don’t think so. I think they know it isn’t, and can’t be, Macbeth’s or anybody else’s head and they laugh. It’s as if they said: ‘This is a bit too thick. Come off it.’ All the same, I’m going to risk it.”
“You jolly well do and more power to your elbow.”
“The final words are cut. The play ends with the thanes all shouting Hail, King of Scotland! and pointing their swords at Malcolm. He’s in a strong light. I hope the audience will go away feeling, well — relieved, uplifted, as if Scotland stands free of a nightmare.”
“I hope so, too. I think they will.”
“May you think so when you’ve seen it.”
“I bet I will,” said Emily.
“I’ll push off. So long, Em, wish me luck.”
“With all my heart,” she said and gave him a kiss and a packet and a thermos. “Your snack,” she said.
“Thanks, love. I don’t know when I’ll be home.”
“Okay. Always welcome.”
She watched him get into his car. He gave her a toot and was off.
He was taking the witches’ scenes. Mattresses had been placed on the stage behind the gallows rostrum. The body on the scaffold moved slightly in its noose, turned by one of the mysterious drafts that steal about backstage regions. When Peregrine walked in, Rangi was standing beside it, peering into the void beneath.
“Okay,” Rangi called. “If you can’t see the back of the gallery they can’t see you.”
“Can’t see nuffink,” came a muffled voice from the void.
“Fair enough,” said Rangi. “You can come up from down there.”
“Morning, Rangi,” said Peregrine. “Joined the Scene-shifters’ Union?”
Rangi grinned. “We wanted to make sure we were masked from down there.”
“You want to watch it. The right way is to ask me and I’ll check with the stage manager.” He put his arm across Ran-gi’s shoulders. “You’re not in the land of do-it-yourself, now,” he said.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t do anything. Just yelled.”
“All right. You do need to watch it. We might have the whole stage staff going out on strike. Is Bruce Barrabell here?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Good. Your part’s shaping up nicely. Do you like it?”
“Oh, sure. Sure.”
“We’ll give you a skirt for rehearsals.”
“A sort of lady-tohunga, uh? Except that tohungas are always men.”
“You’ll look like three disreputable old women until Macbeth sees your faces and they are terrible and know everything. In the opening scene we see them, birdlike, as they are — almost ravens. Busy on the gallows collecting from the corpse what’s left of the grease that’s sweaten from the murderer’s gibbet. In the third scene when Macbeth first meets them they’ve put on a sort of caricature of respectability: filthy aprons, dirty mutches that come under their chins like grave-cloths. Blondie is the sexy one. One breast hangs out. Brown and stringy. They are not like female tohungas, really.”
“Not in the least,” said Rangi cheerfully.
Dougal Macdougal arrived. He never “came in.” There was always the element of an event. He could be heard loudly greeting the more important members of the company who had now assembled, and not forgetting to say “Morning, morning” to the bit-parts. He arrived onstage, hailed Peregrine as if they hadn’t encountered each other for at least a month, saw the witch girls — “Good morning, dear. Good morning, dear” — and fetched up face to face with Rangi. “Oh. Good morning — er — Rainy,” he said loftily.
“Settle down, everyone,” said Peregrine. “We are taking the witches’ scenes. I’ve got the lights manager to come down and the effects man; I’d like them to sit beside me, take notes, and go away after this rehearsal to nut out their plots. The message I plan to convey depends very much upon dead cues for effects and I hope that between us we’ll cook up something that’ll raise the pimples on the backs of the audience’s necks. Right.”
He waited while the witches took up their positions and the others sat in the front-of-house.
“No overture,” he said, “in the usual sense. The house darkens and there’s a muffled drumbeat. Thud, thud, thud. Like a heart. Curtain up, flash of lightning. We get a fleeting look at the witches. Dry ice.”
Rangi on the arm of the gibbet reached down at the head. Wendy doubled up, and Blondie, on Wendy’s back, clawed the feet. Busy. Hold for five seconds. Blackout. Thunder. Fade up to half-light concentrated on the witches, who were now all on the ground. Dialogue.
“When shall we three meet again?”
Blondie’s voice was a high treble, Wendy’s gritty and broken, Rangi’s full and quivering.
“There to meet with — ” A pause. Silence. Then they all whisper, “Macbeth.”
“Flash of lightning,” said Peregrine. “And two caterwauls. Fog, lots of it.”
“… hover through the fog and filthy air.”
“Blackout! Catch them in midair still going up. Split-second cue. Hold blackout for scene change. Witches!Ask them to come on, will you, someone?”
“We heard you,” said a voice, Rangi’s. “We’re coming.” He and the two girls came on from behind the rostrum.
“There’ll have to be means for a quick exit from behind in the blackout. Okay? Charlie there?”
“Okay,” said the assistant stage manager, coming onstage.
“Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Good. Any questions? Rangi, are the mattresses all right?”
“I was all right. What about you two?”
“All right that time,” said Wendy. “We might sprain an ankle.”
“Fall soft, lie flat, and crawl off,” said Peregrine. “Wait a bit.” He used his makeshift steps to the stage and ran up onto the rostrum. “Like this,” he said, and jumped high. He fell out of sight with a soft thud.
“We’ll have to deal with that,” said the effects man. “How about the muffled drum again?”
There followed a complete silence. Wendy on the edge of the rostrum looked over. Perry looked up at her.
“All right?” she asked.
“Perfectly,” he said in a strange voice. “I won’t be a moment. Next scene. Clear stage.”
They moved away. Peregrine gingerly explored his left side, swearing under his breath. Below the ribs. Around the hip. Nothing broken but a hellishly sore bruise. He crept up into a kneeling position on the tarpaulin-covered mattress and from there saw what had happened. Under the tarpaulin was an unmistakable shape, cruciform, bumpy, with the hilt tailing out into the long blade. He felt it: undoubtedly a claymore. A wooden claymore, discarded since they had begun using the steel replicas of the original.
He got painfully to his feet and, holding his bruise, stumbled onto the clear area behind the scenery. “Charlie?”
“Here, sir.”
“Charlie, come here. There’s a dummy claymore under the cover. Don’t say anything about it. I don’t want anyone to know it’s th
ere. Mark the position with chalk and then move it out and tuck the cover back in position. Understand?”
“I got you.”
“If they know it’s there, they’ll start talking a lot of nonsense.”
“Are you all right, sir?”
“Perfectly,” said Peregrine. “Just a jolt.”
He straightened up and drew in his breath. “Right,” he said and walked onstage and down to his improvised desk in the auditorium.
“Call Scene Three,” he said and sank into his seat.
“Scene Three,” called the assistant stage manager. “Witches. Macbeth. Banquo.”
Scene Three was pretty thoroughly rehearsed. The witches came in from separate spots and met onstage. Rangi contrived an excretion of venom in voice and face, egged on by moans of pleasure from his sisters. Enter Macbeth and Banquo. Trouble. Banquo’s position. He felt he should be on a higher level. He could not see Macbeth’s face. On and on in his beautiful voice. Peregrine, exquisitely uncomfortable and feeling rather sick, dealt with him, only just keeping his temper.
“The ladies will vanish as they did before. They get up to position on their Banquo and Macbeth, all hail.”
“May I interrupt?” fluted Banquo.
“No,” said Peregrine over a vicious stab of pain. “You may not. Later, dear boy. On, please.”
The scene continued with Banquo disconcerted, silver-voiced, and ominously well behaved.
Macbeth was halfway through his soliloquy. “Present fears,” he said, “are less than horrible imaginings and if the gentleman with the fetching laugh would be good enough to shut his silly trap my thought whose murder yet is but fantastical will probably remain so.”
He was removed by the total width and much of the depth of the stage from Banquo, who had been placed in a tactful conversation with the other lairds as far away as possible from the soliloquist and had burst into a peal of jolly laughter and slapped the disconcerted Ross on his shoulders.
“Cut the laugh, Bruce,” said Peregrine. “It distracts. Pipe down. On.”
The scene ended as written by the author and with the barely concealed merriment of Ross and Angus.
Dougal went into the auditorium to apologize to Peregrine. Banquo affected innocence. “Cauldron Scene,” Peregrine called.
