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[THE SOURCEBOOKS SHAKESPEARE] HELPS STUDENTS:

BETTER UNDERSTAND SHAKESPEARE'S LANGUAGE,

VISUALIZE THE PLAYS, OVERCOME THEIR INTIMIDATION,

AND BE MORE ENGAGED.

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The Cast Speaks by Marie Macaisa

  • Shakespeare Theatre Company (2003): A Midsummer Night's Dream
  • Shakespeare Theatre Company (2004): Macbeth
  • Actors From The London Stage (2005): Othello
  • Chicago Shakespeare Theater (2005): Romeo and Juliet
  • Actors From The London Stage (2006): Hamlet
  • Stratford Festival in Canada (2006): Much Ado About Nothing

Excerpt from Macbeth

The Cast Speaks: The 2004–05 Cast from the Shakespeare Theatre Company

In the texts of his plays, directors, actors, and other interpreters of Shakespeare’s work find a wealth of information. For example, in Macbeth, we know quite a bit about what leads the titular character to murder the king, Duncan. We see in the opening scene the three witches planning to meet Macbeth, and we observe them intrigue him with their prophecies. We hear his thoughts (as asides at the end of 1.3) when the first prophecy proves true. We hear Lady Macbeth voice her concerns about whether her husband’s nature will allow him to fulfill the second prophecy, urging and daring him to act. We are privy to Macbeth’s thoughts as he contemplates killing Duncan (soliloquy in 1.7.1–28), and finally, we hear him decide to commit the deed (the dagger speech in 2.1.34–65). Yet, the responsibility for Duncan’s death remains open to interpretation. Is Macbeth a victim of the witches or his too-ambitious wife? Or is his destiny, as he himself admits, driven by his own “vaulting ambition”?

While providing extra information, Shakespeare (like all playwrights and unlike novelists) also leaves gaps. We are thus coaxed to fill in the missing information ourselves, either through reasonable surmises (we can guess that Lady Macbeth has had a child) or through back stories we devise on our own (perhaps the Macbeths had a baby who didn’t survive). This mix—simultaneously knowing too much and not enough—enables us to paint vivid, varied interpretations of the same play.

In staging a play, a director creates a vision for his or her production starting from the text, but moves beyond that by making decisions on what isn’t in the text. The director, in collaboration with the actors, fleshes out the characters: they discuss what they might be like, create stories that explain their actions, determine motivations, and speculate on the nature of their relationships. In Shakespeare they have a rich text upon which to draw and hundreds of years of performances for inspiration. Thus we, the audience, can experience a play anew each time we see it in a different production. Perhaps it is in an unfamiliar setting; perhaps it is in a scene or characterization we hadn’t noticed in the past; perhaps it is in the realization that we have changed our opinions about the actions of the characters in the play. Whatever the case, a closer look into one cast’s interpretation creates an opportunity for us to make up our own minds about their stories, and in the process, gain new insights not just into a centuries-old play, but quite possibly into ourselves as well.
 
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