Macduff

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of Macbeth, Macduff was played by Liam Brennan.

About Liam Brennan

Liam has previously appeared in productions of Macbeth, King Lear and The Merchant of Venice at the Traverse Theatre. He also took part in Durham Theatre Companys’ productions of The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night. His television work includes Taggart for STV.

Click on the numbered links to follow Liam's journey as he creates and plays the character of Macduff in the Globe Theatre.

Liam Brennan - Character Notes 1

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

The first day was great. I really enjoyed it. It was very different. I’ve never had a first day like that before. It was maybe a slightly bigger day for me than for other people because I think I’m the only person who isn’t London-based, so I had the additional experience of moving into digs the night before and traveling to London on the bus. The first morning was mainly spent meeting and greeting, but that was really nice because everyone was welcoming and kind - and we got a nice lunch! There were just so many people, so many faces, so many offices – they all started to mould together in my mind. It's given me the impression – well, I suppose I had a hunch really – that there is something different about this place, which I think is pretty special.

I’ve been in Macbeth three times before. I don’t know – maybe it's because I’m Scottish or maybe it's just coincidence. I played Malcolm years ago when I was younger, that was my first time, at Dundee Rep. Next I played Macbeth for a touring company in England, seven or eight years ago. Then about two years ago I played Macbeth for a Scottish theatre, so I know the play pretty well. But I hadn’t actually played Macduff before, so that's interesting. I’ve seen a few different Macduffs – both in productions I’ve seen and obviously in the one's I’ve been in, so I know the role well and have lots of ideas.

When I came to the audition Tim [Carroll, the director] didn’t really talk about what he wanted from the character. I did the big England scene with Malcolm and we chatted a bit about the scene but he didn’t talk about the character. I wasn’t at all sure about how it had gone, because I’d just playing finished a production of Hamlet in Scotland and initially he asked me to do a bit from that play. I’ve never done this before or since, but I found myself saying, no, I hope you don’t mind, but I really don’t want to do that. I’d literally just finished a couple of days before and it suddenly just felt weird to take a speech from Hamlet. I suppose I just felt really close to it still and it suddenly felt really inappropriate. I thought, well, that's blown the job, but Tim was lovely – he said, no, I understand that – and so instead, because Macbeth is quite familiar to me having played it a couple of times. I did a bit of a Macbeth scene and then a bit of Macduff.

After the first few days of rehearsal the company fall into a regular schedule. In the morning we have group sessions [the actors each have one hour of verse work, one hour of movement/Alexander Technique and one hour of voice work per week, working in small groups of four or five]. I’ve really enjoyed that so far – I think that will be really helpful, just to be in a smaller group for that time. And those sessions are entirely separate from the play, so when we do our verse sessions, for example, we look at other things. I don’t know, but I would imagine that as time goes on they’ll become more focused on Macbeth, but so far we’ve read bits of Henry V and Twelfth Night. It's quite unusual, to have sessions like these. The three individuals we have taking them strike me as quite gifted teachers. Glynn, who takes the movement sessions, is something else – I’m dying for her next session!

When I heard about the design for the production my impression was that it's still fairly kind-of fluid, sometimes designs for productions can be very set from the beginning. The only thing that has been talked about really is that the men are going to be in suits of some description. The words evening dress have been used, but then I do also remember how someone talked about how they may be ‘broken down’ – deconstructed in some way - so I’m not quite clear about the look of it at all. I think that's OK actually, because it is very early days and also our job is to say the words truthfully, so ultimately it really shouldn’t matter too much what we are wearing.

Two of the previous productions I’ve done before were quite similar in their design and one of them was quite wacky. The first one when I played Malcolm and the last one recently playing Macbeth were both vaguely modern military. It wasn’t actually saying, ‘this is the British army’ or ‘this is Bosnia’ or anything like that, but the men were in army fatigues, and we had machine guns. The other one that I did was very bare and spartan, we were all just dressed in, I don’t know what you’d call it, but almost Mao suits with canvas trousers and canvas tops with no collars and canvas shoes.

The company's first read-through of the play was quite playful – it wasn’t all of us sitting round the table. We stood up and there was quite a lot of laughter, which is fine I think. It was good that there was a spirit of fun to the read through, because Macbeth is a serrious play.

Macduff doesn’t say an awful lot. He's obviously very important to the story, but I at the moment have a feeling that he is a ‘man of few words’. He only seems to speak when he needs to, when it matters. At the moment I have a feeling of, (it's such a cliché) but of a strong, silent character– someone who has no particular need to talk for the sake of talking.

I reread the play a few times before rehearsals started, trying to focus on Macduff. I’m also playing one of Macduff's sons, which is interesting. I’ll have to find some way of being like a child without resorting to stereotypical child acting. I found out about this doubling of roles about two or three weeks before we started. Tim phoned my agent and my agent phoned me and said ‘what do you think of this idea?’ My agent thought it was completely insane and that I should say no, but I loved it. I don’t know how well I’ll be able to do it but it's a challenge. I think this doubling will give a specific image which is missing, or which Shakespeare has chosen not to put in the play, that of the actor playing Macduff and the actress playing Lady Macduff on stage together at the same time. I also think than in an indefinable way there will be something interesting about the balance of an actor playing both one person and that person's son.

The company has been working on Act IV, scene III. The first exercise we did was to repeat back a single word from the other person's line that seemed significant to us. The exercise really just tunes up your attentiveness, your listening skills. When Ross enters the scene, both the actor playing Malcolm and I were repeating a word, and that was an interesting moment because then you started to hear what the other person says, and you notice if the words chime but also if they differ. The final exercise that we did was really interesting. We were just using two words from each line but trying to communicate the whole line to the other actor. It took a long time but it was just really interesting; it felt very helpful. Exercises like these force you to think, ‘what is the key to what I’m saying?’ If you take away all the rest, what is the grit of it? There was a point in the scene when I got really angry. I think Macduff tries really hard for three-quarters of that scene with Malcolm, because it's so important to him, to convince Malcolm to take on the mantle of rightful King, and to come and join Macduff's army but eventually I think he just ‘snaps’. I think probably there's a moment there when it just doesn’t matter to Macduff that Malcolm is his sovereign monarch but seems him just as nasty little boy. Malcolm just can’t take it anymore. Whether Macduff's anger in this scene become physical is still to be explored.

It is interesting working on scenes like this using just two words as your brain's having to work very hard to use this foreign language of a two-word line. If there had been time, it would have been useful to go on to work on the scene in its entirety.

Activities

Design

Liam describes the design from this production and the past productions in which he has appeared. Do you agree with the designer's ideas for this production? How would you like to design a production of Macbeth? Describe or draw your ideas, making sure they have some root in the text of the play.

Macduff – ‘the strong silent type’?

Liam believes that Macduff is the type of character who only speaks when it matters – when necessary. Can you find any lines or scenes that suggest otherwise? Send any discoveries to Liam to help him with his interpretation of the role.

Macduff's journey

Liam must ensure he has a clear picture of Macduff's journey through the play and how he is effected by the action that takes place when he is not present. Chart your own version of Macduff's journey - write down each stage clearly marking how each event in the play might effect Macduff. Send your ideas to Liam.

Rehearsal Exercises

Re read Liam's description of the exercises he used to explore Act 4 Scene 3. In small groups try these exercises for yourself using any lines or scene from the play. Do you find them helpful? What do they help you discover about Shakespeare's use of language to develop situation and character?

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 2

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.
Tim (Caroll, Master of Play) has been away this week, so things have been a bit fractured. However, I’ve really enjoyed the sessions on verse with Giles (Block, Master of Verse). He such a comforting presence. He has got a calm wisdom, which is so appealing. He is a really good teacher.

We have spent a lot of time this week sitting around the table discussing the play. One of the discussions we had was about why Macduff leaves Lady Macduff without saying goodbye. I’m sure Macduff has thought about it long and hard, but I don’t think he ever reveals his reasons to anyone else. I know that I have to decide on a reason and I have lots of ideas but nothing has been set in stone. I think Shakespeare might have been trying to suggest that Macduff puts Scotland first. Dramatically, that works, but as a human being and as an actor, I don’t think that it's enough. I just think that that level or degree of patriotism wouldn’t quite feel real for anyone today as many of us have never lived through war, although it must be a factor. I feel I have to find a more substantial reason than that. It could be that, to the best of his ability, Macduff has satisfied his conscience by leaving his family as well protected as he could. I think it's okay for Lady Macduff to moan about Macduff, even if he has left her protected, because she can still feel angry that he's gone. The fact that he has left perhaps two hundred soldiers with her is not important to her. She only cares about Macduff. This is one of the thoughts I’ve been having at the moment and it's something I’ve got to keep thinking about.

It is also important to remember that Lady Macduff never actually says that Macduff didn’t tell her he was going. She rails against him for going, but does not say that he hadn’t told her. So, in fact, they could have had a conversation. Malcolm says, ‘Why...left you wife and child ... Without leave-taking?’ But, does he know for sure that Macduff and Lady Macduff did not speak privately? Macduff does not answer Malcolm when he asks. As an actor, I find it more interesting to think of all the possibilities. I suppose if ultimately I find it helpful to decide that I did secretly say goodbye to her, I’ll believe that, because it doesn’t affect anyone else. I think that it is sometimes helpful to have your own story. There is a book called True and False by David Mamet which describes two actors having a conversation about how many children their characters have, and one actor gets desperate for the other actor to agree with him. When, actually, if all you do is walk on stage and say, ‘My children’, no one knows how many you have. There is no ‘two children acting’ as opposed to ‘three children acting’. Mamet calls it ‘three days in Finland acting’. One actor says ‘I’ve been in Finland for a wee while’ and then has an argument with another about whether it was for a fortnight or three days. It is ludicrous to think that you somehow behave differently if you’ve been in Finland for three days than if you’ve been there two weeks.

This week we also went to see the Zulu Macbeth, Umabata, at the Globe. It was fabulous. The energy and the exotic sounds were so refreshing. It was great to see Macduff played in such a manner. Watching the production made me realise lots about our own production. I was struck by how instantaneous the change will have to be between the young Macduff being killed and Macduff appearing. The obvious problem is, that it does take away the option of Macduff looking very different in the two roles. I don’t think that it matters too much.

One morning this week Mark (Rylance, the Artistic Director of the Globe) led some improvisations around the Bloody Sergeant scene. I don’t actually speak in the scene, but it was nice to spend a couple of hours experimenting with one short scene. The improvisation was based around fear, tension and war reportage situations. People were screaming, making noises and bangs, whispering and hiding, and just playing with the idea of a bunker scenario. The extreme tension and sense of danger we created was wonderful.

Another exercise that Mark did, was to get us to line up in status order. Macduff ended up near the end of the line. I am not actually sure that that was the right place for him. We had not thought about status before, so I think that people were just guessing. During the exercise I had forgotten that for a long time before the period that the play is set in, Fife had been a separate kingdom. Therefore I think that it is fair to say that the Thaneship of Fife would hold a high status.

Before Tim left, he did an exercise with us where each member of the company was put in charge of a section of the play. When we got to our section, we had to lead the others in forming a tableau that could be incorporated into the scene. When improvising, it is very important not to try and plan what you are going to do. If you do then the result is not fresh. It is important not to be afraid of failure when improvising as there is no right or wrong. It is just an experiment.

Activities

Does Macduff say goodbye?

Liam is undecided as to whether Macduff said goodbye to Lady Macduff before leaving.

What is your opinion? Try to find evidence in the text to support your opinion. Send your thoughts to Liam to help him to make a decision.

Young Macduff

Liam has realised that there is no time to change costume between playing young Macduff and Macduff.

Can you think of any other ways that he can show to the audience that the characters are of different ages? You could consider voice and physicality. Send you discoveries to Liam.

Improvisation

The company improvised the Bloody Sergeant scene in order to find the right levels of fear and tension.

Try improvising this scene for yourself. Did you discover anything new about the scene?

Status

The company lined up all the characters in Macbeth in order of status.

Try this for yourselves. Is Macduff of high or low status? Where does he stand in line and who is on either side of him?

Tableau

The company has been finding a tableau (frozen picture) for each scene in Macbeth.

Choose a scene from the play and make a tableau that describes what is happening in the scene. How easy is it to make one picture that tells the story of an entire scene?

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 3

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

We’ve been working on the England scene, discussing how you go about playing a scene where you find out your whole family has been killed. Where's the script for your wife and children being ‘savagely slaughtered?’ What emotions are running through the character at that moment? Macduff knows the horrors of war and killing. He has some frame of reference for these emotions, but what exactly will he feel when his family is affected? These questions seemed a bit daunting to me at the time.

I am an actor that is used to a three and a half week rehearsal period, so when the third week arrived and I had not made any concrete decisions, I began to panic. Fortunately this morning we have spent a substantial amount of time exploring the England scene, the scene that has been posing many questions. By examining this scene, I feel as if I have exercised my actor's muscles, focusing upon particular problem points. I feel as if this morning's exercises have more clearly defined the scene itself.

The England scene (IV. 3) is really my central scene, because it's a turning point for Macduff and you could argue that it's a turning point for the play. It's a crucial moment because Macduff begins to reveal his true feelings, snapping at Malcolm in the process. Malcolm responds with an ‘OK and I’m bringing an army.’ For me this action creates a turning point. I get what I want and I can see a solution or at least a potential solution to the problem. There's a real middle feeling that the scene changes something changes, something turns. In that scene, Malcolm seeks to convince Macduff that he is worse than Macbeth. As the character, I have all sorts of questions running through my mind. I keep thinking, what am I going to do? Where am I going to go? Is Macduff going to go and do some kind of suicidal one-man charge on Macbeth? I completely understand at the moment his impulse to leave Malcolm because of his disgust, but I keep thinking where are you going?

In order to grapple with some of these questions, we have been going through various exercises. We started off this morning with a verse exercise physically beating out the pulse of the verse in each line. This exercise is helpful because it objectifies the words, helping you to focus on very specific details. I find it helpful as a starting point because you can’t do anything when you’re beating out the pulse except think about the mechanics of making noises in your mouth on that beat. You can’t bring emotion or anything else to it artificially. When the pulse seems to go against the natural instinct of the words, you know there's something happening there and it makes you stop and think about it.

Tim, (Carroll, Master of Play), asked me at one point to play the England scene neutrally as if I was unaffected, because that would be infinitely more interesting than an actor pretending to feel or feign emotion. It all seems very perverse, because although we were using a word like neutrality, the scene was very full emotionally. It's full in the sense that there is a space around it which allows the audience's imagination to work. You’re not forcing something upon them. So maybe by ‘performing’ less in the moment when Malcolm receives the news, I’m allowing the audience to imagine the experience for themselves. Because who am I to tell them or show them how someone would react in that circumstance? All I can do is try and react.

Activities

Act IV Scene 3

Liam feels that this scene is the turning point in the play. Do you agree? What other scenes do you think could be considered as the pivotal scene in the play?

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 4

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

I suppose that I don’t feel hugely further forward for myself, but that's OK I think. I think it's not really about making big strides in terms of finding this person over the course of the rehearsal period. It's not about saying, ‘I’m now seventy percent this person as opposed to the sixty percent I was last week.’ I just feel I’m kind-of cooking I suppose. I think about Macduff all the time.

We did the England scene a couple of times and that's helpful because it's a substantial scene. I like Tim's (Carroll, Master of Play) idea of inter splicing it with another scene. We have changed the scenes when Lady Macduff and Young Macduff are murdered and Macduff receives the news. The scene where he receives the news is quite a big scene because he gets the news at the end of the scene. Now we are playing the Macduff murder scene in the middle of that scene. I’ll be the adult Macduff for three quarters of the scene, then child Macduff being murdered, then playing the adult again receiving the news of the murder. I’m in other scenes outside of all that, but it's like a little story within the story. It feels quite substantial, which is good.

We start off the England scene with Malcolm and myself. I’ve gone off to England to try and convince Malcolm to come back to Scotland. Malcolm and I have this long conversation in which he tests me to find out if I’m actually being genuine and that it's not some trick by Macbeth. This conversation goes on for quite a long time, and then at the end of the scene Ross comes in and tells me the news of my family. What Tim's done is start with Macbeth going back to the Witches to get more information. He's given warnings about things. He will be safe and secure unless one of three things happens. One of which is to beware of Macduff, the other is Birnam wood rising and coming to Dunsinane, and the third is to beware of any man who is born of woman. Then we cut to a bit of Malcolm and Macduff, then back to Macbeth getting the second of these warnings, then back, etc., until Macduff receives the news from Ross.

Tim mentioned the idea of inter splicing scenes before we started rehearsal. I had checked with him that he was going to leave the England scene intact, because it sometimes gets chopped a lot. I wanted to ensure that wasn’t going to happen before I took the job. Tim said he didn’t want to cut it, but he did want to try this inter cutting that he had tried in another production. This idea bothered me at the time, but when we actually did it for the first time, something felt really good. I instinctively liked it. At the moment, I hope we keep it. I think the reason I liked it is because it gives a bit more air to the conversation between Malcolm and Macduff. In the sense what happens is, in trying to test Macduff, Malcolm throws something at Macduff with which he has to cope. Then Malcolm comes up with another thing. What the inter cutting seemed to do was pointed that up and focus different things more.

It parallels Macbeth's fortunes. As he's hearing about all these supposedly impossible things that are the only way things might go wrong for him, his fortunes are rising, and at the same time his fortunes are rising because of Malcolm's and Macduff's argument. It looks as though they’re going to walk away from each other and no one will come back to Scotland to challenge Macbeth. Then as Macbeth sees the line of Banquo's kings, it's a real blow and his fortunes fall. At the same moment Malcolm and Macduff are coming together. It's good because I’ve heard people say that sometimes it's not clear at the beginning of the England scene. They’re not sure what they’re supposed to think in terms of whether Malcolm is really like that. I guess that's what Shakespeare intended. I guess it's OK for people not to know what to think, because we don’t really know much of Malcolm.

We’ve also been working on the Lady Macduff scene. Like all the murders in this production, it's completely bloodless and symbolic. I think done well, people feigning death and blood bags can be very harrowing, but I also think that Tim's idea, if it works, can be harrowing. At the moment, a stone represents life. Everyone has a stone and that stone represents your soul or life-force. As Young Macduff my stone is taken from me in a gentle, playful way, and dropped in a bucket. That's me dying. I have a line, ‘He has killed me mother,’ and at that moment I’m playing it once the murderer has my stone in his hand, before he drops it into the bucket. It's the equivalent of having a fatal wound.

We’ve also been playing with the idea of Lady Macduff hiding me, as Young Macduff, in the audience within the ‘groundling’ area. I think it's a brilliant idea. I suppose it's obvious, but because I hadn’t been to the Globe before, it hadn’t occurred to me. I can see that we might have to be quite careful with it, but I hope we stick with that, or at least try it at previews. It might be tricky in that – if everything was working brilliantly, the audience might not want to return me. Obviously they have to, for the story to continue. I suppose that's idealistic, but I just might end up beside someone who gets particularly carried away. I think the fact of the matter is that people do know the story and although they might get more involved as the Globe than they would elsewhere, they’re not actually going to do something that would make the play grind to a halt.

We’ve done a lot of group work with the opening sequence. We’ve looked at the banquet scene and at the discovery of Duncan's body. Both scenes involve everyone. The discovery of Duncan's body is a hard one for me. One of the difficult things about Macduff is that every scene is huge, in the sense that the stakes are huge. The first time he walks on stage and is actually identified, saying a few lines, he almost immediately has to make this big discovery and react accordingly. That's just always difficult. The first few times you do something like that, there's an obvious pitch because it's a big moment. He's discovered the murdered body of the King. His job then is to rouse the sleeping castle to this earth-shattering fact. As an actor you feel horrible and phoney diving in and shouting basically. You can either mess around with that or get over the horribleness and dive in and shout to get over that moment, which is what I did the first time we did it. It's a horrible moment of decision. I came on not knowing which way to go or what to do. In a moment like that, you also know that everyone else is watching, curious as to what you’ll do. Like any of those moments, you’ve got to get over the scariness of it and just try it.

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 5

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

I’m looking forward to getting onto the Globe stage. There's still a lot to do. We’re still working ideas which is great, but I can’t quite picture it in my imagination now. Everything seems so set in the rehearsal room that I find it hard to see how the various pictures we’ve created and the movement sequences we’ve developed will fit in the open air. We got the platform this week, which is exciting. I got on it for the first time this afternoon, playing on it as a swing for the Young Macduff scene. I’d always done it sitting by the pillar, but I decided to go walk about. Tim (Carroll, Master of Play) suggested sitting on it as a swing, so I tried that and I think I might stick with it.

Wer’e working on the final fight sequence between Macbeth and I. If we stick with what we’ve got, we’ve ended up with something quite simple and intimate. It's a kind of stylised handshake or grip, which we repeat a few times. It's the equivalent of a blow. We reach for the other's stone, which represents our life source. People who watched it seemed to think it worked well, but I’m a bit worried that we might keep missing each other's hands. We’re standing quite far apart, but hopefully if we practise it, it will be OK. We were able to pour more intensity into it than I thought we could. Actually, given that I always knew it would have to be something stylised, I’m quite happy with it. It's physical and it's intense. I think within the structure that we’ve got, it's about as physical a fight as we could get.

Today we were also working on the Young Macduff scene and I found myself slightly doing little boy acting. I think that's OK, because I’ve resisted it up until now and I think it was and will always be very subtle. When I was on the swing, I had a laugh to myself and then I tried to get it to go a bit faster. Also, the way that Hilary was playing Lady Macduff today, she was physically petting me quite a lot. I reacted in that typical little boy way, wiping off her kisses. That was really all. It may be that the jacket will make a big difference. When I put it on I might feel that I can’t do any ‘young’ acting because it might be too much. Right now, I just feel completely reliant on other people. I’m just going to have to ask people to watch it closely just before we open and tell me what they think. I don’t think I can really judge it. The only thing I can try to do is keep it simple and not do any heavy-handed little boy stuff. In terms of the lines, I’m just trying to say them simply and I’ve tried to introduce a little bit of laughter. Today I tried laughing when my mother says, ‘your father's dead,’ because he just thinks that's obviously a joke. It's quite helpful because it stops his first line from being heavy-handed.

There's still a lot that isn’t set, which in some places feels OK for now, but in other places, I wish that we’d found something that we all agreed really worked. I suppose it depends upon how secure you feel about any particular moment. For example, the second part of the England scene where I get the news is still different every time. I wish that we had some solution to the scene where Malcolm and I are having a big argument before Ross enters. It's quite a sizeable scene and very important. Then again, I keep thinking that going out on to the Globe stage is just going to be so freaky that maybe any magic blocking would just fall apart. I guess it's OK, because we still have next week on stage to sort it out.

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 6

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

It's been really interesting moving from the rehearsal room to the theatre. Usually the tech is really quiet, dark, and private, so doing it outdoors and in front of the tour groups has been really strange, but nice. It's very different. We’re in costume now as well, and it's a bit hot, but it's good to get used to moving in them. We haven’t started experimenting with the costumes yet. I think at some point we’ll play with the idea of removing our bow ties or jackets. The women look great in their frocks.

The costumes are very formal, which means you have less freedom than you have in your own clothes, in terms of sitting, standing, walking, etc. I think it's important not to let that affect you too much. Sometimes you see productions where it seems as though the costumes are giving a performance of their own. I think, within reason, you should try and fight that. Because our dinner jackets are very formal, we should almost go in the opposite direction.

The costumes are very different from those in any other production of Macbeth that I’ve performed. I was in one production where the soldiers brushed up and wore this kind of formal outfit for the banquet scene, so I have been on stage in Macbeth in a dinner suit before, but never with the idea of it as a uniform that you continually wear.

I’ve got my oversized jacket as Macduff now as well, which I love, although it's going to be very warm! It's beautiful. It just looks like a jacket that's been made fore someone huge and bought in a shop. I haven’t worn it in front of a mirror yet, or played the scene in it, but I think it will make me feel young when I see myself in it. It is a strange image, wearing something that's far too big for me.

On Saturday we did a run-through for Mark (Rylance, Artistic Director). He was very supportive. I actually thought the run-through before that was better. It was just a bit more together and a bit simpler and clearer. The last one we did was quite playful. We were trying lots of things and that's good, but I just thought some of the things we tried didn’t work. It's good to get those things out of your system, but there were quite a few moments when I felt it would be better to stick with what we’ve already got.

I’m glad we’ve still got a few days before we open, but it does feel like the time to meet an audience. I’m sure it will change a lot over the first week of performance and over the whole summer. I think the time feels right now to start that process, to start seeing what people enjoy and where they’re really attentive. I’m sure that even on Sunday we’ll have a good time and they’ll see a good show, but it's going to be scary!

It's strange doing it on stage and in costume with all of our actual props, although I haven’t actually opened my mouth yet. It doesn’t feel that different just being on stage and moving around, but I think speaking for the first time will feel very different. I’ve been on stage a couple of times earlier in the rehearsal period, but that sensation of saying your first lines for the first time on stage is interesting.

We’ve also got the real music now. There are four musicians playing jazz live. They’re great, but I’m finding really hard at the moment, because I got used to the CDs we were using in the rehearsal room. I think because we’re not dancers, we can’t help but rely heavily on our rehearsal melodies. We started to associate the melodies with certain moves, so I think everyone found it quite hard yesterday and today to be confronted with new music. I like it, and I’m sure I’ll grow to really like it, but at the moment it is difficult.

There's also quite a lot of music at the beginnings, ends, and in-between scenes. I was listening to it when we were all ‘sleeping’ at the back of the stage during the murder of Duncan, and it sounded really good. It punctuates things quite well, particularly because there are so many other sounds going on outside the theatre. There are more aeroplanes than I bargained for. It felt like two or three a show before; whereas, now it feels like more than two or three an hour. I suppose it's just something you have to judge in the moment, whether you feel that the best thing to do is wait until they pass or plough through it.

Most of all I’m just looking forward to our first performance on Sunday. I’m excited and scared all at the same time. What I want to start doing is just spending as much time in the theatre as I can. Even just at lunch times to try and get very used to being in there. I am looking forward to it very much.

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 7

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.

We did the first show on Sunday night and the second show on Tuesday. It was really an experience on Sunday night. It was absolutely terrifying. I’ve got a funny feeling that it's always going to be terrifying. I think it will reduce but maybe it's the nature of the show. With some shows you just always have an ‘on your toes’ feeling and it never gets completely comfortable. This is a very complex production and you have to keep an awful lot of things juggled in your mind, over and above trying to remember your lines and playing the scenes well.

At the start of the show on Sunday night, when I walked onto the stage for the first time in front of an audience, it was incredible. I’ll never forget the image and the noise. It was strange because the first thing we do is walk towards them, walk downstage, pick something up, and then walk away from them upstage. We confronted them and then retreated away from them.

There must be a sizeable portion of every audience that is visiting the Globe for the first time. I think there was a sense of anticipation and excitement from them as well. I didn’t use the audience as much as I’m sure I’ll end up using them. I spoke directly to them a little bit, tentatively, but I decided to choose my moments sparingly. I think that it will take a few shows before I can start thinking of them as friends and participants rather than intimidators. I can feel that that will come and hopefully quite quickly, because both the audiences so far have seemed to want to have a good time. There is a sense in which they’ve come here in order to have a different experience.

I’ve worked in an outdoor theatre once before. I did The Tempest in a park, where the audience is all around you, but the light faded during the evening, so by the end the audience was in darkness. That was a long time ago and there was something about being in a big Victorian park. There was a lot of green around and the colours are very dark; whereas in the Globe, it's so bright and vivid. We must look quite strange to them, because we’re dressed in black for the most part. Our costume is so at odds with the colour of the theatre and the daylight. They’re looking at us against a colourfully painted background, so I can understand why there was a kind-of gasp when we first walked on stage on Sunday night.

The reaction at the end was extraordinary. The applause was thunderous and there were whoops and shrieks. We left the stage after the bows and we were all almost back in the dressing rooms, saying ‘well done’ to each other, when stage management had to ask us to come back due to the audience's applause. I didn’t know what to make of it. Then it was a very different reaction on Tuesday night. I suppose we do enough performances that there may be another audience who just really goes for it. I think it will probably divide people pretty much fifty-fifty.

We’re still rehearsing during the days. We’re not doing full days. We’re usually called at about eleven o’clock for things like photo calls and working on little bits. We’ve still got pretty full days, but after next Sunday rehearsals will almost stop completely.

I didn’t have as much of a chance to play and experiment with what I was doing during the technical rehearsals as I thought I might, because we have so much to do apart from the scenes. Everyone is on stage for almost all of the time and we’re all involved in movement sequences. There wasn’t the normal sense of relaxation that you normally get during tech as a time to rethink what you’re doing. In some ways it was quite tense because the idea of getting group moves wrong was quite scary. If you blow your party whistle at the wrong time there's no escape!

Nothing's dramatically changed. I’ve actually enjoyed both performances. I didn’t think I would enjoy Sunday night because I didn’t think I could be that nervous and still enjoy it, but once it starts you’re carried along.

One of the major differences is that we now have the band, so we have live music. It's all come together really quickly. There are things that I miss from the CD we used in rehearsal because I got used to them. I’m sure I’ll quickly get used to and like the new music.

Over the next few days, I’m just going to try to relax and get used to the space. Six or seven weeks is a long time to be doing something in a rehearsal room, so now it's a case of trying to feel at home on the Globe stage. As at home on the stage as we felt after seven weeks in a familiar rehearsal room and in our own clothes. It will take a while to readjust that balance, because only for a few short days have we been trussed up in funny clothes and thrust on to this scary new space. It probably looks very slick and accomplished, but in your own head and your own heart you need to make that new place feel like home. We’re on stage so constantly that there's no time to analyse what you’ve just done and think about how you’re going to approach what you’re going to do next. You can’t let your mind wander even when you’re just sitting at the back of the stage because you’ll miss a noise or a move that you have to do.

Tim (Carroll, Master of Play) has told us each night to concentrate on a couple of specific things as a company. Last night he said we needed to be louder and faster. Tonight he wants us to concentrate on coping with the noises of the aeroplanes overhead. He also wants us to avoid being physically violent! Last night there was a lot of pushing and shoving. I personally thought it was a bit odd, strange and not particularly effective. It does affect me because I shove another actor at one point. We haven’t ever set it, but I think it is quite good and effective if we can keep it always feeling very real and unexpected. I don’t have the freedom to do that tonight. I had a friend who saw it on Sunday and that night he said it was the only moment of physical violence in the whole piece. He said it was so unexpected that he loved it. It comes in a scene when you don’t expect it. There are all these scenes about violence and murders and death and you don’t get any physical violence, so I would miss it in that scene. |As an experiment, it will be fun to see what happens tonight.

I think you should always keep experimenting. It's very difficult when you work with people who want everything to be exactly the same every time. By the same token, I think occasionally you find something that just really works, and if you have the skill to keep creating the illusion that it is sudden and unexpected, then why not keep doing it? If you try and do something without being in the moment, it looks wrong.

The reason why I think that particular shove will always work is because everything seems to fit. It's the moment about three quarters of the way through the England scene when Macduff cracks and has had enough of Malcolm revelling in his lists of vices. I say ‘Fit to govern? No, not to live.’ We’ve found a position on stage where we are just before that moment, and there's just a little ballet around it, which feels right.

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Liam Brennan - Character Notes 8

These comments are the actor's thoughts or ideas about the part as s/he goes through the rehearsal process – they are simply his/her own interpretations and change frequently as the rehearsal and performance process progresses.

We have not done the show in about four days. For three of those days we didn’t have to be at the Globe, which felt very strange. After tonight we will have over a week off. Working at the Globe is like this because it is a ‘repertory theatre’ (a theatre where a number of different plays are all running at the same time). There are days when you work continuously and days when you do not have to work at all.

The more we perform the play, the more confidence it gains, and the more relaxed we grow during it. We are about to start our ‘re-rehearsal’ process, which is something that all companies do at the Globe. The Master of Play returns and we have rehearsals every day for two weeks. I met with Tim (Carroll, Master of Play) yesterday – he is meeting with everyone from the cast to discuss concerns. I only have a few minor quibbles with certain group moments, like parts of the banquet scene.

During the re-rehearsal period we do not spend much time actually rehearsing on stage, which can be limiting. However, as we have performed the show so many times now, it will be easier to imagine the stage while we are in the rehearsal room.

One of the things we are going to experiment with is the idea of Malcolm's army entering through the yard when they come to attack Macbeth's castle. Mark Springer, who plays Young Siward in Act V, tried entering through the yard when we performed the ‘Storytelling Macbeth’ for school groups, and it was very successful. I think the audience like it when actors do this. They certainly like it when Jasper Britton (Macbeth) goes into the yard during the banquet scene when he sees Banquo's ghost for the second time. At the moment, this is the only time when an actor goes into the yard during the show.

I have not read many reviews and I try not to let them affect my performance. However, if a reviewer offered me an amazing insight that I’d never thought of before, and that I really agreed with, then I might take the comment ‘on-board’ (in the same way I might do if a friend or a colleague said something that struck me as particularly insightful). I wouldn’t ignore something useful just because a journalist said it. It is important to develop a neutral perspective towards the reviews. If you rejoice in the good reviews, then you may feel bad about the bad reviews. No actor can go through life without getting a bad review.

Tim has never stopped me from trying anything new during a performance, so when I’m out on stage saying my lines, I feel as though I’m telling the story. I think that there are moments of genius in this production, for example, the intersplicing of the England scene with the Apparitions scene is just brilliant, and I like the Witches and the music enormously.

What I enjoy the most is the experience of playing in the extraordinary space that is the Globe theatre. There are things that you discover about communicating with the audience when playing in that space, and this will be fascinating to take back to a proscenium arch theatre.

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