Malcom

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In the Globe Theatre Company's production of King Lear, Malcolm was played by Chu Omambala.

About Chu Omambala

Chu has previously appeared in productions of The Merchant of Venice, Troilus and Cressida and Twelfth Night. Chu's film work includes The Seventh Scroll, The BreakUp and James in Bedlam.

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

Chu Omambala - 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 start of a rehearsal process is always strange, meeting lots of new people can be quite nerve-racking. It doesn’t really matter how nice people are, you’re still recovering on the first day from the night before worrying about what it was going to be like. But actually the good thing about it was the talks we were given from people throughout the Globe organisation. It is good to know that there is a philosophy behind the place; that Sam Wannamaker (founder of the Globe) had a vision and that you’ve got a whole group of people continuing that vision the best way they know how. It was very impressive.

I’d never worked at the Globe before, and in fact I hadn’t been here before except to the exhibition and that was about three or four years ago, It is good to know that the theatre isn’t just about the director, actors and stage management – there's so much more. Even though the Globe is a large organisation it didn’t seem intimidating. I’ve wanted to work at the Globe for a long time - when you want something, your imagination tends to run wild and you imagine what it's going to be like… and if you’re like me, you imagine the worst case scenario!

I’ve been in Macbeth before. I played Lennox at the Bristol Old Vic and then on tour, with Patricia Kerrigan (who's Goneril in King Lear at the Globe this theatre season) playing Lady Macbeth. That was my first job out of drama school, in autumn ’97. As people keep on telling me, I’m still a baby in the theatre business. But that was a really good start, and very interesting. I already know that it was a totally different production to the one this is going to be. In that production the director committed the sacrilege of adding speeches that he had written, which upset a great many people. It was either very brave or very stupid, but I’ll leave that to other people to decide!

I remember studying Macbeth for GCSE, although I can’t actually remember reading it, and I can just about remember going to Stratford upon Avon to see an RSC production. I can remember the actor Jonathan Pryce playing Macbeth, but I can’t remember anything else – it's almost like it's been cut out of my memory. I had no interest in Shakespeare and no interest in acting until I was about twenty-one. I used to go to the cinema all the time, and I loved cinema, but the people who I thought were the best actors always seemed to have a theatrical background. I was a decent all-rounder at school. I was good at sport, but I could never have been a professional at any one given sport. I never enjoyed academic work – I was never a good researcher or reader, (actually as I was getting older I was getting better). But I never had the motivation to succeed – to really push myself or to be good at it – at anything particularly, until I started acting.

I went for an audition at the Central School of Speech and Drama, having never done any acting at all. I didn’t tell anyone I was going for the audition. I did a speech from A Midsummer Night's Dream for my audition, I didn’t know what I was saying, I just sort-of sang it, and I was appalling. I only knew I was appalling when I was in there, because I heard other people. I was extremely arrogant, but I got in! I’ve been acting ever since and love it. It's the first thing that I’ve loved doing, apart from sport, which I never really took seriously.

I enjoy Shakespeare more than any other dramatist really. I love the language of his plays, their depth and the character. When I was doing Shakespeare at school I thought it was just incomprehensible, flowery, it didn’t say anything to me, but when I began to act, to take it in, I started to listen and to hear what the characters were saying.

Shakespeare's very good at talking about the human condition, about what drives us, it's this that excites me about Malcolm. He's quite a confusing character. Well, he's not confusing at all, except that there is a large gap between his appearances at the beginning of the play and his return at the end. This type of gap can be difficult for an actor to play, as it is important to maintain a through-line with a character. You have to have a journey, and as far as possible to make that journey clear and believable. Malcolm ‘pops up’ every so often in the early scenes and initially is given significance only because he's made the Prince of Cumberland and the heir to the throne. Malcolm is next seen after his father's murder when he runs away. He's significant because he has status, but why didn’t Shakespeare focus on Donalbain his brother? Why does he focus on Malcolm? Why does Donalbain disappear? It could easily have been Malcolm that did not return. Malcolm is then not around for such a huge period of the play until he ‘pops up’ in England and is given this fantastic scenario and situation to play out with Macduff. But there's a huge gap. I asked myself, what is he doing? What has he been doing? Does he know what he's going to say or how he's going to approach Macduff from the beginning, or is he just playing it ‘by ear’? In the first production of Macbeth I appeared in, Malcolm was a bit of a Michael Corleone from The Godfather films. He was a schemer. But if you just look on the text, Malcolm seems to be the epitome of a good king, or a good man; somebody who deserves to become king because he has all the right virtues. He is the rightful successor and arguably has a divine right to rule because his father has named him as Prince of Cumberland.

So on the one hand, you’ve got this guy who seems rather simple. No, not simple, just very good. It's harder to play good than it is evil; people seem to find malicious Macbeth-type people more interesting than Malcolm, who is essentially a good man trying to do the right thing. The whole play is very definite in its morals I feel. Macbeth seems to be, could have been, a good man, but he's corrupted, something inside him has been brought out and has corrupted his whole character and actions. In Malcolm there doesn’t seem to be that corruption. I’m searching for something to hook on to, something on which to base my portrayal. I do find Malcolm interesting, I don’t see him as a saintly white knight-type, but only because that would put me off playing him. Because then you’re playing a two-dimensional cardboard cut-out – you’re playing a cartoon type hero, and he's not that. I think what's interesting about Malcolm is his grief. I’m interested in how the play as a whole deals with grief - every time Malcolm is on stage he's dealing with grief. The first time he speaks, he's pointing out the Bloody Sergeant [Captain, Act I, scene ii]; the second time you see him he's saying how the Thane of Cawdor died, ‘Nothing in his life / Became him like the leaving it.’ [I.iv.8-9]. Then his father dies. Donalbain and Malcolm don’t have time to deal with their father's death in the moment it happens – there's too much going on; there's too much suspicion; it's too dangerous. So they flee to safety.

The audience never sees the repercussions of that huge moment – the death of Duncan. You only hear Malcolm's grief when he talks to Macduff. In the final scene when old Siward's son, Young Siward, is killed old Siward asks how he died – did he die fighting? Does he have wounds on his front or on his back? If he has wounds on his back it signifies that he's running away and that somebody's hacked him down from behind, which is a dishonorable way to die. But he's died honorably, facing his opponent. Old Siward says that's enough for me, I’m satisfied. Malcolm does not share this approach to death and grief, he tells Old Siward he should show more grief for his son. At the moment that's the only line I can find which reveals something about Malcolm's reaction to his father's murder.

I want to find the ugly bits of Malcolm's character – the nooks and the wrinkles – because that's what makes someone interesting. Malcolm talks about big ideals – how things should be, that Scotland needs him. He's dealing with being a king, fighting an enemy who's corrupt. Those are huge things but what are the personal things that make him tick? Those are the things that as an actor, if you’re going to be true, you have to find.

The experience of bereavement must affect who you are, and how you deal with people. Malcolm had a mother who has obviously died before the play begins, Macduff says that she was an extremely religious woman – ‘Oftener upon her knees than on her feet, / Died every day she lived’ [IV.iii.110-11]. Malcolm then has to deal with his father's death and his separation from Donalbain. At the moment, I don’t know how close Donalbain and Malcolm are as brothers. It's going to be interesting trying to develop that relationship, because although it seems small (they’re only together for a short period), it's extremely significant because they share the moment of Duncan's death.

The keys to the character are in the things that Malcolm says, and in the way in which people talk about him. Often you can get more from that information than you from what your own character says. The decisions taken by the actors who play Duncan and Donalbain will have a huge affect on the way I play Malcolm because we are a company and I cannot act in isolation. The direction that the Master of Play (the director) wants to go has obviously a massive affect. What you do with the other actors, how you interact with them, is obviously important as well.

This is the exciting time, because there are so many different paths to go down, and you have to make choices. I couldn’t put down the script when I knew I had got the part. I was staying up late reading it over and over, which I tried to stop doing because I tend to make a lot of decisions. But I’m very good at throwing them away if they don’t work out, which is a good thing, because we’ve got such a long rehearsal period, and there are inevitably going to be ups and downs.

Activities

Malcolm's journey

Malcolm is challenging to play because he has large gaps between his appearances on stage. Chu must ensure he has a clear picture of Malcolm'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 Malcolm's journey - write down each stage clearly marking how each event in the play might effect Malcolm. Send your ideas to Chu.

Malcolm's Grief

Chu is very interested in exploring Malcolm as a character that is grieving. So far he can only find one line in the play (when Malcolm is talking to Old Siward in the final scene, see above) that gives an indication of Malcolm's reaction to his father's death. Can you find any other evidence that might give Chu clues to Malcolm's thoughts and reactions to the murder of his father?

Lists

Chu finds other character's reactions to Malcolm very useful when he is trying to formulate his own ideas about Malcolm and how to play him. Sometimes actors make lists to help them focus on the way their character is regarded in the play. Look again at the play, make lists of:

  • What Malcolm says about other characters
  • What Malcolm says about himself
  • What other characters say about Malcolm

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Chu Omambala - 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 may change frequently as the rehearsal process progresses.
We’ve been working with Giles (Block, Master of Verse) which I have found very exciting because I haven’t had this type of intensive training before. I always try and look for the meaning in the text and not think too much about the verse. Giles's methods are very different and I have realised that I have already formed habits with this text, even though we haven’t been working on it for very long. Giles has shown me a different way of looking for the meaning of the words. He uses the verse order to dictate which words should be emphasised. Trying out a new method of interpreting the text is exciting as well as constraining. I find that I spend too much time thinking about the mechanics of why this method is working rather than thinking about what it is telling me and trying to find the feelings within the words. I know that once I get to grips with this new method it will enable me to speak the verse more eloquently. At the moment I am just trying to get rid of all my old habits, and am taking the text back to its simplest form. So, sometimes I feel that I am not making a lot of progress, although I know that it will help me in the end.

Giles has been teaching us to use the text like a map. The verse tells you the words you should highlight, when to breathe, when to stress and when not to. It is very easy to get seduced by the iambic pentameter and just speak all the lines ‘de dum de dum de dum de dum de dum’. But it is also important to take not of the punctuation and the line endings. I find the punctuation particularly helpful. Giles says that the line endings are very important and should always be stressed. There are exceptions of course, but if you do stress the line endings you can discover new meanings in the verse. However, these are not rules, they are just guidelines. We are using the Penguin edition of the text. Giles marked the differences in punctuation between the Folio and the Penguin edition. That was very interesting because it reiterates this idea of guidelines rather than rules in the text.

During the first week of rehearsal Tim (Carroll, Master of Play) did a very different exercise on the verse with us. He made us read through the text ignoring all the punctuation. It was really just to see what the effect was and to make us aware of how much we do need the full stops and commas. It has been very interesting to try out all these different methods of approaching the text. It gives you all the tools to work with and you can pick and choose which method you think is appropriate. If you follow one rule all of the time acting can become robotic. It is important to remember that you are trying to create a character. Because of all the verse work we have been doing this week, I have found that I have spent less time looking at Malcolm as a character and have just been looking at the mechanics of the verse. I have realised that if I am going to perform Malcolm to the best of my ability then I have to take the time to better my understanding of the language.

We’ve also been doing physical work with Sian (Williams, Choreographer), which has been a bit frustrating because I have an injury at the moment which means that I am not at my fittest. It has been interesting, because I’ve never been in a Shakespeare production before where movement is to be so important. Normally all the physical work I do is to help me develop a character and is done on my own. The movement work for Macbeth is about creating a language of movement for the ensemble.

Even though we haven’t been looking at character in rehearsal this week, I have still been spending time thinking about it. I have to remind myself not to become to set on my ideas because I haven’t worked them out with the other actors, and different people are bound to have different ideas. I am still thinking about grief. Malcolm's scenes deal with moral issues and philosophies; what is it to be a king? Is accession right and just? I am trying to personalise the role. I am asking myself what is it that makes Malcolm tick? He can appear to be a very two-dimensional character, representing good in a play about good and evil. I want to try and build a character that is real. I think it is the ideas about Malcolm, as a person, that will help to do this. That is why I keep thinking about the effect his father's death would have on him. Other questions I keep asking myself include; does Malcolm want to be king? How much does he want it? Why does he run away?

I have been thinking a lot about why Malcolm runs away. Was it because he was scared? Was it because there was danger everywhere and he didn’t know whom to trust? The problem that I am finding is that the answer to each question always seems to pose five other questions. I do have an idea about what I think the answer should be. I think he ran away because he needed time to go through his options and to find out whom he could trust.

Activities

Verse

Chu has spent a lot of time trying out different methods of approaching Shakespearean verse.

Choose a short speech from Macbeth and try reading it in the following different ways.

  • Ignoring all the punctuation
  • Emphasising the last syllable of each line
  • Taking note of all the punctuation – breathe at commas and a pause at full stops.

What effect do each of these different methods have? Which method do you find most useful and why? Send you results and ideas in to Chu.

Why did Malcolm run away?

Chu thinks that Malcolm ran away because he needed time to decide whom he could trust.

Why do you think Malcolm ran away?

Try and find moments in the text to support you ideas then send them to Chu.

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Chu Omambala - 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 have had rehearsals on-stage and were basically telling the story of Macbeth through a series of tableau. In this exercise you are working with others, so you are not merely discovering things by yourself or only within the scenes in which you speak. I’m actually quite shy usually. Throughout my education, it was always sport and ‘banter’ that brought me out of myself. The ability of the people in this company to laugh at themselves is fantastic. That's the type of environment you need in order to do good work.

In the tableau exercise we were asked to create twelve pictures that tell the story of Macbeth. For instance, you might start off with a tableau for the witches and then move on to a tableau of the battle and the Bloody Sergeant; then a tableau of Malcolm's investment as the Prince of Cumberland with Macbeth's reaction; then the death of Duncan; the attempted murder of Fleance and the murder of Banquo; etc. The pictures tell the whole story of the play. The way that we did it was that each cast member was in charge of creating one of the pictures. He/she was a dictator for the moment and was not to be questioned by the rest of the cast. After a picture was created another dictator was appointed.

It forced us all to identify the vital events within the play. There were arguments about that because when you’re working with pictures, you have to go through the action of the play. Some scenes don’t have any action or hardly any movement. For instance, Lady Macbeth's letter scene is very important to the play because it's a recap of everything that has happened and it also reveals her resolution to push Macbeth to kill the King. Unfortunately, it is difficult to present this scene in picture form. The fact that Lady Macbeth pushing Macbeth to murder Duncan is an integral part of the play, but is her influence just found in that scene? What I was pushing for was a way to highlight their relationship as a couple through each tableau. Jasper (Britton, Macbeth) and Eve (Best, Lady Macbeth) weren’t there so we had chairs standing in for them. In the beginning they are together, but by the end there is a split. I think that split occurs at the end of the banquet scene. Then from that moment, you don’t actually see them together at all until she's dead. In the banqueting scene they’re having a conversation, but they’re not really speaking to each other. To show this distance, you could have two chairs facing each other, then two chairs facing different directions, and then two chairs completely apart. This staging presents the story of their relationship.

At the Globe is that you have voice lessons, movement lessons, and verse lessons each week. I haven’t had this much training since drama school! It's interesting because I’m a confident person and the longer this show goes on and the longer we’re all together, the louder I’m going to get. However, I feel a bit inadequate in the verse class. It's just because I’m an instinctive actor, and that means that I don’t necessarily think through what I’m doing.

I’m not a good sight-reader anyway, and I just couldn’t read the verse. Giles (Block, Master of Verse) gives you tools and it's up to you whether you use them or not, but as an actor you must explore new things. I’ve been trying to explore the part of Malcolm, but I’m always going to follow my instincts.

Today we continued with the verse. We did an exercise where you pace, and your pacing mirrors the verse. So, right foot down on the stressed beat. And for some reason I just couldn’t do it. I just had a block, and I’m terrible when that happens. Everything went out of my head. I’m trying use this exercise as a tool, but I find it very constraining. Then Tim (Carroll, Master of the Play) explained it a different way and I was able to do it a lot better. I’m changing the way that I work to an extent. Although I’m very good at taking direction, as soon as it becomes too technical or constrained, there's a slight loss of confidence and then I’m thrown. That's only true in the exercises.

We did the overlapping exercise – overlapping each other's lines – to try for some intensity in the England scene (IV. 3). I find exercises like that very useful. You just do them and see what comes out. We were told to do the same scene as though we were in a public place. There's somebody listening, so you speak slightly slower, in hushed tones because you don’t want anybody to overhear. These actions are created instinctually and they give a totally different feeling to the scene. I find this type of exercise liberating. That's the difference – between doing an exercise which constrains you and one which makes you feel liberated; between a technical approach and one which is instinctive.

Though the verse classes have been daunting, I have managed to pick up some things like how to work with line endings. There are just certain aspects of the guidelines that I find suffocating. We were talking about lines in the text (IV. 3 – lines 28-31) and Tim was explaining which important words to stress. He went through it and said, ‘stress that word, pitch that one,’ etc., and then he said the line in a certain way. His argument was that once you’ve worked out those basic stresses, you can do the line in a myriad of different ways. I disagree. If I am supposed to stress particular words, instead of focusing upon other words that I think are important, I am limiting myself. I try to make the lines sound natural and believable, and stressing some words and not others is part of that. If Tim's notes on the stresses sound natural, then I will say the line his way. If it doesn’t sound right, then I won’t say the line that way.

At the beginning of the play I think Malcolm moves. Or leads from the lower part of his body. Later on in the play, I think his centre of gravity moves further up. When we’re trying to be regal, we immediately sit up. Malcolm has lightness in his movement, but there's also a strong, direct, sustained quality. By the final part of the play Malcolm knows what he wants.

Activities

Tableau

The company has been working to create the story of Macbeth through a series of tableau. Re read Chu's notes where he describes this process, then try to tell the story this way for yourselves. Which scenes did you decide to include and why? Send your discoveries and ideas to Chu.

The overlapping exercise

Choose any scene or lines and try the overlapping exercise. Each person must begin their lines before the person before them has finished speaking. What effect does this exercise have on the atmosphere and pace of your chosen scene?

Private and Public

Chu experimented playing Act IV as if he and Macduff are in a public place and might be overheard. Try this exercise. How does it effect the scene? Try the exercise again, but this time as if the scene is taking place in private. What is the difference?

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Chu Omambala - 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.
This morning we did the England scene. It was quite rusty. Then after doing it, we sat down and spoke about it, having not rehearsed it for a while. Lots of things came out about our characters and how we perceived Malcolm and Macduff. We talked about their journeys, which we’d never talked about consistently before.

We talked about examples of manhood. Tim asked about the lists that Malcolm has; the negative list – ‘I grant him bloody, / Luxurious…’ (IV.iii.58-59) and the positive list ‘The king-becoming graces’ (91). Why do I say them? As Malcolm, I’m saying in the first list that Macbeth represents all these things. I think I’m all these things or at least am about to pretend to be. In this scene, Malcolm has to believe in that moment that he is evil or otherwise he's never going to convince Macduff. While Malcolm doesn’t think he's evil incarnate, he does have doubts about himself and his ability to lead, to be king. I’m trying to heighten his insecurity.

People talk about changing and metamorphosing into someone else as an actor, but you never really do. You highlight things that you have in common with a character and hide things you don’t. Perhaps you over-emphasise things that you have and conceal things that you don’t. That's what Malcolm is doing in this scene, really cranking things up to a ridiculous extreme. He's using Macbeth as an example of something that is good and has been corrupted. He thinks to himself if Macbeth who was a hero and the saviour of Scotland in many ways can transform into this monster, what will happen when I, a deeply insecure and vice-filled fellow, become king?

I think the positive list is a list of all the things Malcolm thought true of his father, Duncan. The most important thing for Malcolm is that although he really does believe that Duncan embodied those qualities, they still weren’t enough. Duncan was too trusting and lacked foresight. Malcolm knows that he can’t afford to be that way. This realisation is what every child does. He/she looks at the examples around him/her and learns from them. The real reason Malcolm pushes Macduff to the nth degree in this scene is because he really does trust Macduff deep down. Malcolm wants Macduff to be honest, because he sees something in Macduff.

I was talking this morning about how many times the scene could have ended. What's happening is that Macduff is setting up a scenario. He asks Macduff questions and Macduff keeps giving him the wrong answer. Malcolm's saying, ‘Now, I’m a lustful prince. Do you think somebody with all these vices can rule the country?’ Macduff says, ‘Yes, I do.’ Malcolm keeps on pushing it. The reason he's says what he does is because he doesn’t necessarily trust Macduff, but he wants to trust him. Malcolm doesn’t want to be stuck in England; he wants to be fighting the good fight. He needs Macduff to have the right motivation for following him, to support him because he believes that Malcolm has the ability to be a good king. Otherwise, it's only the difference between a legitimate monster and an illegitimate one. The cycle of distress can only be broken by a good, just leader who's legitimate and has the support of the good Thanes around him.

We looked at the scene when I find out that Duncan's been murdered. This scene is more difficult because there is so much going on, but there has to be some sort of focus. You can have any ideas you want, but unless they help the scene along, they’re useless. I’ve got quite a strong idea of what I want to do for the journey of Malcolm, but that doesn’t necessarily marry with the structure of the scene as it came out today. So it's about improvising and being flexible.

Malcolm and Donalbain seem to be quite clinical at the end of II.iii. They come in after Duncan has been found dead by Macduff and neither of them really reacts. What do you do when you have cataclysmic news? I think people usually do nothing. People who fake it tend to act, tend to react. In that scene Lady Macbeth and Macbeth are doing big reactions, lots of crying. It's all false. Malcolm is told his father's dead and all he says is, ‘O, by whom?’ It's a hard line, but it's only hard if you try and put too much into it. Sometimes we make it too hard for ourselves, and until I do know what, if anything, to do with it, I was planning to do it very neutrally.

I have many thoughts, as a character in this scene, running through my head. I feel as if I should show them, but ‘showing’ how you feel rather than just feeling it isn’t right. I do have a responsibility to be clear about my journey, but just because I speak there, it doesn’t mean that I have to show it there. It's an odd thing to say, ‘O, by whom?’ But I suppose you say odd things when under stress. I think it's shock. I think the coldness comes from the shock and not knowing what to do. ‘O, by whom?’ isn’t a case of accusing or fear for my own safety because there isn’t enough time for that. It's just natural. It just spews out. We’ve all said stupid things that come from nowhere.

Shock also permeates the scene when the Thanes gather round to discuss what's going on. Malcolm and Donalbain both know that one of the murderers is in that group. Somebody in that group killed their father or had him killed. Someone that was close to them has committed the crime. What's running through that scene is mostly a sense of shock and the objective is to find safety and space in order to react and then later to act.

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Chu Omambala - 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.
We had our first run-through, which I almost can’t remember, except that I was actually quite pleased with the whole thing. It was more for the moves, for the structure of the play. I was pleased that it all fit together and ran smoothly. It gave me a lot of confidence in the production. Usually the first run is soul destroying, because you’ve put in all this work and you’ve been so precise and then it all evaporates in front of you. We knew that we were nowhere near the finished article, but the likelihood was that we were going to get there.

I had a solo session with Giles (Block, Master of Verse). I asked for the session because I decided that I’d reached the stage where I could face the glare of his scrutiny. I had two solo sessions with Giles and one with Jeanette (Nelson, Master of Voice). They were both very interesting. My voice is quite big anyway, and although I’m going to have to think about being heard on the Globe stage, it's more about articulation. I don’t have to worry about banging out the volume because I know that I can do that, but sometimes it's not a case of volume. It's about being more nasal and more precise in your articulation, which is surprising when you actually look at the theatre. The first time I was on stage it was very frightening and I felt quite small. I thought, how am I ever going to fill this space? I know that I can fill it with sound but not with a sound that anyone would necessarily want to hear. I’ve been really blasting the volume in the run-throughs for some reason, but that's more to do with nerves and then only in certain sections.

Jeanette told me what my problems were, which took about forty-five minutes of a one-hour session! I stand very upright, so she talked to be about weight distribution. My weight is on my heels, but when I want to talk to someone, I immediately and subconsciously shift my weight forward. Jeanette has noticed this problem, not just in this rehearsal period, but also when we worked together at the National Theatre. I tend to rock back on my heels when I’m nervous, and that affects my voice. It doesn’t affect being heard so much as the ability to be understood and to make a connection with the person that you’re speaking to. I worked on that, and in the first run she noticed that I wasn’t leaning back any more. I was right on my toes, almost as though I wanted to take off. That was only in the first scene where I have an address to Duncan, which I’m actually playing to the audience.

I’ve also got a couple of problems, which Jeanette tells me are typical of a Londoner. Firstly, my ‘t’s’ aren’t very precise. Secondly, I have a very tight jaw. When I get nervous my jaw tightens up, but I can do various exercises to help with that. One of the best exercises is just to massage your jaw with your hands, and another good one is to shake your head from side to side and let your jaw remain loose. I’ve been doing those exercises every day and my jaw has loosened up really quickly.

When I had my sessions with Giles, he just didn’t know where to begin! We concentrated mainly on the idea of observing the line endings. Usually, if I observe line endings it's by mistake. I read the text and just try to get the sense, and I am quite clear. Sometimes I’m not as clear as I should be, or I could use the text in a more interesting way. Sometimes I’m a slave to punctuation; however, the punctuation changes from Folio to Folio and sometimes it's wrong. The punctuation is there for reading, not necessarily for speaking. So, Giles and I went through the text and he gave me tips. The annoying thing was that I like to think that I’ve got a good grasp of Shakespeare's text, and I like to think that if I’m doing something in a particular way, I can argue my point and justify why I’m doing it. Unfortunately, Giles’ points were always better! I wasn’t completely wrong, but he was more right than I was! His ideas about the text made it make more sense or made it more interesting.

You can be a slave to punctuation and still be clear in what you’re saying, but it won’t sound natural necessarily. We also looked at the antitheses you can find in a line. For example, there's a line in IV.3, ‘To offer up a weak poor innocent lamb / T’ appease angry god’ [IV.iii.15-16], where I should draw out and emphasise, ‘innocent lamb’ and ‘angry god’. We also talked about just enjoying the words more in certain places. You have the words to direct you and you can say them with meaning and in interesting ways. You can encapsulate the vastness of ‘confineless’ in the way that you say the word.

I saw Giles on Friday and then we had a run-through on Saturday where I proceeded to forget everything he told me. Afterwards, he gave me a list of mistakes that I had made. He gave everyone a list, but mine was longer than most people's were! I’ve developed bad habits in the past and those habits are hard to break. It’ll take more than one run; however, I’m aware of them now. Although I might forget all about them when I’m scared, they’re something I’ll be able to keep trying to fix.

More recently, we did a run-through for Mark (Rylance, Artistic Director), which I didn’t enjoy at all. I was nervous to start and then you never really get a handle on anything. You do a scene and it's over before you’re even aware that it's started. Even though I knew that was going to happen, it did throw me; however, you just get over it and concentrate on the next thing. The thing that went the quickest was the scene after the death of Duncan. I didn’t know what was going on. The good thing is that even though I wasn’t on top of anything, I still felt that I was discovering new things. If that's true, then it can’t be too terrible. Then we got to the England scene and Liam had an idea. He thought we should come onto the stage as if we had been having this debate for hours. This way you come on with an air of frustration and exhaustion. The good thing about that is that you come on stage with a life, but for me, it made the scene more generalised. It was impassioned, but not as interesting. Tim (Carroll, Master of Play) wants me to watch for Macduff's reactions more in that scene, which is a good note, but actually I was listening to him rather than watching him. I’m talking without stopping, and then he throws in an interjection, which changes my direction. I say to him, well, I don’t know who you are or what you want – you’ve come from Scotland and could be in league with Macbeth. He says, ‘I am nor treacherous,’ and I say, ‘But Macbeth is.’ Although I was listening to him, I think Tim's point is that I should be watching him more when I’m speaking. It's not about watching when he's speaking; it's about noticing how he reacts to my words. We do play off each other well, so I just need to watch him more.

We are now in a period of technical rehearsal. I hate technical rehearsals usually and I tend to wander off because I have the concentration of a goldfish. Today, because we couldn’t leave the stage, I couldn’t go anywhere. The sun's shining, we’re in an outdoor theatre, and it's been very relaxed. We’ve had a great laugh. I had a good time. It's down to the people who are in charge. You can have rehearsal periods where you don’t trust the people around you, yourself, or the director. It all stems from the director, because the director is the person who sets the tone. I do feel quite safe, and that's down to the director and the actors that I’m working with, especially Liam.

By next week we’ll have done our first performance and at the moment that doesn’t scare me, but it will when it becomes real. When we do our first run on stage, then it will hit me, and I will probably go backwards before I go forwards. We’ve got a number of performances before the press comes to review it, which is great. What I do know is that the journey of Malcolm will be clearer and I won’t be acting so much. What the most recent run taught me is that I was acting too much and I don’t have to. I can relax into it. I’m not going to enjoy it for a while, because I’ll be pushing myself too hard, but when I’m able to relax, it's going to be a lot of fun.

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Chu Omambala - 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.
The first preview, my first experience of being on the Globe stage in front of an audience, was probably the best theatre experience I’ve ever had. I really enjoyed the first show. I was very nervous, in fact as nervous as I have ever been in a theatre, but I really enjoyed it. There was a point in the England scene where I felt like Liam and I were flying. It had been a bit stop-start, and it was totally an adrenaline thing, but then the adrenaline subsided and I actually knew where I was and what I was doing. I really started to take in what I saw before me, which was a sea of faces just staring at you, and they were really listening. It was amazing.

The applause at the end was mind-blowing. Applause can be quite deceiving, because we’ve done better shows since and not had that reaction, but it was still a fantastic night. And I was on a high for more than a day afterwards.

Since then we’ve had a few wake-up calls. On Tuesday night, which was our second preview, I was nervous but I didn’t have that adrenaline boost. It really is frightening, and you do ask yourself why you do it on nights like Tuesday and Sunday. On Tuesday it was really hard work, like wading through treacle. It had been a very hot day. There are various excuses. People talk about ‘the second-nighter’, where you’ve got all the faults of the first night but you don’t have the adrenaline to push it through.

We’ve kept rehearsing in the days. We’ve been rehearsing the technical stuff and we’ve had notes, which have been really helpful. We’ve had notes from everybody really, from Tim, Sian, Tamara, Giles, Jeanette, Glynn, which has been a bit mind-boggling. I felt that one of the problems on Tuesday was that I personally got so many notes from so many different people. I did try and play them, but you need time to process them. Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to rehearse the scene before the show. Some notes you agree with and some you don’t, but you have to play them anyway because these people are too good to give rubbish notes.

The thing about the England scene is that it's so fluid and it changes quite a lot from night to night. Nothing is set. Even if I do go in with a plan, if I go in with Giles’ note to play the end of the lines or not to miss out words, which I normally do, that goal doesn’t always succeed. I got notes earlier on from Tim about watching Macduff, and that's beginning to bear fruit. What's nice is that there has been a progression. It's not a smooth progression. I haven’t been getting better every performance, but I know that I’m better now than I was a week ago and I will continue to get better. Sometimes you’ll lose bits but it's important that you don’t beat yourself up about it.

Today I feel very tired, because I’ve been running around too much. On Sunday night, which was the last preview, I made strides. I had a good performance. I played notes that I’d been given and it didn’t feel like I was playing a note, they just came.

I’d like to say I ignore the reviews but I don’t. I never read all of them, but I usually get seduced into reading some. I don’t think I’m going to read them this time. You want people to think that you’re good and you want people to think that you’re in a good production. If you read the reviews you have to remind yourself that this is just one person's opinion. There are very good reviewers and sometimes they really do hit the nail on the head, and if you’re not getting notes from your director sometimes it's good to read the reviews. I do feel that it unbalances. We’re all vain creatures and we really do want to do well and to be seen performing well. I think that you do know whether you’ve done good work. It's more important that your fellow actors trust you. Reviews can be really divisive. It's never really happened to me. I’ve only ever got one negative review and it made me laugh and then made me very self-conscious. Some people get great reviews and it's lovely, but they’re always the easier ones to believe even when they’re not really true. Whether you get a good review or a bad review it can change your performance. It deflates some people and it inflates others. I don’t think you should read them because either way they are destabilising.

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Chu Omambala - 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 and performance process progresses.

I feel much more relaxed now that we have done a fair number of performances. I think that our use of the Globe space, particularly during the ‘England’ scene, has hugely improved. Mark Rylance (Artistic Director) gave everybody notes about the use of the space. He talked about using ‘the golden triangles’, which are the spaces in front of and to the sides of each of the pillars. The pillars always obstruct the audiences’ view at some point of the play. However, the ‘golden triangles’ are positions on the stage where you can be seen at any time. Another good position is upstage centre. It's also good to try and always be in a diagonal line rather than side-by-side if you are talking to someone, because one of you will always be seen. Initially, trying to remember all of these things felt very forced but it feels more natural now.

The ‘England’ scene has changed quite a lot since the rehearsals, but it is becoming more consistent. When you play a scene again and again there are certain patterns that you discover, which seem to work well. In rehearsals, scenes change moment by moment because you are still in a constant state of discovery. We recently did about six performances in a row and, for the first time, I was happy with every single one. Sometimes you don’t feel great about a performance but I’ve now found a level of confidence with my performance. I know that my use of the space has improved and I am confident that my portrayal of Malcolm. If the director asked me to do a scene in a different way, that was still consistent with my character, I feel as though I’d now have the confidence and flexibility to do it.

We are just about to start the re-rehearsal period (this is something that all of the acting companies at the Globe do). For the next two weeks we will be rehearsing the show with the director, as well as performing it. I hope we won’t be spending all out time on technical considerations because I think it will be important for us to get back to the root of the play and concentrate on talking to one another as much as possible. I would love to talk through the play just sitting around with each other, without doing any of the moves. I would like to focus on the scenes for short but intense periods. Tim Carroll (Master of Play) spent two days speaking to everyone in the company individually about how they were feeling about the production.

We have just done two performances called ‘Storytelling Macbeth’ (for GlobeLink schools), which were basically highlights from the show with a professional Storyteller interweaving his own telling of the story in-between. The first time we did it I found it difficult because I felt that the storyteller was working on a different level. However, during the second performance we felt more involved. Mark Rylance, the Artistic Director, did the storytelling, and as he is more familiar with this production he was able to become part of the company. I felt part of what was going on, and that I was helping to tell a story.

Rehearsals are always my favourite part of a production because you meet new people. In performance I get very nervous, but it is great when you have done it. Even though this is a job that I love, I have standards that I am constantly trying to improve, and I do feel I’m progressing.

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