Two "Macbeth" Interviews!

   Macbeth kicks off its final weekend tonight, and I have several e-interviews yet to share, so here's one with two notables from the show. The title role is played by Greg Morris, and the director is Mike Murdock - so let's hear from both of them about the play (which, I should mention, is getting rave reviews):


Q: You're part of a classic Shakespeare play, but in case our reader isn't familiar with it, tell us the basic story.

Greg: I’ll leave that to Murdock.

Mike: MACBETH is a play about a war hero who allows his own greed, ambition, imagination and wife lead him to the end of his sanity. After hearing a prophecy from three witches, MACBETH believes he can be king, and begins doing everything he can to make that happen, including murder. A lot of murder.

Q: Tell us about the character you play.

Greg: Macbeth, one of Western Literature’s most engrossing characters, is a man big with imagination, ambition, and fearlessness, but a little short on brains and wisdom. He’s prescient, but without the grace of understanding his own clairvoyance. In a way, he’s a kind of self-inflicted Cassandra. He sees the future, but won’t believe his own predictions. A man of deep faith - of a kind - he refuses to accept his fate, choosing instead to sacrifice everything he holds dear in a fruitless, quixotic quest to determine his own destiny. No man is bigger than the cosmos, not even one of his own making.

Mike: I'm the director. Everything you see on stage at the show is my fault - the good and the bad. Hopefully there's more good.

Q: What's the most challenging thing about this show?

Mike: I worked with a lot of new people in this production and many of them had never done Shakespeare before. Working on the language with people that have no experience is always daunting, but also part of the fun. There's nothing better than when you see the actor "get it" for the first time. All of a sudden, they understand what they are saying and the play comes into focus. Shakespeare created a lot of words, many of which we use today, so getting to sense of the words and the truth of the text is both the greatest challenge and the most rewarding element of directing Shakespeare.

Greg: Two things: the language, which is always a challenge with Shakespeare, and the ARTS auditorium, which was designed more for music and dance than for dramatic theater. Finding the right vocal energy in that space is a Herculean task. These two things taken together force an actor to work double hard if he or she is determined to communicate the story. One has to first understand the words, then learn to say them at the right speed and volume and diction, with the right inflection and inference, always remembering that the audience hasn’t spent the last three months pouring over the words like the actors have been. Oh, and act on top of everything else. There’s a reason why, in the years gone by, so many actors have performed Shakespeare in a “presentational” style: sometimes – at it is for the space we happen to be in - that’s the only right and righteous way. An actor doing Death of A Salesman or The Owl and the Pussycat in a small, intimate theater can afford to speak in a “natural,” conversational style. That’s much harder to do with Shakespeare in a large space. We Americans are so accustomed to film and TV that we tend to speak almost in a sotto voice as a matter of course. Breaking that habit is tough enough for an experience actor, and not any easier for one with less experience.

Q: Will the audience be scared or shocked by this production?

Greg: I hope not. That would be terrible; coming to see a bloody, horrible tragedy and then being scared or shocked would be a real bummer.

Mike: I don't know if anyone will be scared or shocked, but I think we amp up the energy in our ACT 2, and it's certainly nerve-wracking as we transition scenes one right into another. We do a lot of things in this show that aren't your typical "community theatre" fare. We have some pretty dynamite special effects, sound and lighting which is sure to cause a buzz. The fight scenes are brutal and realistic and there's also quite a bit of blood in the show. But hey, it wouldn't be the Halloween season without blood, would it?

Q: Why did you want to be part of this show?

Greg: I love Shakespeare, especially his tragedies. His poetry is second to none. Doing a play like this, no matter what the role, is great practice for the actor. Once he or she has conquered Shakespeare, everything else seems a little bit easier.

Mike: I love MACBETH. It's been my favorite Shakespearean tragedy since I first read it in high school. It was the first of Shakespeare's plays that I read where, as I mentioned earlier, I "got it." I understood the story and I was hanging on every word. I think that we've made this play accessible to both young and old and the actors and crew are doing a fantastic job. We've gotten some great reviews after the first weekend. I hope even more people come this weekend to experience the show with us.

Q: Why would you recommend this show to our readers?

Greg: Macbeth is one of the Bard’s most accessible, straight-forward, and powerful plays. The man was at the height of his powers when he wrote this masterpiece. Only Lear and Hamlet come close to Macbeth in the fullness of the experience, and yet, in some ways, Macbeth is Shakespeare’s most satisfying effort: more like steak and potatoes than a fancy dinner, Macbeth is meat served the way it should be – seared black top and bottom and bloody in-between! Our production is imperfect, to be sure, but I think you might find enough there to satisfy the hunger. Bon appetite!

Mike: It's classic literature meets 21st century spectacle meets down-and-dirty story of ambition and revenge. There's something for everyone - sword fights, dirty jokes, blood, witchcraft - all that, plus a great story being told in an easily understandable fashion. You REALLY don't want to miss this show. It's what everyone is going to be talking about in the months to come - to be fair, they already are! Don't be left out of the conversation. Come see MACBETH!

Q: Tell us the dates, times and place for the show.

Mike: Friday, October 19 at 8 p.m., Saturday, October 20 at 8 p.m., Sunday, October 21at 2 p.m. ARTS - Renaissance Theatre - Old Huntington High School - 900 8th Street - Huntington. 304- 733-ARTS. Tickets are only 10 bucks.