By Joel Haas
For actors, no play in the English language is more surrounded by superstition and tradition than “the Scottish play.” My brothers and I were blissfully unaware of this in 1962 as we mounted our production of Shakespeare’s “MacBeth” in our bedroom.
We had seen a television version of the play. My mother was a theater costumer; she explained the plot. Subtle literary sub texts — meditations on the fleetingness of power, mortality, morality and so on eluded us.
The play had witches, ghosts, castles, murders, and battles. It did lack a twelve eyed Godzilla bent on eating Tokyo or Los Angeles, but that’s just because the play was literature; culture. Our parents were almost as concerned we be cultured as that we eat our vegetables and drink all our milk.
As producer, director, and star, I recognized we were short of resources. We had no costumes, sets, props, or even a script. “But the play’s the thing!”
As I could only play MacBeth, it was necessary my brothers handle all the other roles. Gary and Jack’s two level bunk bed served as the castle. We had a plastic crown from Halloween and no house full of little boys is ever short of plastic swords and shields. Gary (then about 8) had just had his hair cut in a crew cut, so he wrapped up in an old green blanket with part thrown over his head whenever he had to play a female role. He looked vaguely like the Virgin Mary in a Christmas pageant, which added a special piquancy to his Lady Macbeth.
We lacked a script. This was not really a problem. I knew the story and would direct my brothers as to where to stand and what to say.
In the opening scene, one of the witches cries out, “Hail MacBeth, Thane of Caudor!” Mom had explained to me “thane” was a Scottish title — sort of like “duke” or “first baseman.” It never occurred to her to explain Caudor was a place. This little omission was shortly to cause confusion.
The witches, my brothers — both draped in green blankets stirring a cardboard box cauldron with broom handles — shout “Hail MacBeth, Thane of Corridor!” “Thane,” I smugly volunteered, was a Scottish nobleman.
“What’s a corridor?” Gary asked innocently.
“A hall monitor,” I told him. “Corridor is another word for hall.” Gary nodded, only half comprehending. The notion of a duke or thane of hall monitors had puzzled me, too, so I improvised. “Castles have halls,” I began. “MacBeth’s in charge of who has hall passes in the castle.” That satisfied both Gary and Jack, so on we plunged.
It really didn’t matter. In our stripped down, fast paced version, MacBeth was not going to be handing out hall passes above five minutes before moving on to murder King Duncan.
We lacked a dagger.
In the TV version we’d seen, MacBeth says his famous “Is this a dagger I see before me?” speech staring at a large knife floating in a doorway above his head. I intended reproducing this with equally as much dramatic effect. I would hang our dagger by a string from the doorway into the hall. With the hall lights on and our bedroom lights off, I was sure the effect would be eerie. I would finish the speech, snatch it free of the string and stalk over to my bed where my youngest brother Jack (age 5) was essaying the role of hapless King Duncan.
We encountered our first obstacle. Mom absolutely refused to allow us to use her butcher knife for our dagger. This was a blow since it was not only impressively large and deadly looking, but it had a small hole drilled in the hilt, perfect to draw a string through. Mom seldom used the knife, but she was not about to let us use it. Not even if we promised to be careful.
Unwilling to give up the special effect, I settled for a large soup ladle. It did not strike me that the casual observer would think Macbeth even more deranged than he is when gazing up into the light, he cries “Is this a dagger I see before me?” and rushes off to stab King Duncan with a soup ladle.
I brought the ladle down on Jack. Gary crouched behind my dresser, stabbed a fresh apple with a pencil. It was a terrific sound effect. Jack played his big scene for all it was worth, and my parents nearly became hysterical. The play had to be stopped and lights flipped on so Mom and Dad could be reassured no real fratricide had taken place.
As director and star, I was of two minds about this. I didn’t like the pace of our play being broken up, but I took a perverse satisfaction in the effectiveness of our sound effects.
Back on track, we pressed on. Gary and Jack eventually returned in the final scene, carrying before them wilting pecan branches broken off trees in the back yard. Our back yard, if not Burnham Wood, had come to move.
The final scene came off perfectly. Jumping up and down on the top bunk bed we performed a gigantic-stupendous-unbelievably impressive-jaw dropping-lots of people stabbed-big swords fights-screaming like banshees-blood all over the place-we-even-used-real-ketchup-on-old-tee-shirts battle!
MacBeth dead, Gary maked a short speech on the top bunk bed, placed the crown on his head and…
Exeunt Omnes
CURTAIN
Postscript:::::Years later, my brother, Jack, having acquired theater degrees from both UNC and USC, won a fellowship to get yet another post grad degree in directing and acting at University of California-Berkeley. He directed MacBeth. I understand it was brilliant. But without a Virgin Mary drag queen for Lady MacBeth, fresh apples, and a giant soup ladle, I can’t imagine it was more memorable than mine.
POST POSTSCRIPT after reading all of the above, my mother, sent along these additional memories of the play: The story brought back happy memories, but I must make some comments. Costumes: There was always a pile of “costume stuff” for you all to choose from. As armor, Jack wore the top of a silver dress I made in the 1940s. Later, I cut off the skirt when Gary wanted to be a knight for Halloween. As Banquo’s ghost, Jack wore it with jeans tucked into rain boots covered with aluminum foil. Somewhere there is a picture of him on that old metal hobby horse. Jack did not wear the boots for the play but as the ghost he covered the silver armor with a sheet.
This ghost approaching almost did YF (Your Father) in.
Gary stabbed an Idaho potato, not an apple. It makes a wonderful natural sound effect: a tip which I later passed on to numerous theaters. Apples are too soft. The core keeps the sound from lasting long enough. What really broke YF (Your Father) up into laughter was The Virgin Mary as Lady MacBeth stalking along the top bunk bed while making the speech about bloody hands.
When you asked for the knife, I had no idea of what you were up to and could easily see you being completely fed up with your younger brothers.
I saw the play all the way through. When YF (Your Father) came home I suggested you all repeat it for him. It was then that he had his laugh breakdown and you three would never give another performance. I was extremely impressed with the way you cut the play so that you three could do it and have the play make sense while keeping it under 30 minutes. It is one of my fondest memories of the three of you doing a joint project. I love you all for it. Mom
