[In October—November 2011 Baz Productions put on Macbeth in the crypt
of St Andrew Holborn with a cast of just five multi-tasking actors.]

EPILOGUE

After a performance of the Baz Macbeth five members of the audience
gather up their props and reﬂect on the evening‘s experience.

THE HISTORIAN

( pats pocket to check that white cotton gloves are safe )

We clamber down a steep and tumbling stair
to a curvilinear crypt with bellying tunnels
of seventeenth-century brickwork, picturing there
another London cellar with powder barrels
pregnant with death for James, Banquo’s heir.

That treachery betrayed and bomb aborted
became the exploding gossip of the day.
Arguments from the trial, widely reported,
informed the architecture of this play.
Equivocation: as wicked as a lie?
Conscience: a true guide in everything?
Can good men justly use deceit, or spy?
Is it ever right to kill an anointed king?
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
must we repeat the crimes of yesterday?

THE BIRDWATCHER

( slips binoculars oﬀ a hook on the wall )

Most of them are unobservant:
they see the birds they want to see.
Banquo, to ﬂatter Duncan‘s fervent
desire for ease and tranquillity
after the savagery of war,
points to martins that swoop and soar
as signs of summer‘s sweetest breath
and healthful air. But night brings death.

Macbeth imbues loon and goose
with folly and fear: unjust abuse
of birds devoted to partner and chicks.
Not for them power politics.
Obsessed with corvids, Macbeth knows
you rarely find dead rooks or crows
or choughs or magpies, so he strives
to emulate their charmed lives.

Macduﬀ’s wife knows her birds.
The wren, she says, will fight to save
her ﬂedglings from the owl. But words
and wit for weapons aren’t enough
to defend the life of Lady Macduﬀ.
Her scolding song, wren-brave,
assaults in vain deafened ears:
we struggle to hold back our tears.

Male wrens build several nests:
the females choose the cosiest.
Sir Christopher Wren built churches galore:
Baz chose this as appropriate for
a wintry play in chilly weather.
Companionably we huddle together.
The record for wrens is sixty-three
in one small box. How many are we?

THE FASHION WRITER

( looping a cashmir scarf in this year‘s style )

The costumes were grey and mean:
altogether spartan.

Accessorised by bloody braces
or gory glove
in garish red that no one with taste
could begin to love.

At least they avoided jeans
and the horror of tartan.

THE P.E. TEACHER

( taking down a whistle from a hook in the wall )

Fit and lean, they worked well as a team.
Planned and executed each exercise
with care and precision. Breathing well controlled.
Gestures economical. Disciplined.
None of that hugging, showing oﬀ nonsense,
although they pleased the crowd well enough.
Concentration excellent. Great performance.

Memo to self: try five-a-side next term!

THE CRITIC

( fiddling with the pen in his top pocket )

I drank a glass of wine: my first mistake.
Was terrified I might not stay awake.
I know Macbeth by heart: a run-of-the-mill
production woozes like a sleeping pill.

Needn’t have worried. They made their audience work.
As soon as I thought about an actor’s take
on a taxing role, he or she would dissolve
before my eyes and speak in another voice.
Who’s ... ? Is it still ... ? Yes, of course.
Same character, same intensity of thought:
the same, but from a diﬀerent angle of view.
Concentrate. Admire each eﬀortless pass
of the role from head to head. You can’t nod oﬀ
for a single moment: you dare not miss a trick.
No — not trick exactly, but a turn.
This taking turns can at the start bemuse,
but then invigorates, keeps me alert.

They turn us turn-about for diﬀerent scenes.
No ﬂats, just painting in sound and pools of light,
a shift in mood among the shape-shifting
characters. We drift from vault to vault.
Macbeth — or is it his wife? — smiles and oﬀers
me a chair. Now we’re at the ﬂicks:
a ﬂat soft-focus black and white England
projected on the wall. Back to Scotland
three-dimensional in full warcry.

Exhausted but wide awake I need a drink
as sedative to take me down from a high.
How to review? That I’ll have to think
through and round. No notes: I didn’t try.
Too busy listening, connecting, disconnecting.
In the round. A bit Brechtian? This red
faultlined patchwork of brick inset with Roman
and mediæval stones and disconcerting
concrete lintels I feel quite at home in
in the same somewhat confused confusing way
that I feel at home in this new-old old-new play
that burns and bubbles in my busy head.

When I get home will I recognize my wife?
And if, I wonder, if indeed I do,
which wife from which strand of our shared life
will it be, or will she be someone new?

Odds bodikins, how am I going to write a review?

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