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Scene Study prepares you to perform key scenes for your theater class or audition. We've got all the information you need for a great performance.
Excerpt from Act 1, Scene 5 Monologue: Lady Macbeth
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Understanding the Given Circumstances
- Lady Macbeth is alone in her castle.
- Lady Macbeth has just received news that King Duncan is about to arrive, along with her husband Macbeth. She knows this will be a perfect opportunity for her and her husband to assassinate the King so Macbeth may take his place.
- Lady Macbeth resolves to prepare herself to commit murder. She calls upon both natural and supernatural elements to help her in this task.
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Although Lady Macbeth is alone on stage, she is talking to someone (or something). Who, or what, might that be? How does Lady Macbeth feel about that person or thing?
Blocking and Movement
In theater, blocking is the process of planning the actors’ physical movements and positions. As you prepare to block this monologue, ask yourself the following questions:
- What room is Lady Macbeth in? Is there any furniture in this room, if any, and where is it?
- Does Lady Macbeth feel safe and private, or is she afraid of being overheard? How might she move differently if she feels unobserved, or if she is afraid that someone may be watching?
- When does Lady Macbeth move, and why? Perhaps she makes small physical gestures that express how she is feeling. Are these movements slow and graceful, or quick and abrupt? Or would it be a combination of the two?
- How can you plan Lady Macbeth's movements so the audience can keep her face in view?
Meaning and Sounds in Heightened Language
When approaching a piece of Shakespeare for performance or audition, it’s important to closely examine the text so that you have a clear understanding of it. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth over four hundred years ago, and the words the characters use are different from modern English. You can refer to SparkNotes’ No Fear Shakespeare Translation of Macbeth to decode unfamiliar words.
Shakespeare writes most of his plays in verse (or poetry), which is a form of heightened language. One reason he does this is to embellish ordinary speech with a conscious use of language. Macbeth is especially known for its use of heightened language and is widely recognized as among Shakespeare’s most poetically sophisticated works. The advantage to this kind of heightened language is that it allows the actor to express how a character thinks and feels in a viscerally satisfying and powerful way.
Your instinct may be to try and make Lady Macbeth’s speech more conversational, or more natural. However, a better approach might be to “lean in” to the heightened quality of the language and fill it with the emotional experience of the scene. Pay attention to every word and turn of phrase, and ask yourself why the character is using these particular words to communicate their thoughts and feelings. Consider the following:
- Is there something special about the sounds of these words that is more theatrical than just using “ordinary” language?
- Is there anything about the sounds of the words that directly connects you to the emotional experience of the scene? As an example, saying the phrase “Come, thick night, And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell” aloud may cause you to feel a sense of foreboding and dread. Pay attention to how the words make you feel.
- Explore saying the lines out loud to experience the full effect of this heightened language. Try saying lines at different speeds, different volumes, and with different pitches to see how these changes affect your emotional experience with the speech.
