Not Taking that Macduff
I woke up from a light doze at my desk today and suddenly had an idea about how to change a part of Macbeth that I had adapted to make it work better. And now it does. It works so much better. What I had before was just clunky, and I knew it, but I finally addressed it.
Basically, in the original work, Macbeth kills Macduff's wife and children. Well, the question was if I'm shifting this all to a 1950s women's college what the hell do I do with that? I already have Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in a lesbian relationship. But I wanted that to be the only lesbian relationship in the show. I think we can get away with it there. My idea is it's a women's college, so within the confines of the school the couple is out. Everyone else tolerates them, but it's still '52. No one's very comfortable with it. I like that. It helps further isolate the couple and adds to their feeling that it's them against the world.
But then again, what to do about Lady Macduff? What I had settled on was changing her to Macduff's secretary and having Macduff's children be her TA's. So Macbeth's minions break into Macduff's office while she's away and kill her secretary and her TA's. That just wasn't working though. We barely got out of that scene alive with that conceit. However the next scene when Macduff finds out just died. So what I realized today, coming out of my doze, was that the simple solution was to change Lady Macduff to Macduff's nanny and then keep her kids, her kids. Now that works. 'Cause those kids really need to be her kids. It really needs to be about Macbeth killing Macduff's offspring. It works thematically. The language in the next scene doesn't have to be massaged as much, and now the emotional stakes are back where they need to be for Macduff's reaction. "I'm gonna kill her 'cause she killed my TA," just wasn't working.
It's funny. I don't know what it's like with other people, but I'm noticing that part of my artistic process is listening to myself when I say, "That doesn't work." I mean, it sounds like a simple thing, but it's so easy to push that away. I'm concerned about time so I push that away. I'm concerned about money and resources so I push that away. Here, I just thought, "Well, it's not going to be a perfect port from original to this adaptation. This is just an acceptable rough spot." So I push it away. But it wasn't. It sucked, and now it's better.
Basically, in the original work, Macbeth kills Macduff's wife and children. Well, the question was if I'm shifting this all to a 1950s women's college what the hell do I do with that? I already have Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in a lesbian relationship. But I wanted that to be the only lesbian relationship in the show. I think we can get away with it there. My idea is it's a women's college, so within the confines of the school the couple is out. Everyone else tolerates them, but it's still '52. No one's very comfortable with it. I like that. It helps further isolate the couple and adds to their feeling that it's them against the world.
But then again, what to do about Lady Macduff? What I had settled on was changing her to Macduff's secretary and having Macduff's children be her TA's. So Macbeth's minions break into Macduff's office while she's away and kill her secretary and her TA's. That just wasn't working though. We barely got out of that scene alive with that conceit. However the next scene when Macduff finds out just died. So what I realized today, coming out of my doze, was that the simple solution was to change Lady Macduff to Macduff's nanny and then keep her kids, her kids. Now that works. 'Cause those kids really need to be her kids. It really needs to be about Macbeth killing Macduff's offspring. It works thematically. The language in the next scene doesn't have to be massaged as much, and now the emotional stakes are back where they need to be for Macduff's reaction. "I'm gonna kill her 'cause she killed my TA," just wasn't working.
It's funny. I don't know what it's like with other people, but I'm noticing that part of my artistic process is listening to myself when I say, "That doesn't work." I mean, it sounds like a simple thing, but it's so easy to push that away. I'm concerned about time so I push that away. I'm concerned about money and resources so I push that away. Here, I just thought, "Well, it's not going to be a perfect port from original to this adaptation. This is just an acceptable rough spot." So I push it away. But it wasn't. It sucked, and now it's better.
posted by - caj at 8:43 PM
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