Much Ado about Macbeth

by Randy McCharles

  It had to be a joke. Someone had set him up. But who? This wasn’t Winston’s style. Or the gorgon lady’s. Elizabeth Cadwell wouldn’t even conceive of anything so . . . risqué.

  The woman had to have been hiding in the washroom. She probably wore a long coat and only took it off when she stood up to cast him that smile. But why? What did it accomplish? If it was designed to help kill the play, he was lost as to how.

  Unable to draw any conclusion, Paul closed the photo viewer and turned his attention to the prop box Gemma had brought to school, which he had brought home to inspect properly. Anything to get his mind off that photo.

  Yorick’s skull would be unusable, of course, except as a Halloween ornament. It was a standard plastic skull you could buy at any costume shop. The only label on it read, Made In China.

  The crown was also cheap plastic from China. The aluminum one Lenny had brought was better. Perhaps Siward could wear this one. Earls didn’t wear crowns, but it would help differentiate the British allies from the Scots supporters, especially as none of his actors would incorporate accents to help determine who was who.

  The chalice would be perfect for the banquet scene, when Macbeth drinks himself stupid while seeing Banquo’s ghost. It, too, was plastic but large and bright gold. It would catch the eye as Macbeth staggered about the stage, arguing about a ghost none of his guests could see.

  The daggers must have been made for the play. They had rubber retracting blades, with one side painted silver to catch the stage lights and the other side silver stained with rusty red. Before murder and after murder. Paul couldn’t see a manufacturer’s mark, but initials had been scratched at the tip of each hilt: S. R.

  The final prop was an ornamental lamp, aluminum painted bright silver, with plastic instead of glass so it weighed almost nothing. There was what looked like a Christmas bulb inside shaped like a flame and a place at the back for a AAA battery. Paul flicked the on/off switch and discovered that either the battery was dead or the bulb was burned out. After replacing the battery with one he found loose in his desk drawer, the lamp came on and he was delighted to see the bulb was the flickering kind meant to imitate a flame.

  He turned the lamp off and examined the coat hanger wire that had been glued onto the back and bent so the lamp would hang off the top of a scenery flat. Ingenious. Paul would have to send a thank-you note back with Gemma to give to her dad.

  He was about to put the props, all but the skull, back into the box, when he noticed a white slip of paper lying at the bottom. He picked it up and turned it over then gawked as he read the words typed on it in faded ink: Property of Simon Riordan.

  How could that be? Simon Riordan was Paul’s old drama teacher from back when Paul was in high school. What were the odds that this box would make its way through two decades and into Paul’s hands?

  He let the slip of paper flutter back to the bottom of the box and leaned back in his chair, memories flooding his thoughts of his old mentor, larger than life, swaggering across the stage like a human blimp, flourishing his arms and grinning like a madman. A grin crossed Paul’s own lips as he shook his head. He remembered the first day he had seen Mr. Riordan. Six foot five, a lion’s mane of hair on an oversized head, broad shoulders, a capacious gut, narrow hips and legs, and tiny feet. How the man walked without falling over was a miracle of science.

  Drama had held no interest for Paul before that first day. Like many of his own students, Paul had taken the elective for what he hoped would be an easy pass. But Simon Riordan had changed all that, opening Paul’s eyes to a whole new world where you could pretend to be another person and people would applaud you for it. The only limits were your imagination and, as Paul discovered when he began working as a teacher himself, the intolerance of the school and the parents.

  He lost his grin as he remembered that third and final year, when Riordan failed to show up for class and a few days later was replaced by a phys ed teacher who showed zero interest in being there. No explanation was given except that Mr. Riordan had suddenly decided to retire from teaching. Overnight, drama lost its magic, and Paul had never pursued acting as a career.

  Only later, when Paul earned his teaching degree with no specialty, had he decided to accept his first job teaching as a drama instructor. It was the only position available. It could as easily have been home economics. Paul discovered that he was good at teaching drama, though not as good as Simon Riordan, and never looked back.

  Paul turned his gaze back to the box. He was certain he had never seen these props before. Simon Riordan had loved Shakespeare, and Paul remembered playing the part of Verges in Riordan’s high school production of Much Ado about Nothing. But there had been no Macbeth. No Hamlet either.

  Turning madly to his computer, Paul called up Google and entered Macbeth and Simon Riordan. Several hundred hits came up, many of them nothing to do with either search term. After scrolling through quite a few useless pages, he kicked himself for being so clumsy with computers. He tried again, adding the term retired.

  Fewer hits came up, and the fourteenth was what he was looking for. It showed a photo of Simon Riordan and several other actors in full costume, posing in front of a marquee proclaiming The Tragedy of Macbeth.

  Riordan was an actor? He’d never once mentioned it in class. Paul had always assumed that his mentor was much like himself, opting to teach rather than face the treadmill of auditions, learning parts, and suffering the abuse of prima donna directors as well as the criticism of an impossible-to-please public. But here he was proved wrong. Apparently when the school day was done, Simon Riordan had taken to the stage.

  Paul began scanning the article for a date but stopped when he realized that the short write-up wasn’t a review, but an article describing how the community theatre production had been cancelled due to the death of one of the actors during rehearsal. Scarlet Walker was rehearsing the role of Lady Macbeth when a box of tools that had been left on the scaffolding above the stage somehow fell, striking Scarlet on the head, killing her instantly.

  Paul looked up to the page banner to see where this article came from and was dismayed to see that it was an entry in a blog discussing The Cursed Play, apparently listing examples of the curse. He continued reading the article and saw Simon Riordan’s name and a statement where Riordan swore that the play was cursed and that he was retiring from acting as well as his teaching position. A little farther down was the date when this had happened. It was the same date that Simon Riordan had quit teaching Paul’s class.

  Riordan must have contributed the props for the play then abandoned them when he quit. A quarter century later, after being passed hand to hand, they had miraculously arrived in Paul’s study. Recalling the photos on his computer, Paul counted that as two impossible things in one day.

  –Act III–

  Scene 1: The Greatest Error of All the Rest

  Another Monday.

  “Okay, class, today we are going to walk through the banquet scene.”

  Paul was sitting in his director’s chair at centre stage just in front of the first row of theatre seats. With the help of Jerry the caretaker, he had retrieved the scenery flats from the art room and positioned the inside castle walls for the scene. In front of the walls stood four prop tables. From the theatre seats, they looked like large, eight-by-four-foot trestle tables but were in fact only a foot wide and made of foam. Regular folding chairs sat behind them, awaiting the banquet guests. On one of the scenery flats near the head table, Simon Riordan’s ornamental lamp flickered like a castle candle sconce.

  Adjusting his megaphone, Paul said, “This is the busiest scene in the play. The servants will come in from stage right, set dishes on the tables, and then stand near the castle walls. Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, the thanes, and attendants will all enter from stage left. Macbeth smiles at the audience and says his first line.” Paul paused for a moment, trying to gauge the students’ comprehension. When he was satisfied, he said, “Action!”

  Paul
watched without expression as the servants wandered onto the stage, looking like Christians who had been pushed into the arena, waiting for the lions. Eventually they decided where to set the dishes they carried then turned their backs to the audience, walked to the prop walls, and turned around.

  Paul took no notes, nor did he stop the action, as these were all common and expected mistakes. He’d wait until an exceptional error happened before stopping the action.

  The lords entered with more aplomb than their servants, and Lenny, with a new plastic sword wedged under his belt, did a passable job nodding hello at his followers before turning to the audience. “You know your own degrees; sit down: at first and last the hearty welcome.”

  “Thanks to your majesty,” the lords mumbled in a discordant chorus.

  The action continued with Lenny striding across the stage as the lords took their assigned seats. He introduced Lady Macbeth, and Susie offered her welcome with the zeal of a true queen. Paul couldn’t be prouder. So proud, in fact, that he made his own error and did not look stage left, where Jordan Little was supposed to appear as the first assassin.

  Lenny gave his next line then strode quickly to stage left to tell the murderer, “There’s blood on thy face.” But there was no assassin to receive the line.

  Paul yelled through the megaphone. “Cut! Where’s Jordan?”

  Jordan Little poked a startled face through one of the side curtains.

  Paul let out a calming breath. “You missed your cue.”

  “Oh,” Jordan said. “Sorry. I’m still learning my lines. I haven’t learned my cues yet.”

  “You still have your script?” Paul asked.

  Jordan held up a ragged sheaf of papers.

  “Then follow along when you’re backstage.”

  “Right.” Taking this command as a dismissal, Jordan ducked back behind the curtain.

  Paul turned his face back to the stage. “Let’s take it from the top. Servants, please set the tables as though you have done it a thousand times. Do you know why? Because you have done it a thousand times. And don’t show your backs to the audience. Set the tables, and then fade slowly to the walls. Don’t hit the walls; you’ll knock them down. Lords, show some enthusiasm. You’re at a party. Free food and drink. Act like you’re having fun.”

  The scene opened better the second time. The assassin arrived on cue, and this time Jordan even had blood on his face—a splash of makeup. But the old problems were replaced with new. When the ghost of Banquo arrived, most of the lords watched him. William even moved aside so Banquo could pass and sit in Macbeth’s chair. Lenny did a good job ignoring these errors, and the lords eventually remembered through Lenny’s dialogue that they weren’t supposed to be able to see the ghost.

  Then Lenny busied himself drinking from the gold chalice while Lady Macbeth made excuses, and the ghost left with less attention than when he arrived.

  The return of the ghost was a bit of a fiasco, however. The tables and lords all seemed to be in his way, so he wandered upstage and tried to get past the servants, who all ignored him. He must have tripped over someone’s shoe as he pitched forward, knocking into one of the servants, who went flying into the castle wall, striking one of the scenery flats to the floor, the same flat that held Riordan’s lamp.

  “Cut! Cut!” Paul leaped out of his director’s chair and strode across the stage. “Congratulations, you have just committed the gravest error stage actors can commit. You’ve knocked down the set. All we can do is draw the curtains, fix the set as best we can, and resume the scene. There is nothing more embarrassing.”

  Scene 2: And an Eternal Curse Fall on You!

  Hecate, for once, was dressed in normal clothes. Boots, baggy pants, oversized sweater. Even her hair was bedraggled.

  “Taking the day off?” Agatha asked, looking up from a plate of chicken fingers and fries and eyeing the senior witch up and down.

  “Taking the day off?” Netty echoed. “I can’t remember the last time I had a day off. Might have been in the fifteenth century.”

  Hecate let out a loud sigh, obviously in a bad mood. “Just came from an assignment. Nothing I’d choose to do. I would have sent you three if you weren’t already . . . busy.”

  “A dirty job, then,” said Gertrude. “I don’t mind dirty jobs. Heh. Done enough of them. What did you do?”

  “Earthquake,” Hecate said, spitting the word as though it were distasteful.

  “No,” said Agatha. “Not an earthquake. I’d give my right nostril to start an earthquake.”

  Hecate looked at the skinny witch out of one eye. “Would you, now? If you had finished this job, you could have had the opportunity. But apparently it takes you three weeks to do something as simple as curse a play.”

  “Well, of course we could curse and run,” Gertrude said, “but that’s been done. Countless times. Where’s the finesse?”

  “Finesse?” Hecate almost shouted the word. “What’s the point of finesse? Just have Lady Macbeth choke on an olive so that your candidate misses his big chance to be a star. Set him up and cut him down. This is isn’t rocket science!”

  “We’ve done the olive,” Netty said. “Twice.”

  “We’ve been cursing this play for four hundred years,” Gertrude added.

  “It’s getting old,” agreed Agatha.

  Hecate shook her head. “The play hasn’t gotten old. It gets produced countless times each year. Every few decades they make a new film version. Until the play gets old, cursing it can’t get old.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Agatha said. “You’re always doing something new and different.”

  Hecate let out a loud cackle, which looked oddly appropriate coming from a bedraggled supermodel; several heads at other tables turned to look at her.

  The senior witch regained her composure and lowered her voice. “Look, sisters, if they are still putting on the play four hundred years from now or four thousand, cursing it will be your job. Got it? So what have you done for me lately?”

  The three witches stared at her.

  “Your big plans, remember? The ones you promised me on Friday.”

  “Oh, yes.” Netty screeched out a laugh that felt like nails on a chalkboard. “We brought the house down.”

  Hecate raised an eyebrow. “You made the play a tremendous success?”

  “She means literally,” said Agatha. “We brought the castle walls tumbling down atop the ghost of Banquo.”

  “With the idea of making Banquo a real ghost,” Gertrude concluded.

  Hecate smiled. “That sounds delightful. I assume they immediately cancelled the play.”

  “Not . . . immediately, no.” Netty glanced about for a distraction and stole a chicken finger from Agatha’s plate.

  “Turns out the accident wasn’t fatal,” Gertrude said, following Netty’s cue.

  “They could still cancel, of course,” Agatha said. “That’s three accidents in three weeks. Schools frown on accidents.”

  “I see.” Hecate squeezed her eyes half shut. “Keep me apprised.”

  Then she was gone.

  “Do you think we should have mentioned that the walls were canvas?” asked Netty.

  “No!” shouted the other two witches.

  “Hmm,” said Netty, taking another morsel from Agatha’s plate. “Who’d have thought chickens had such large fingers.”

  Scene 3: Methought I Heard a Voice Cry

  Paul stayed behind after the bell to see what he could do about Simon Riordan’s prop lamp. Sylvia had a house to show, for a change, so he was on his own for the day. He was surprised how much he had come to count on his wife’s help in just a week.

  The scenery flat was undamaged. Canvas is pretty tough unless you poke it with something sharp or apply enough pressure to rip it away from the staples attaching it to the frame. They had set it back up right away and continued rehearsal. The lamp, however, had refused to come back to life and had sat on the wall, refusing to flicker light on the ac
tors.

  Shaking the lamp now, Paul could hear the broken filament rattling inside. Besides the filament, he thought he heard something else, something odd, like a voice whispering. He continued to shake and listen until he thought he heard words. They sounded like, “Let me out.” He stopped shaking the lamp, and the whispering stopped.

  Paul looked around the stage and auditorium to make sure he was alone then shook the lamp again. Almost immediately he heard it. “Let me out.” Louder. It was a woman’s voice.

  He slammed the lamp down onto the prop table and backed away from it. Once more, the auditorium was silent.

  A third time he picked up the lamp and shook it.

  “Will you stop fooling around and let me out?”

  Paul pulled the lamp away from his ear and stared at it.

  Someone was screwing with him. Again. First the lingerie woman at Dairy Queen, and now a tiny speaker planted inside Simon Riordan’s prop lamp. This was insane! Paul had no idea who would do something like this. Who could do something like this.

  Placing the lamp back on the table, he reached in and unscrewed the broken bulb. All the while, he peered at various parts of the lamp, trying to see where the speaker could be. And where was the radio receiver? There simply wasn’t enough lamp to hide those things. He moved his ear in close and listened but heard nothing.

  Shaking his head, he strode out of the auditorium. He would have an early lunch in the teachers’ lounge and head out to the Light House on Fifth Street and get a replacement bulb. He would test the new bulb before the fourth-period bell for first-year drama, and that would be the end of it. He refused to give in to this nonsense.