Light Thickens by Ngaio Marsh Page B

Peregrine said at last to Nina, who was sitting behind him.
    “Oh,
yes
, Perry. Yes.”
    “We’ll move on to the next ‘appearance.’ Sir Dougal, you have this distraught, confused, self-betraying speech. You pull yourself together and propose a health. You stand in front of the stool, masking it, holding out the cup in your left hand. Ross fills it. The understudy is in position. Under the table. Is he here? Yes, Toby. You’ve moved up to the end. You can see when Macbeth’s arm and hand, holding the goblet, are in place and you slip up on the stool. Macbeth proposes the toast. He moves away, facing front. He does, what we all hope he will not do: he names Banquo. The thanes drink. He turns to go upstage and there is the ghost. On
unreal mockery, hence
! the ghost rises. He moves to the stairs, passing between Menteith and Gaston and past the soldiers on guard, up into the murder chamber. Everyone watches Macbeth, who raves on. Now, inch by inch, we’ll walk it.”
    They did so, marking what they did in their scripts, gradually working through the whole scene, taking notes, walking the moves, fitting the pieces together. Peregrine said: “If ever there was a scene that could be ruined by a bit-part actor, this is it. It’s all very well to say you must completely ignore the ghost, that for you it’s not there; it’s hellishly difficult to do it. If you can actually look at it without focusing your eyes, that’s fine, but again it calls for a damn good actor to achieve it. We’ve got to make the audience accept the reality of the ghost and be frightened by it. The most intelligent of you all, Lennox, has the line:
Good-night; and better health attend his majesty
. When next we see Lennox he’s speaking of his suspicions to Ross. The actor will, ever so slightly, not a fraction too much, make us aware of this. A hair’s-breadth pause after he says
Good-night
, perhaps. You’ve got your moves. Take them once more to make sure and go away and think through the whole scene, step by step, and then decide absolutely what you are feeling and doing at every moment.”
    When they had gone Peregrine took Macbeth’s scene with the murderers. Then the actual murder of Banquo.
    “Listen!” Peregrine said. “Just listen to the gift this golden hand offers you. It’s got everything. The last glint of sunset, the beat of hooves, the near approach of disaster:
     
    The West yet glimmers with some streaks of day.
    Now spurs the lated traveller apace
    To gain the timely inn.
     
    And now we hear the thud of horses’ hooves. Louder and louder. They stop. A pause. Then the horses go away. Enter Banquo with a lanthorn. I do want a profoundly deep voice for this speech. I’m sorry,” he said to the First Murderer. “I’m going to give it to Gaston. It’s a matter of voice, dear boy, not of talent. Believe me, it’s a matter of voice.”
    “Yes. All right,” said the stricken Murderer.
    They read the scene.
    “That’s exactly what I want. You will see that Seyton is present in both these scenes and indeed is never far from Macbeth’s business from this time on. We are very lucky to have Mr. Sears to take the part. He is the sword-bearer. He looms over the play and so does his tremendous weapon.”
    “It is,” Gaston boomingly explained, “the symbol of coming death. Its shadow grows more menacing as the play draws inexorably towards its close. I am reminded —”
    “Exactly,” Peregrine interrupted. “The play grows darker. Always darker. The relief is in the English scene. And now…” He hurried on, while Gaston also continued in his pronouncements of doom. For a short time they spoke together and then Gaston, having attained his indistinguishable climax, stopped as suddenly as a turned-off tap, said, “Good morning,” and left the theatre.
    Peregrine opened his arms and let them flop. “One puts up with the unbelievable,” he said. “He’s an actor. He’s a paid-up member of Equity. He spoke that