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Transcripts For LINKTV Journal 20131112

is a grotesque monster who mishandles everything he touches and everyone he knows. where traditional drama seriously deals with plots against a ruler or the downfall of a kingdom, ubu goes to work with water pistol and kazoo. where traditional drama shows the whispered conspiracy of a queen inciting her husband to greater power, ubu roi shows a blowsy-looking, overstuffed woman hurling obscenities as undignified as any uttered by her husband. and where traditional drama carefully builds a plot from opening scene to final resolution, ubu roi jumps around in time and space, deliberately episodic, showing that plays should be constructed to match a world that doesn't make sense. at first glance, you may be amused by this comedy and yet startled to find that it has a place in the history of the theater. the date of its composition, 1896, helps to explain why ubu roi is important. it was new, different and shocking. as you watch it, keep that date in mind: 1896, when ubu roi was first performed in a theater which rocked with audience protest. in the years which followed, this play, written by a young frenchman, has been credited with having been a major influence on the theater of the absurd. and the outrageous events of the 20th century have made ubu roi seem prophetic and ominous as well as funny. great tragedy, telling the stories of great men, depends on a belief in order. the hero suffers because he has made an overwhelming error in judgment, or because he has incurred the anger of the gods. in either case, the hero is great, dignified and significant. as a schoolboy writing ubu roi in its first version when he was only 15, alfred jarry knew the great tragedies well enough to make fun of them. for instance, lady macbeth encouraging her husband to murder king duncan might look and sound like this. nor time, nor place did then adhere, yet you would make both. they have made themselves and that their fitness now does unmake you. i have given suck, and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me. i would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had i so sworn as you have done to this. - if we should fail. - we fail. but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. when duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him. his two chamberlains will i with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. when in swinish sleep their drench natures lie as in a death, what cannot you and i perform upon the unguarded duncan? what, not put upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell? bring forth men children only. [music] in the parody of the scene in ubu roi, the couple are decidedly less dignified. similarly, when king duncan rewarded macbeth with a new title, royalty is treated ceremoniously, like this. to contend against those honors deep and broad wherewith your majesty loads our house. give me your hand. conduct me to mine host, we love him highly and shall continue our graces toward him. by your leave, hostess. having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks when you-- in ubu roi, a similar scene is like an upside down version. dignity is as lacking here as in a groucho marx movie or a punch and judy show. where shakespeare's characters speak in blank verse, exploring the whole range of human emotion, jarry's shout out crude threats and insults. and my god, madam, you really have come too far. it is clear that ubu roi burlesques shakespeare, but it is unlike the drama of its own time too. during an age when ibsen and chekhov were commenting in their own daring ways on the beliefs of their society, no one was quite like jarry. other playwrights put daring words into the speeches of their characters. jarry provided characters who are distortions of people, anatomic miracles and sartorial disasters. ibsen, with his well-made play, suggests that once social laws and attitudes are changed, the world may be an orderly place for reasonable people to live. other playwrights examine the inner lives of characters or puzzled over a philosophy worth believing in. only jarry, by emphasizing the base, brute-like passions of cartoon characters in a chaotic play punctuated by rude music, suggests that humanity isn't worth taking that seriously after all. as you watch ubu roi, you will be amused, if not startled, by the language and the abrupt changes in scene and costume. the convention of announcing an entire army through use of a toy sign is one innovation. you will see other deliberate effects designed to destroy any sense of realism. but then again, whoever said that plays have to look real? [music] pshit. oh, what a nasty word. pa ubu, you're a dirty old man. watch out and don't bash your lot in, ma ubu. it's not me you want to do in, old ubu, oh, no. it's someone else for the high jump. by my green candle, i'm not with you. how come? do you mean to say that you are content with your lot? pshit, madam, yes. by god, i am perfectly satisfied. who wouldn't be? captain in the dragoons, aide-de-camp to king wenceslas, decorated with the order of red eagle of poland, ex-king of aragon. you can't get higher than that. so what? having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks, when you could get your loaf measured for the crown of poland? huh? i don't understand a word you're saying, my love. how stupid can you get? by my green candle, king wenceslas is still alive. but isn't he? and even if he does kick the bucket, hasn't he masses of children? why shouldn't you finish off the whole bunch and put yourself in their place? now, by god, madam, you really have gone too far. and you shall be, very shortly, beaten up, good and proper. you great slob. if i'm beaten up, who is going to put a patch on the seat of your pants? so what? haven't i a bum like everyone else's? if i were you, i should try sitting that bum on a throne. you could become enormously rich, eat as many bangers as you like, and roll through the streets in a fine carriage. if i were king, i'll get them to make me a great bonnet, like the one i used to wear in aragon, which those lousy spaniards had the cheek to pinch off of me. can't you go get yourself an umbrella and a guard officer's greatcoat that would come right down to your feet. that's more than i can resist. pshit the bugger, and bugger the pshit. if i catch him alone on a dark night, he's for it. well done, pa ubu. now you're talking like a man. oh, no. me, a captain in the dragoons to brutally murder the king of poland? i'd rather die. oh, pshit. so you want to stay as poor as a church mouse, hmm, mr. ubu? god's wounds, madam. pshit. i'd rather be poor as the stingiest mouse, than rich as the cruelest cat. and your bonnet and your umbrella and your officer's greatcoat? and then what, you old cow? [music] pfart, pshit, what a stingy bastard. but pfart, pshit. i think i've got him pshitting just the same. thanks be to god and myself, within a week, i may be queen of poland. [music] you're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, madam. is it because we have company? pshit. i'm rather hungry. i think i'll bury my teeth in this bird, a chicken. i fancy. not bad at all. you wretch. what are our guests going to eat? there's plenty left for them. i shan't touch another thing. go look out of the window, ma ubu, and see if our guests have arrived. ah, here comes captain manure and his merry men. old ubu, what are you eating now? nothing, nothing, just a spot of veal. the veal. he's eaten my veal, the lout. the veal. help. help. by my green candle, i'll gouge your eyes out. [music] good day, gentlemen. we have been awaiting your arrival with impatience. good day, madam. but where is mr. ubu? here i am. here i am. by my green candle, pshit. i shouldn't have thought i'm so easy to miss. good day, mr. ubu. well, madam, and what succulent dishes have you prepared for us today? polish broth, spareribs of polish bison, veal, chicken and hound pie, parson's noses from the royal polish turkeys, charlotte russe... that's enough. isn't there any more? iced pudding, salad, fruit, cheese, boiled beef, jerusalem pfartichokes and cauliflower a la pshit. do you think i'm an oriental potentate, shelling out all that money? take no notice of him. he's off his rocker. get away. i shall sharpen my teeth on your shanks. why don't you eat up and shut up, old ubu? here, try the polish broth. oh, what muck. you're right. hasn't quite come off. you ill-mannered louts, what do you want? i've got an idea. back in a jiffy. gentlemen, let's try the veal. oh, excellent. what there is left of it. and now, for the parson's nose. absolutely delicious. - hurrah for ma ubu. - hurrah for ma ubu. and soon you'll be adding, hurrah for pa ubu. try a taste of that. pass me the spare ribsbs of polish bison, mother, and i'll dish them out. get out, all of you. i know something i want to say to captain manure. but we haven't had our dinner yet. you've had your dinner. get out, i say, all of you. not you, manure. are you still here? by my green candle, i'll do you all in with a vice grip. go out. get out, all of you. - get out, i say. - help. rescue. men defend yourselves. - i don't have to say it again. - you run-- - get out. - you stupid old skunk. do i make myself plain? well, good, they've gone. that's better. now, we can relax. well, captain, did you enjoy your dinner? very good, sir, except for the pshit. oh, i didn't think the pshit was too bad. a little of what you fancy, they say. captain manure... ay. i am going to create you duke of lithuania. but i thought you were completely broke, mr. ubu. in a few days, with your help, i shall be king of poland. you mean you will assassinate wenceslas? the bugger's no fool, he's guessed it. if it's a matter of killing wenceslas, i'm with you. i'm his deadly enemy, and i can answer for my men. oh, manure, i love you dearly for that. oh, god, man, how you stink. don't you ever wash? occasionally. never. i'm going to tread on your toes. fat lump of pshit. well, manure, that's all for now. but i swear to you, on the head of ma ubu, that i'm going to make you duke of lithuania. - but-- - silence, my angel. [music] master ubu. i have resolved to reward you for your many services as captain of dragoons. and i therefore proclaim you count of sandomir. oh, sire, i'm speechless with gratitude. tut. think nothing of it. but be sure to be present tomorrow morning at our grand review. i shall be there, sir. in the meantime, kindly deign to accept this magnificently decorated kazoo. you don't expect me to start playing a kazoo at my age, surely? oh, well, i'll give it to young boggerlas. [laughter] now, who is this ubu creature? well, i'll bugger off. help. rescue. i've ruptured my gut and smashed my rattle box. oh, ubu, are you hurt? yes, badly. and i shall certainly croak. what will become of ma ubu? oh, we shall provide for her upkeep. you are most kind. [music] ungenerous sire, but you will be liquidated just the same, king wenceslas. [music] well, my good friends, it's high time we planned our little conspiracy. let each give his counsel. with your permission, we will begin with mine. speak, mr. ubu. very good, my friends. i am of the opinion that we should simply poison the king by stuffing his lunch with arsenic. [laughter] the moment he starts the grousing and scuffing he'll drop dead, and i shall be king. [laughter] you wicked old thing, you. why? you don't like that idea? all right, then. let's hear from manure. my suggestion is that i fetch him a good wallop with my sword and cleave him from top to toe. very -- and gallant. but, but, supposing he kicks out at you. oh, just a moment. for his grand parades, he wears iron boots, which can be jolly painful. if i'd half a chance, i'd snitch on the lot of you. that way, i'd be rid of the whole beastly business and very likely pick up a reward into the bargain. oh, the traitor, the coward, the rotten mean skunk. - oh, down with old ubu. - down with ubu. shut that ruckus, gentlemen, or i'll turn you all in. very well, i'll take all the risks on your behalf. captain manure, is it agreed that your job is simply to split the king down the middle? wouldn't be better if we all jumped on him at once, striving and yelling, in that way we have a better chance of winning over the troops. no, look. i'll tell you what. i'll try to tread on his toe. he'll kick out of me, i'll yell, pshit, and that will be the signal for you all to hurl yourselves upon him. and then the moment he's dead, you'll pinch his crown and scepter. and i and my men will go in pursuit of the royal family. leave a sharp lookout for young boggerlas. one moment, gentlemen, we are forgetting an indispensable ceremony. we must all take an oath to quit ourselves like men. but how can we? we haven't got a priest. my old woman will be the priest. well, so be it. do you all swear, on the head of madam ubu, to kill the king good and proper? we swear it. long live old ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] really, sire, are you quite determined to attend this parade? and pray, madam, why not? i'll tell you once more. no. i saw him in a dream smiting you with mass weapons and throwing you into the vistula. and an eagle, like that which figures in the arms of poland, placing the crown on his head. ah-choo! on whose head? old ubu's. oh, ridiculous. master ubu is a most worthy gentleman who would let himself be dragged apart by wild horses rather than betray my interests. how wrong you are. silence, young rascal. and as for you, madam, to show you what complete faith i have in master ubu, i shall attend the grand parade dressed as i am, without sword or breastplate. oh, what fatal rashness. i shall never see you again alive. oh. no. come, ladislas. come, boleslas. [music] may god and the great saint nicholas protect you. ah, noble master ubu, enter the royal enclosure with your followers. and we will review the march pass together. well, shall we? coming, sire. [music] ah! there's my regiment of danzig horse-guards. oh, what a magnificent spectacle. you really think so? looks like something the cat brought in. look at that one. you there. when did you last have a shave, you lousy slob? but this fellow is very well turned out. what on earth is the matter with you, old ubu? this! [stomps] treason! [stomps] pshit! after him! oh! help! help! help, holy virgin! help! i'm dying! help! i have the crown! death to the traitors! [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] help! help! those maniacs have forced their way into the palace. they're coming up the stairs. may god protect us. that vile ubu, wretch, rascal. i just like to get my hands on him. i... you would, would you? and what, brave boggerlas, would you do to me? by god's will, i shall defend my mother to the death. the first man to make a step forward is good as dead. oh, get me out of here. i'm scared. boggerlas, surrender. here's one for you, you dog. that's the spirit, boggerlas. keep it up. we promise to save your life, boggerlas. i brought the army you broken laggards, swine blackguards, mercenary scum. oh, bother, but i'll still win in the end. mother, escape by the secret staircase. and you, my son, what about you? i'll follow you. capture the queen. pshit, she's got away. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. as for you, you little lamb. by god's will, here's my vengeance. mother, i follow you. [whistles "close call"] behold me, monarch of this fair land. i've already got a guts ache with overeating. and soon, they're going to bring in my great bonnet. we owe a great debt of gratitude to the duke of lithuania. - who is that? - why, captain manure. for god's sake, woman, don't you ever mention that slob to me. as far as i'm concerned, he can whistle for his dukedom. he's not gonna get it. you're making a great mistake, pa ubu. he'll turn against you. oh, i should worry. so far as i'm concerned, he and boggerlas can go and jump in the lake. bring out the chest for nobles. and the slash half on nobles, and the bolt hook for nobles, and the account book for nobles. and then bring in the nobles. for pity's sake restrain yourself, pa ubu. gentlemen, i have the honor to inform you that as a gesture to the economic welfare of my country, i have decided to liquidate the nobility and confiscate their goods. horror to all of us. soldiers and citizens defend us. bring on the first noble and pass me the bolt hook. those who are condemned to death, i shall push through this door here, where they will fall down into the bleed pit chambers and then proceed to the gas room where they will be debrained. what's your name, you snob? count of vitepsk. what's your income? three million rix dollars. guilty. [music] this is base brutality. you there, what's your name? come on, answer, you snob. grand duke of posen. excellent! excellent! i couldn't ask for a better. down the hatch. you there, what's your name, ugly mug? the duke of courlande and of the cities of riga, ravel, and mitau. oh, very good. i shall ask the lot. that's all? get down the hatch. what's your name, number four? prince of podolia. what's your income? i'm bankrupt. take that for disobedience. now get down the hatch. number five, what's your name? margrave of thorn, count palatine of pollock. that's not very much. are you sure that's all you are? it's been good enough for me. well, it's better than nothing, i suppose. get down the hatch. what's eating you, ma ubu? you're too bloodthirsty, pa ubu. i'm getting rich. now i'm going to have him read out the list of what i've got. registrar, read out my list and my titles and possessions. count of sandomir, count... the princedoms first, stupid bugger. princedom of podolia, grand-duchy of posen, duchy of courlande, county of sandomir, county of vitepsk, palatinate of pollock, margravate of thorn. - go on. - that's the lot. what do you mean that's the lot? oh, well, i'm going to make some laws next. hmm, that will be worth watching. i shall begin by reforming the judicial code, and then turn my attention to financial matters. [music] we are strongly opposed to any change. so, pshit. in the first place, judges will no longer receive a salary. and what shall we live on? we are all poor men. you'll keep the fines you impose, and the possessions of those you condemn to death. - that's unthinkable. - infamous. - scandalous. - contemptible. we refuse to judge under such conditions. down the hatch with the judges. what have you done, pa ubu? who will administer justice now? why, i will. you'll see how well it will work out. yes, it will be a right old mess. shut your gob, clownish female. i'm now going to turn my attention to financial matters. [music] in the first place, i intend to pocket half the tax receipts. - but that's ridiculous. - quite absurd. it doesn't make sense. are you making fun of me? get down the hatch, all of you. [music] calm down, lord ubu. kings are not supposed to behave like that. you're butchering the whole world. so, pshit. no more justice, no more financial system. fear nothing, my sweet child. i shall go around the villages myself and collect the taxes. - hey, did you hear the news? - huh? the king is dead, and all the nobles as well. what's more, pa ubu has seized the throne. and it seems they're going to raise all the taxes and that pa ubu is gonna make the rounds to collect them. great god. what will become of us? look. sounds like someone is knocking at the door. open up, pshit, in the names of saint john,

Transcripts For LINKTV Journal 20140429

ubu goes to work with water pistol and kazoo. where traditional drama shows the whispered conspiracy of a queen inciting her husband to greater power, ubu roi shows a blowsy-looking, overstuffed woman hurling obscenities as undignified as any uttered by her husband. and where traditional drama carefully builds a plot from opening scene to final resolution, ubu roi jumps around in time and space, deliberately episodic, showing that plays should be constructed to match a world that doesn't make sense. at first glance, you may be amused by this comedy and yet startled to find that it has a place in the history of the theater. the date of its composition, 1896, helps to explain why ubu roi is important. it was new, different and shocking. as you watch it, keep that date in mind: 1896, when ubu roi was first performed in a theater which rocked with audience protest. in the years which followed, this play, written by a young frenchman, has been credited with having been a major influence on the theater of the absurd. and the outrageous events of the 20th century have made ubu roi seem prophetic and ominous as well as funny. great tragedy, telling the stories of great men, depends on a belief in order. the hero suffers because he has made an overwhelming error in judgment, or because he has incurred the anger of the gods. in either case, the hero is great, dignified and significant. as a schoolboy writing ubu roi in its first version when he was only 15, alfred jarry knew the great tragedies well enough to make fun of them. for instance, lady macbeth encouraging her husband to murder king duncan might look and sound like this. nor time, nor place did then adhere, yet you would make both. they have made themselves and that their fitness now does unmake you. i have given suck, and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me. i would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had i so sworn as you have done to this. - if we ould fail. - we fail. but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. when duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him. his two chamberlains will i with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of e brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. when in swinish sleep their drench natures lie as in a death, what cannot you and i perform upon the unguarded duncan? what, not t upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell? bring forth men children only. [music] in the parody of the scene in ubu roi, the couple are decidedly ss dignified. similarly, when king duncan rewarded macbeth with a new title, royalty is treated ceremoniously, like this. to contend against those honors deep and broad wherewith your majesty loads our house. give me your hand. conduct me to mine host, we love him highly and shall continue our graces tord him. by your leave, hostess. having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks when you-- in ubu roi, a similar scene is like an upside down version. dignity is as lacking here as in a groucho marx movie or a punch and judy show. where shakespeare's characters speak in blank verse, exploring the whole range of human emotion, jarry's shout out crude threats and insults. and my god, madam, you really have come too far. it is clear that ubu roi burlesques shakespeare, but it is unlike the drama of its own time too. during an age when ibsen and chekhov were commenting in their own daring ways on the beliefs of their society, no one was quite like jarry. other playwrights put daring words into the speeches of their characters. jarry provided characters who are distortions of people, anatomic miracles and sartorial disasters. ibsen, with his well-made play, suggests that once social laws and attitudes are changed, the world may be an orderly place for reasonable people to live. other playwrights examine the inner lives of characters or puzzled over a philosophy worth believing in. only jarry, by emphasizing the base, brute-like passions of cartoon characters in a chaotic play punctuated by rude music, suggests that humanity isn't worth taking that seriously after all. as you watch ubu roi, you will be amused, if not startled, by the language and the abrupt changes in scene and costume. the convention of announcing an entire army through use of a toy sign is one innovation. you will see other deliberate effects designed to destroy any sense of realism. but then again, whoever said that plays have to look real? [music] pshit. oh, what a nasty word. pa ubu, you're a dirty old man. watch out and don't bash your lot in, ma ubu. it's not me you want to do in, old ubu, oh, no. it's someone else for the high jump. by my green candle, i'm not with you. how come? do you mean to say that you are content with your lot? pshit, madam, yes. by god, i am perfectly satisfied. who wouldn't be? captain in the dragoons, aide-de-camp to king wenceslas, decorated with the order of red eagle of poland, ex-king of aragon. you can't get higher than that. so what? having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks, when you could get your loaf measured for the crown of poland? huh? don't understand a word u're sayin my love. how stupid can you get? by my green candle, king wenceslas is still alive. but isn't he? and even if does kick the bucket, hasn't he masses of children? why shouldn't you finish off the whole bunch and put yourself in their place? now, by god, madam, you really have gone too far. and you shall be, very shortly, aten u good d proper. you great slob. if i'm beaten up, who is going to put a patch on the seat of your pants? so what? haven't i a bum like everyone else's? if i were you, i should try sitting that bum on a throne. you could become enormously rich, eat as many bangers as you like, and roll through the streets in a fine carriage. if i were king, i'll get them to make me a great bonnet, like the one i used to wear in aragon, whicthose lousy spaniards had the cheek to pinch off of me. can't you go get yourself an umbrella and a guard officer's greatcoat that would come right down to your feet. that's more than i can resist. pshit the bugger, and bugger the pshit. if i catch him alone on a dark night, he's for it. well done, pa ubu. now you're talking like a man. oh, no. me, a captain in the dragoons to brutally murder the king of poland? i'd rather die. oh, pshit. so you want to stay as poor as a church mouse, hmm, mr. ubu? god's wounds, madam. pshit. i'd rather be poor as the stingiest mouse, than rich as the cruelest cat. and your bonnet and your umbrella and your officer's greatcoat? and then what, you old cow? [music] pfart, pshit, what a stingy bastard. but pfart, pshit. i think i've got him pshitting just the same. thanks be to god and myself, within a week, i may be queen of poland. [music] you're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, madam. is it because we have company? pshit. i'm rather hungry. i think i'll bury my teeth in this bird, a chicken. i fancy. not bad at all. you wretch. what are our guests going to eat? there's plenty left for them. i shan't touch another thing. go look out of the window, ma ubu, and see if our guests have arrived. ah, here comes captain manure and his merry men. old ubu, what are you eating now? nothing, nothing, just a spot of veal. the veal. he's eaten my veal, the lout. the veal. help. help. by my green candle, i'll gouge yr eyesut. [music] good day, gentlemen. we have been awaiting your arrival with impatience. good day, madam. but where is mr. ubu? here i am. here i am. by my green candle, pshit. i shouldn't have thought i'm so easy to miss. good day, mr. ubu. well, madam, and what succulent dishes have you prepared for us today? polish broth, spareribs of polish bison, veal, chicken and hound pie, parson's noses from the royal polish turkeys, charlotte russe... that's enough. isn't there any more? iced pudding, salad, fruit, cheese, boiled beef, jerusalem pfartichokes and cauliflower a la pshit. do you think i'm an oriental potentate, shelling out all that money? take no notice of him. he's off his rocker. get away. i shall sharpen my teeth on your shanks. why don't you eat up and shut up, old ubu? here, try the polish broth. oh, what muck. you're right. hasn't quite come off. you ill-mannered louts, ato you want? i've got an idea. back in a jiffy. gentlemen, let's try the veal. oh, excellent. what there is left of it. and now, for the parson's nose. absolutely delicious. - hurrah for ma ubu. - hurrah for ma ubu. and soon you'll be adding, hurrah for pa ubu. try a taste of that. pass me the spare ribsbs of polish bison, mother, and i'll dish them out. get out, all of you. i know something i want to say to captain manure. but we haven't had our dinner yet. you've had your dinner. get out, i say, all of you. not you, manure. are you still here? by my green candle, i'll do you all in with a vice grip. go out. get out, all of you. - get out, i say. - help. rescue. men defend yourselves. - i don't have to say it again. - you run-- - get out. - you stupid old skunk. do i make myself plain? well, good, they've gone. that's better. now, we can relax. well, captain, did you enjoy your dinner? very good, sir, except for the pshit. oh, i didn't think the pshit was too bad. a little of what you fancy, they say. captain manure... ay. i am going to create you duke of lithuania. but i thought you were completely broke, mr. ubu. in a few days, with your help, i shall be king of poland. you mean you will assassinate wenceslas? the bugger's no fool, he's guessed it. if it's a matter of killing wenceslas, i'm with you. i'm his deadly enemy, and i can answer for my men. oh, manure, i love you dearly for that. oh, god, man, how you stink. don't you ever wash? occasionally. never. i'm going to tread on your toes. fat lump of pshit. well, manure, that's all for now. but i swear to you, on the head of ma ubu, that i'm going to make you duke of lithuania. - but-- - silence, my angel. [music] master ubu. i have resolved to reward you for your many services as captain of dragoons. and i therefore proclaim you count of sandomir. oh, sire, i'm speechless with gratitude. tut. think nothing of it. but be sure to be present tomorrow morning at our grand review. i shall be there, sir. in the meantime, kindly deign to accept this magnificently decorated kazoo. you don't expect me to start playing a kazoo at my age, surely? oh, well, i'll give it to young boggerlas. [laughter] now, who is this ubu creature? well, i'll bugger off. help. rescue. i've ruptured my gut and smashed my rattle box. oh, ubu, are you hurt? yes, badly. and i shall certainly croak. what will become of ma ubu? oh, we shall provide for her upkeep. you are most kind. [music] ungenerous sire, but you will be liquidated just the same, king wenceslas. [music] well, my good friends, it's high time we planned our little conspiracy. let each give his counsel. with your permission, we will begin with mine. speak, mr. ubu. very good, my friends. i am of the opinion that we should simply poison the king by stuffing his lunch with arsenic. [laughter] the moment he starts the grousing and scuffing he'll drop dead, and i shall be king. [laughter] you wicked old thing, you. why? you don't like that idea? all right, then. let's hear from manure. my suggestion is that i fetch him a good wallop with my sword and cleave him from top to toe. very -- and gallant. but, but, supposing he kicks out at you. oh, just a moment. for his grand parades, he wears iron boots, which can be jolly painful. if i'd half a chance, i'd snitch on the lot of you. that way, i'd be rid of the whole beastly business and very likely pick up a reward into the bargain. oh, the traitor, the coward, the rotten mean skunk. - oh, down with old ubu. - down with ubu. shut that ruckus, gentlemen, or i'll turn you all in. very well, i'll take all the risks on your behalf. captain manure, is it agreed that your job is simply to split the king down the middle? wouldn't be better if we all jumped on him at once, striving and yelling, in that way we have a better chance of winning over the troops. no, look. i'll tell you what. i'll try to tread on his toe. he'll kick out of me, i'll yell, pshit, and that will be the signal for you all to hurl yourselves upon him. and then the moment he's dead, you'll pinch his crown and scepter. and i and my men will go in pursuit of the royal family. leave a sharp lookout for young boggerlas. one moment, gentlemen, we are forgetting an indispensable ceremony. we must all take an oath to quit ourselves like men. but how can we? we haven't got a priest. my old woman will be the priest. well, so be it. do you all swear, on the head of madam ubu, to kill the king good and proper? we swear it. long live old ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] really, sire, are you quite determined to attend this parade? and pray, madam, why not? i'll tell you once more. no. i saw him in a dream smiting you with mass weapons and throwing you into the vistula. and an eagle, like that which figures in the arms of poland, placing the crown on his head. ah-choo! on whose head? old ubu's. oh, ridiculous. master ubu is a most worthy gentleman who would let himself be dragged apart by wild horses rather than betray my interests. how wrong you are. silence, young rascal. and as for you, madam, to show you what complete faith i have in master ubu, i shall attend the grand parade dressed as i am, without sword or breastplate. oh, what fatal rashness. i shall never see you again alive. oh. no. come, ladislas. come, boleslas. [music] may god and the great saint nicholas protect you. ah, noble master ubu, enter the royal enclosure with your followers. and we will review the march pass together. well, shall we? coming, sire. [music] ah! there's my regiment of danzig horse-guards. oh, what a magnificent spectacle. you really think so? looks like something the cat brought in. look at that one. you there. when did you last have a shave, you lousy slob? but this fellow is very well turned out. what on earth is the matter with you, old ubu? this! [stomps] treason! [stomps] pshit! after him! oh! help! help! help, holy virgin! help! i'm dying! help! i have the crown! death to the traitors! [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] help! help! those maniacs have forced their way into the palace. they're coming up the stairs. may god protect us. that vile ubu, wretch, rascal. i just like to get my hands on him. i... you would, would you? and what, brave boggerlas, would you do to me? by god's will, i shall defend my mother to the death. the first man to make a step forward is good as dead. oh, get me out of here. i'm scared. boggerlas, surrender. here's one for you, you dog. that's the spirit, boggerlas. keep it up. we promise to save your life, boggerlas. i brought the army you broken laggards, swine blackguards, mercenary scum. oh, bother, but i'll still win in the end. mother, escape by the secret staircase. and you, my son, what about you? i'll follow you. capture the queen. pshit, she's got away. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. as for you, you little lamb. by god's will, here's my vengeance. mother, i follow you. [whistles "close call"] behold me, monarch of this fair land. i've already got a guts ache with overeating. and soon, they're going to bring in my great bonnet. we owe a great debt of gratitude to the duke of lithuania. - who is that? - why, captain manure. for god's sake, woman, don't you ever mention that slob to me. as far as i'm concerned, he can whistle for his dukedom. he's not gonna get it. you're making a great mistake, pa ubu. he'll turn against you. oh, i should worry. so far as i'm concerned, he and boggerlas can go and jump in the lake. bring out the chest for nobles. and the slash half on nobles, and the bolt hook for nobles, and the account book for nobles. and then bring in the nobles. for pity's sake restrain yourself, pa ubu. gentlemen, i have the honor to inform you that as a gesture to the economic welfare of my country, i have decided to liquidate the nobility and confiscate their goods. horror to all of us. soldiers and citizens defend us. bring on the first noble and pass me the bolt hook. those who are condemned to death, i shall push through this door here, where they will fall down into the bleed pit chambers and then proceed to the gas room where they will be debrained. what's your name, you snob? count of vitepsk. what's your income? three million rix dollars. guilty. [music] this is base brutality. you there, what's your name? come on, answer, you snob. grand duke of posen. excellent! excellent! i couldn't ask for a better. down the hatch. you there, what's your name, ugly mug? the duke of courlande and of the cities of riga, ravel, and mitau. oh, very good. i shall ask the lot. that's all? get down the hatch. what's your name, number four? prince of podolia. what's your income? i'm bankrupt. take that for disobedience. now get down the hatch. number five, what's your name? margrave of thorn, count palatine of pollock. that's not very much. are you sure that's all you are? it's been good enough for me. well, it's better than nothing, i suppose. get down the hatch. what's eating you, ma ubu? you're too bloodthirsty, pa ubu. i'm getting rich. now i'm going to have him read out the list of what i've got. registrar, read out my list and my titles and possessions. count of sandomir, count... the princedoms first, stupid bugger. princedom of podolia, grand-duchy of posen, duchy of courlande, county of sandomir, county of vitepsk, palatinate of pollock, margravate of thorn. - go on. - that's the lot. what do you mean that's the lot? oh, well, i'm going to make some laws next. hmm, that will be worth watching. i shall begin by reforming the judicial code, and then turn my attention to financial matters. [music] we are strongly opposed to any change. so, pshit. in the first place, judges will no longer receive a salary. and what shall we live on? we are all poor men. you'll keep the fines you impose, and the possessions of those you condemn to death. - that's unthinkable. - infamous. - scandalous. - contemptible. we refuse to judge under such conditions. down the hatch with the judges. what have you done, pa ubu? who will administer justice now? why, i will. you'll see how well it will work out. yes, it will be a right old mess. shut your gob, clownish female. i'm now going to turn my attention to financial matters. [music] in the first place, i intend to pocket half the tax receipts. - but that's ridiculous. - quite absurd. it doesn't make sense. are you making fun of me? get down the hatch, all of you. [music] calm down, lord ubu. kings are not supposed to behave like that. you're butchering the whole world. so, pshit. no more justice, no more financial system. fear nothing, my sweet child. i shall go around the villages myself and collect the taxes. - hey, did you hear the news? - huh? the king is dead, and all the nobles as well. what's more, pa ubu has seized the throne. and it seems they're going to raise all the taxes and that pa ubu is gonna make the rounds to collect them. great god. what will become of us? look. sounds like someone is knocking at the door. open up, pshit, in the names of saint john, saint peter and saint nicholas. by my hussar and my caisson, i have come to collect the taxes. [music]

Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140619

>> when i met ken, i thought, i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel will be right for the particular production and if it's not, it's not, and then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role. and it was just lucky that we both seem to have the same feeling. >> mackbeth for the hour, next. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: kenneth branagh is here. he's currently starring in and co-directing mackbeth at the park avenue armory here in new york city. the production comes from manchester, england, has received extraordinary reviews. michael billington of the guardian said at times he evoked golden memories of olivier in the role. here's a look at the trailer. >> what! can the devil speak truth? >> looks like the innocent! is this a dagger which i see before me? (singing) (indiscernible). >> i'm pleased to have sir kenneth branagh back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: have you been waiting to do this? >> i have, circling it. it's the copy -- the copy first came across our kitchen table when i was 10 or 11 years old. my brother was doing it at school. i saw the three weird sisters on the cover. i asked him what it was about. my first introduction to mackbeth. it's the same thing that's been with me every night and sitting on my table now, it's been with me 40 years. >> charlie: did you need to do it at a time in your life. >> i had an acting mentor and we often talked about this part and he said, you really have to wait till you're the right age. in my early 30s and 40s, he said, you're still too young. i didn't understand it, but i listened because i revered him. somehow it came together through virtue of the manchester festival and meeting rob ashford, the brilliant co-director and finding the right elements like alex kingston to be lady mackbeth. things started to fall together, so it became the right time to do it. >> charlie: you'd had a ten-year absence from shakespeare. >> yes, i had, and like many things in my career, although others may view it differently, these sort of accidents happen. you find yourself on wonderful diversion ritracts. it's often -- my wife jokes about it. she says people say to me, oh, does he read shakespeare? it's by the bedside, does he read it? she says, what do you tell them? i said, yes, i do. she says you're always doing that. so ten years away from doing it but quite a lot of years of just being exposed to it. so it's always in my life. >> charlie: how is this mackbeth different? >> every time a particular group do it, it is different. maybe we take a speech at the beginning spoken by the bloody y sergeant. macbeth is interesting for a character who is fearless that becomes fearful for most of the play. we dared to take that away and put what he describes on stage. and we wanted to do it for a couple of reasons. first, when you meet macbeth, you know a little of what they really mean about this fearlessness. this savage ri. he's a man who should not have the problems he has later on when faced with another murder. in battle, he seems fearless. what we chiefly wanted to do is introduce to the audience a a theatrical energy they can be a part of, the he can tick nature of the circumstances which mean these two fundamentally at the beginning of the play good people make very bad decisions because the play, circumstances, the plot doesn't give you time to -- >> charlie: ben bradford captured that thing. he said you hurdled forward by the beginning of the play and it had that kind of energy. >> well, because you're always so interested in terms of what goes on in the corridors of power. and when one thinks about why and how these two with people could do this extraordinary thing, when one thinks about it in plays, it's easy to think about it in melodramatic terms, but this man kills a friend of his, the king, whatever, and he does it swiftly though other people describe him as being conscienced. so other people dismiss the play and say it's absurd because it all happens too quickly. our production was trying to say perhaps these things only happen quickly, you know, without thought. >> charlie: and would he have done it without his wife? >> well, she, i think, describes him as being not without ambition but without the sickness, the milk of human kindness. there are remarks about an essentially good nature. but once he's had this amazing success, the reviews are brilliant, the duncan says fantastic, i'm planting you and you're going to be having all sorts of rewards -- >> charlie: and a new name, even. >> -- yeah, but actually i'm giving my job to him, my son. and immediately macbeth is a man with a witch's pronouncement in his mind in a few short moments ago saying well, why should he be in the way? i'll have to either -- it's a step that lies in my way on which i must fall down or else or leap, which means basically murder in this con text. so it's a wonderful play for putting people in this unusual extreme position. >> it's great. you see them opening up in a stone hedge kind of thing. it's extraordinary, and their prophecies one by one, so he's got to believe something. >> what do you feel about that,? the lives of the good and the great and the power of suggestion. some people would say that's a silly play about a man who believes his horoscope. someone for whom everything is going well. >> charlie: i think men and women of power believe in myth, too. >> interesting, yeah. and this idea of what the legacy is, you know macbeth and lady macbeth not being able to have children or haven't been successful yet, so immortality is not had by family, so maybe it's seized in the history books by being king. >> charlie: is she more ambitious than he? >> i think she's differently ambitious. one of the things we tried to bring in was the savage world where she says goodbye to him and he goes off to battle, the idea of whether he comes home or not is very heavily questioned and when we do come back, what we did present is we always wanted to present a functioning relationship. they fans idea the pants off each other and it's very passionate. >> charlie: the passion is clear. >> he said there are no successful marriages except macbeth's. they always die and kill a king along the way. the first conversation with alex central to the show and performance is he adores her and she's a natural companion for him and i think that they -- you know, the breakup -- >> charlie: was she stronger or weaker? >> well, again, you know, they both at different times invoke the dark world. >> charlie: they do. she's the first one to say, right, i'm inviting evil into the room. we're in a room where you believe in it. audience, you've just seen it because they're hanging around the stones and they're scary. i'm inviting them in. she has balls enough to do it the first time around. the balance of power in the relationship switches and she, interestingly, he's the one that says let's not do it night and she says you have to seize the opportunity now. then they get it, he becomes president, and she says, now leave everything alone. but now for him he has to be president and square off everything. >> charlie: wasn't that part of the prophecies of the witches, too? he was scared because of what they said so he went off killing anybody. >> yeah, they tried to square all those things. the one predicted to be the father of kings tries to kill both he and his son and his determination to leave no stone unturned means he won't ever sleep again and there is no satisfaction. and the first moment we see him as king, he's with her and they celebrate and the production has us walk down at the coronation and he sit down and says, to be thus is nothing but to be safely thus. now i have to -- i'm here, i have a crown a throne, and it's nothing! it's nothing! >> charlie: but to be safely thus. >> but to be safely thus. and then his splurge of paranoia. >> charlie: no one i know of is more identified with shakespeare tha. there is this question, when you prepare to do macbeth, do you look at every production to look at olivier, whatever form you could get your hands on? >> over the years, i suppose, but in preparation for this, no, i did the opposite. there was a point i wanted to do it or at least i knew i would do it when i started looking at other productions. >> charlie: that's when you thought the time is me. >> yes, and i didn't want my brain to be fluxed with the brilliance of other people. i thought, we have to find our own way to it. so i stopped as a kind of growing understanding that i felt ready to have a go. >> charlie: but i read you thought about doing it way up in the future, a very futuristic. >> yeah. >> charlie: and what drew you away from that to where you are? >> this difficult thing of when you come up with a sort of what you might call a strong concept for the world of the play and all these plays are very elastic so they can acome date anything we might try and trip him up there. but many times the idea ultimately has some reductive quality. you might get -- you know, in the new york stock exchange, you might get fantastic resonance in the world of money but the whole play is about love and the fifth act is whether the girl will choose the boy or whatever it might be. so ultimatelieth the futuristic macbeth felt as though it potentially denied the savage riand the primitive nature of some of the motivations. at the end of the play, malcolm, the new king to be, should be those who helped me here, earls, the first scotland ever had, and you sense a journey from a primitive to a more civilized world where people in power will give you an honor and then you won't be fighting it. >> charlie: it's interesting about shakespeare. first of all, i think i read james v who game james of england would come to shakespeare's plays? >> yes, indeed, and it was the author of a famous book on demonology, so he was particularly obsessed with the subject of macbeth. >> charlie: and the story some people thought he got from the holingshed chronicles? >> yes, shakespeare was comprehensive in where he went for his stories. he knew how to borrow and how to be inspired. kingston and i did clee cleopatra. says she sat on a burge and it burned on the water. >> charlie: there's a comparison between the two. >> in terms of the central focus on a relationship between two complicated people, a powerful man with a brilliant woman, and they have sort of balancing impact, but the barch speech in thomas north's lives of the ancient romans, et cetera, shakespeare pilfers fairly comprehensively. so he gathered his gatherings. >> charlie: every writer steals -- a great writer steals a lot. >> yeah, yeah. >> charlie: there's also this, in terms of this, when you -- there are sillo questions and lines that you have, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. did you approach those differently? did you have a mindset about them that you wanted to, in your own vision, not because you wanted to be alike or different than anyone else who had been macbeth, but some sense of how you wanted to take these pivotal moments? >> well, they all -- >> charlie: and deliver them. it's an interesting question. we -- for instance, tomorrow and tomorrow, it seems it grew organically out of this idea that aside from the sort of vast and dense existential howl that you might describe it as being, it is also specifically and particularly the beginning of the speech a sort of speech of mourning for his wife and in our production that he sort of understood lined the passion between them that the dynamic between the simple, painful personal loss of a woman that he adored through his own strutting and fretting and idiocy, if you like, informed the way that that came out so it became very personal. we wanted to take away from the show what i've seen sometimes in versions of the play which is perfectly fine but not to my particular taste that it be too dry and too intellectually extreme. >> charlie: you didn't want that? what did you want it to be? >> visceral, passionate, as much emotional intelligence as philosophical intelligence. it can get very dry because the poetry is so dense and complex. but the double up with shakespeare is if you can connect all of that brilliance, all of that sort of intellectual fire power at this incredible level with the sense that you're watching real, live human beings and there but for the grace of god go all of us. >> charlie: dealing with all the issues everybody faces in life, life, death, jealousy, rage, guilt or in this case guilt. >> guilt, yeah, and people, my goodness, you can feel the atmosphere in the audience when they have done swiftly within 20 minutes of the play in an atmosphere where the audience is backing away and the thing is throbbing. they've done it. they put the cold steel in the flesh of the person they knew! king duncan getting -- no, i killed one of our friends and now what do i do? suddenly they become like children, almost. that irrevocable moment, people understand that moment in their lives, they might not kill a king but they will do things from which they can never recover and in one nanosecond, life will never be the same again. and shakespeare writes and people go, oh, my god, that could be me. >> charlie: either because of choices you made or things thrust upon you. >> yes, and, of course, it's terribly moving. people find the particular production moving. why should you feel moved or even sympathetic to characters who performed such heinous act but somehow shakespeare's mast riallows you by the end when he loses her and when he can convey either in lady macbeth's sort of dissent into what may appear to be madness or just you already sense with macbeth at the end -- sounds like a grand thing to say, but the play does it, the bleakness in his soul is so profound that it's chilling. the glimpse of a kind of dark eternity that he shows us is so terrifying that you can't help but be moved because the price he has paid for this moment of reckless ambition is so deep and profound as to shape one to the -- shake one to the very core on his behalf. >> charlie: and lead to his death. >> yeah, yeah. one thing, isn't it strange, the end we talked about, he's fearless in battle at the beginning. then through the power of suggestion, he is fearful, guilt-ridden, dream-ladened and sleep deprived for most of the play. in the end, is what shakespeare admires in his characters, it's a simple thing -- he has guts! so he's right there at the end, i'm going to kiss the ground before mall come's feet. he has a forest moved and you weren't born of woman and the bear is against me. you know, come and get it! that's sort of a ridiculous quality, but shakespeare says, what else have you got? show me something! he hangs in there. somehow there's a profound respect for this. so i never ran away. and he talks to her and to bancroft and compliments them both and uses the word dauntless and shakespeare admires and i do, people who go through life just putting one foot in front of the other and the other, what else can you do? shakespeare says it must feel grander than that but sometimes all there is to do is show up. >> charlie: is there a one, two, three in shakespeare's works? >> your life changes, you're reacting to things, you know, and he's so comprehensive. you've had many brilliant conversations with blume who says shakespeare invented the human. the scholar in the '60s called him our contemporary. john guild says hamlet sums up the process of living. i feel that applies across many of these plays. right now one soul is shaken by what macbeth does to the audience. we are there, we are the lucky vessels through which this thing passes, currently, and this particular show. >> charlie: five minutes before you're going on, what are you doing, thinking and saying to yourself? >> i'm meditating is what i'm doing. yeah, meditating. >> charlie: you're clearing your mind? >> i'm getting ready. the readiness is all and it applies to many things, i think. my whole day really is devoted to getting ready for that moment. that's all do i right now. people say, oh, you're having a wonderful time in new york, well, yes, but partly because i'm at the theater hours and hours and hours before any sane human being would be. i do my meditation, listen to tapes, read, do the lines every day, you do the whole play in varying ways. you try to keep it fresh. in the five minutes before you go on, you meditate. the other thing, i swear to god i think this is just the most fantastic thing to be able to do. i mean it's really tingly and you know it's not an easy thing to do, given one's aware of the effort of it in terms of what we do, but it's absolutely glorious, glorious thing to do. i sometimes feel like i'm a big fan of sports, generally, and it feels like you're in the tunnel waiting to come out before a huge gauge, and it's like tournament tennis or something. some of it is up here, some in the body, you know, and in our case we start with a five-minute battle. >> charlie: just revs you up. man, does it rev us up, because we have to practice the fights every day. they're dangerous, drainage, we're in the dark, 25 enormously butch fellows coming at us with pieces of cold steel. >> charlie: so you have to be athletic, too. >> it's an all consuming things. i think i've learned more about the discipline required for doing this on this particular job than ever before. a wonderful learning experience. >> charlie: you do yoga and meditation. >> yes, all at the service of the thing itself. it's all absolutely built into getting to that moment before you go on, believing you can bring as much preparation and technique as you possibly can to it and then you create the conditions where tonight via mr. shakespeare, it might even be inspired. that's what you're trying to get to. >> charlie: it might even be inspired. >> yeah. >> charlie: when you -- were you born to do this? i mean, when you think of yourself now, i couldn't have done anything else, this is what i was, as some people say, put on earth to do. >> i guess it is what i think now. i used to sort of -- i was perplexed by it and now all i know is when i do it i feel as though this is who i am and what i do, and people are saying, why are you going to the theater so early? well, this is me, this is who i am. and to be able to say these -- people are saying, well, when did you think you would do this play or that play? i am profoundly grateful i get to -- >> charlie: my sense of you is that you had confidence in yourself. you had both ambition and confidence, you know, that you wanted it. >> you know where the confidence came from is the sense of doing something you're happy to be doing. that's the gift i had. i was about 16 years old with no sort of real goal ahead, i realized i can act and i want to act and that's it, just as simple as that. >> charlie: it's the greatest thing in the world. >> oh, my goodness. >> charlie: what i want to do is what i'm good always doing stories about big ideas and people with big responsibilities, you mentioned l.b.j. earlier and people with the kind of sense of things. really in the center of it is the same thing. you're happy to be creating, acting and telling stories, it's what you do. the blessing and privilege that has to be action films, you know, you get this opportunity, but really it's the same thing. sometimes the notch on the budgets go crazy but at the center of it you're really trying to enjoy that same fun of white hot creativity in those venues. sometimes you just get resources you would not otherwise get. and i ask for a camera crane or movie like that that i would have to be on my niece for something like love's labor lost. so for me there's also a balance and a balancing thing or a -- >> charlie: are you happiest when you're working? >> i'm very, very happy when i'm working and i'm enjoying it. sometimes stuff gets in the way. but i wouldn't say necessarily -- i love life. i love life. >> charlie: it's not that. it's not the comparison of not playing versus working. it is that if, in fact, doing things along the lines of excellence, using all your powers along the lines of excellence gives you a sort of unique satisfaction, whether at work or family or -- >> i think that's very well put. basically i try to look at every moment in life like that. it's just that it's all -- it's all a bit like a fortune cookie, unfortunately. but it is a gift. i suppose one has the tangible examples of it sometimes in something like macbeth because the work is so much bigger and richer than anything one could ever dream of and it is infinite that it continues to surprise at all times. so i'm in it some nights and walk out of the show perplexed by how bewilderingly full of wonder it is and you have a chance to do it and it becomes zonal. you are utterly in a zone, in flow, however one likes to put it, with this thing that is acting on you, plus you have this marvelous extra gift that is life, that is this relationship to all those people who are there at that time. and when the magic happens, my goodness, it goes wrong or when shakespeare kicks in and he's writing in, like, fifth gear and then has a sixth and seventh gear and then the hairs on the back of your neck go up and you are changed. you are changed and you're aware that his work is changing the lives of other people. >> charlie: another tep years you'll do lear? >> i would like to. >> charlie: you will have to decide what the right time is. >> hopefully, if that is to be on my dance card and i hope it is, yes. >> charlie: were you really proud of the fact that you did -- i mean, i couldn't wait to get it, especially when it was on dvd, the entire literal hamlet? >> yes, oh, yes. >> charlie: which made me remember so many people had it. >> it was a joyful thing. i was so proud to have done it. i can't believe we managed to do it. god bless martin shaffer, alan and all the people who wrote the check and had the faith. >> charlie: great to have you. we'll take a break and come back with the cast from macbeth at the armory here in new york. (bagpipes playing) >> you can call it an armory or whatever you like. it really is a theater. >> it's a theater. it's a place of fantasy. >> rebecca robinson is the executive producer of new york's park avenue armory which easts all manner of events including macbeth. in the guildle age it housed the silk stocking regiment. >> names like vanderbilt, astor, rhinelander, you know, that world. >> in 1880 new york's high society soldiers spent over a billion dollars in this day's money to build an armory. rebecca, this must be one of the most spectacular guilded age rooms in new york, not what you would expect in a military barracks. >> we talked about this being a military barracks but hobbles with a room like this, that you were also really steep. >> the armory has a 55,000 square foot drill hole. almost 100 men and women transformed it into a spectacular setting for macbeth. >> now you walk in and there's a huge group and you have hooded figures leading you. >> it's like stonehenge. yes, but that's not in scotland. i think that's the idea, it's primitive. >> look how bulky this is. you can smell the mud in the air. i've never been in a theater and feel wet mud on the floors. it's extraordinary. you walk past the bog and the rocks and through the mud and suddenly you're in the theater. >> yes. and lights. yes. but it has sort of a medieval feeling, militaristic, but also the medieval pew look, very simple and straightforward and you see all the faces on the other side. the thing about being in the environment, you are part of the crowd. >> this a dagger which i see before me? >> charlie: sitting on stage i asked robertson why she felt the drill hole was an appropriate setting for macbeth? i think it has military history, that helps. it has the pageantry that goes along with military. i think the strong thoughts you feel that sort of strength and the industrial nature of this drill hall kind of works with the fighting, the swords, the metal and the clash. seems to me to be kind of symbiotic. it works together as a place. then where else are you going to build a heap in new york. >> how have audiences reacted when they do this? >> we try to make the audience part of whatever is going on. you're in the blood, the action, you're moving. when you walk in and you see these stones and that light and that glow and that really creepy heap that has the witches rolling around in it, you're in a different world and that's what we try to do. >> charlie: that was oz take us inside the park avenue armory where macbeth is being staged. rob ashford joins me, co-director of macbeth, won emmys and tonys and other roles. liz liz is on e.r. i am proud to have all of them at this table. welcome. what is the melding of talent between you and you? >> hmm... well, you know, we never defined it, ever. >> charlie: you don't have a shakespearean background. >> other than in college, i played a part. but, no, it's the first and what a great teacher and partner. >> charlie: explain to me how it came together. not in terms of how you ended up in the deal, but how you approached the deal and how do you complement each other. >> well, i think when we first met to talk about the play and to talk about a -- ken had a very specific idea about the feel of the play tore the time period and the kind of rawness and the kind of visceral nature but is very clear which sounded thrilling to me and we worked together on making an edited of the play to cut it down because he said he'd love it with no intermission. two hours of intermission and i said sign me up for that. >> charlie: we talk about the pacing. is a lot of that what he does? >> all of us do it as well. it's such a determination to feel as though you can act on the lines and that the audience are enjoying having to be, you know, fairly fast thinking because these characters think faster. but as far as the mel, just having trust in each other. i didn't mind saying things about how people were moved around the stage and rob didn't mind saying, why not say it like this, or what does that word mean. we ended up popping into each other's territory, i think. >> it started with casting. when we made the edit, we read totally, and then also the casting, that we didn't, you know, say specifically to each other, we want a mcduff who does x, y, z, or anything like that. we just go in the room with actors and we both have the same tastes and things we liked about the castings and that came across easily. the design was so easy. we just fell in it together. >> charlie: how is it for you because you're getting rave reviews, too. >> i have to say just coming on to the last question you had, as one of the actors, it was amazing having ken and rob directing us because they were so incredibly complimentary and, you know, when ken, of course -- because he's on stage pretty much all the time, so it's not easy for him to be in the role but also be watching and directing while he's in the role. so he was able to sort of focus and work on his relationships with the other characters, knowing that rob was there as the eyes and just seeing in terms of the staging and the choreography and the feeling. i mean, even rob had never done a shakespeare before. he understands the emotions, even if he's not sort of as experienced with text. but, you know, you have to have emotion with text. so it sort of worked brilliantly, and they really -- i mean, it sort of is like the most awesome partnership, these two could possibly have created. >> charlie: what did you want to bring to lady macbeth? >> well, i think that -- i'd never done this play before. i'd studied it at school. i'd certainly watched some productions over the years. but i had to always a very instinctive feeling about who i thought she was and who they were as a couple, and i just thought when i met ken, i thought, i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel is going to be right for this particular production that they're going to put on or it's is not, and if it's not, then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role because i see it in a particular way, and it just was lucky that we both seemed to have the same feeling. and i think i have this theory about the play of mcbeth, which is it's one of shakespeare's later plays. >> charlie: 1600 was it? before, this already, he'd written amazing female roles, really complex. and i think that the interpretation ofo the play and of this couple has always made them sort of prtty two-dimensionally evil. my daughter, when i said i was going to do it, she said, oh, mommy, she's pure evil. she's been talk that by teachers because that's the interpretation people have sort of put on the play. my theory is that shakespeare is far too brilliant of a writer to write characters who were so, in a way, two-dimensional. you know, he's not that person. my theory is that, after the english civil war when theaters were closed down, shakespeare was banned, macbeth and in the restoration macbeth was one of the only plays that was allowed to be performed but it was used as a morality play about the evils of woman and how lady macbeth is this eve-like figure, this temptress, if it's not for her her husband wouldn't have done it. and she sort of -- and i think over the centuries, the shadow of that interpretation way back then has stayed with the play, and i think it's not right because i don't thing shakespeare would have -- >> charlie: so she's more than evil? >> she's not evil. >> charlie: she's not evil? no! i think as ken said, they are two characters who are in love, who areassionate, who are complex personalities, but take a tragically, awfully they make a wrong decision on -- >> charlie: a big decision. i know, but it's not -- it's something that they regret. there's nothing they can do about it. they regret it. it's -- you know, if they were just evil, you wouldn't care, and a lot of productions you don't care. >> they both do mad from the deed in their way. and if they were evil people to born to be evil, they would grow from that and not spiral down as what happened to both of them. >> i think it's a far more interesting play as you see them as good people who have gone bad because everybody can relate to that. >> charlie: why did they go bad? >> well, because there was this little opportunity that was presented to them. in a sense, the apple. >> charlie: why does she want to do it now, this evening? >> well, because it's so fast, they're not thinking. >> charlie: in her own home. yes, yes. well, she's being -- i mean, they have been been -- it's been predicted. the weird sisters basically -- if you think about the time, people really believed in spirits and witchcraft. society was paranoid. if you're told this ising going to happen, you're going to believe it. she's somebody who's, like, well, let's help it along a bit. >> charlie: how is it different what will be performed play in manchester at the church that was performed? >> well, richer because the actors have sat with it for a while. it's primarily the same cast. we have some additional new people, but the new people have inneinterjected a great truth t. this armory, the vast space, the heat that you enter, the stones that represent the pagan world, it's pulled the play nor, it's pulled it more and made it tighter in the same way. >> charlie: you walk in there, you think you're walking into history. >> mm-hmm. interesting way to put it. i think to answer your question, also, partly, what's happened in addition to what rob is saying is that the space, the armory is allowed for the epic dimension in the play to be there and it also emphasizes the cinematic quality in it. the audience looks here and they see alex and she finishes a scene and they're focused and goes suddenly down here and it's a simple slight of hand theatrically but it's effective. it means closeup, wide shot, close up, wide shot, intimate spectacle is the dynamic of play. >> and the audience goes with that. they like the focus here. they don't want to look back and see what i'm missing. they want to stay where the focus is and shift back and forth. >> it's almost like it's edit but it hasn't because it's scenes that have merged so deeply. >> charlie: combat is an essential part of this because combat was such an essential part of mcberkts right? >> yes. >> charlie: is there more to that than -- >> well, survival is at the heart. it's a very early -- >> charlie: it's critical. yes. and also they're a battle world of relative primitiveness which he who hacks longest and most manically wins. these spinning, he can tick, frantic -- i can tell you there's no acting required -- moments in this battle that just introduce the audience who frankly are also themselves -- no one with is ever going to get hurt, please, god -- but they are physically very, very near the danger and it's a real danger. sparks come off the swords. stuff happens and that immediately changes -- changes the atmosphere. they've just been wood by the sight of this beautiful woman doing her concentrated thing. and they come in also -- what i think is exciting at the armory is they come in to answer your we about what's different, they come in with a real sense of event. they see the huge set and you really, you can somehow feel them kind of relishing it and it had a different atmosphere or listening. >> charlie: beyond the fact she's good, not evil, what do you like about lady macbeth? >> well, i love playing the journey,. >> charlie: her journey. her journey, yes. because if you think of her -- or at least my interpretation -- in the beginning, she's on her knees, lighting candles, praying for the safety of her husband. she doesn't know if he's going to come back. she's longing for the letters that are going to tell her what's happening. so from seeing her starting off in that respect and then very, very quick through sort of the -- the excitement of this cede deed that's going to just propel them, that give them something, that talk about legacy, and they will have something that they can hold on to and be proud of, and they have no children. they have nothing else. and then just sort of -- the sort of slow dissent into loss, losing her husband, losing the great love in her life, the thing that is sort of the other half of her and just slowly -- >> charlie: but losing him in the end to death or madness? >> she wouldn't consider herself going mad, but it's just her not connecting. he starts not sharing with her, and she loses confidence then. you know, she's trying desperately to stay close to him, and he's starting to just do little things without actually informing her. that's not who they were before as a couple. it's that slowly starting to pull apart. >> charlie: do you believe as harold bloom said and ken referenced in our earlier conversation that this is the happiest marriage in shakespeare? >> well, i think it begins like that. >> it's one of the most passionate. >> charlie: the sexual dynamic is there. >> especially the way that you guys play it, that you keep, no matter what is happening to you, you keep trying to find each other through it. >> yes, yeah. the dearest partner in greatness. >> charlie: dearest partner in greatness. >> she's equal. he adores her, worships her. that's how he knows who he is because of what he feels for her. he loves her. he's a relatively simple soldier, loves his wife, you've got the great honor, and then -- it's that conversation that if we stop that conversation, if i had been able to convince you, we'll proceed no further in this business, let's take a few months of having the parties and all that -- >> if we were to use the evennality, when she opens up, that's the apple. >> charlie: that's the apple. because that's what suddenly makes him go. >> charlie: yeah. okay. >> charlie: okay what? we'll do it. >> charlie: we'll do it. because this matters to me, i'm telling you, this matters to me as much as kids do. so what do you think of that? and when he sees that from her -- >> charlie: more than anything i don't have. >> you know how much i want it. i'm giving you an image from taking this bone -- >> well, we had a child and he died. and that's it, no more. that's why -- i mean, in terms of actors playing it, you know, if you are a very young mister and missus in a production, they can't have more children. she's barren. it means much more when you're of an age where, you know, it really matters, you are aware as actors of your ability to have children or not. >> and shakespeare still cleferl wrote bancroft with a son in the play and macbeth with the wife and children in the play, i think everyone else has the family. >> and that's the case where most people would qualify as then completely filling that person with unconditional love for that other person that you would never have the time to think about whether you're going to kill the president. >> charlie: you have never bought into the superstition about macbeth? >> i was always cautious about it in my sort of daft irish way, like i will not walk under a lard, i will walk around. >> charlie: have you thought about macbeth? >> i've gone through phases. it's like playing the part, but i won't say it, just in case. i didn't believe it, but i won't be too cavalier with it but a little more bold. >> charlie: in scottish play. now that you brought it up, i feel like i want to say the name of the play in case in table colonel lams (laughter) a mixture of healthy respect and a little healthy irreverence about it is okay. but you have to remember with this play, you know, misfortune is sometimes associated with something that often takes place in the dark with lots of steps. there are many ways in which you can hurt yourself doing macbeth, so sometimes that superstition has a practical justification. >> charlie: let me close with this because i do a lot of shakespeare here in terms of trying to talk about the characters because it is so rich, for me, as one human being who has a table to talk about whatever he wants the talk about. so i want each of you to answer this question. why shakespeare? why is shakespeare shakespeare? >> i don't know. i don't know why he's so sturdy. i don't know why he's still so profound. i don't know why other than -- >> charlie: there's only one shakespeare. >> there is. and why is that what, you know, me growing up in a small town in west virginia, why is shakespeare the one play that we studied in school? why was it julius caesar? why is it the only one? something instead of diminishing, he somehow stacks it all up and it continues to be strong and vital somehow and i don't know why. i'm thankful for it, you know. >> charlie: it's good to do it. >> it's thrilling. whoever shakespeare was, i mean, i am continually just blown away by what a genius he was at such a sort of early time in the sense in our growth as a society, as a people. i mean, it's extraordinary the depth of feel and connection he seemed to have with the human spirit and the understanding. all i know is that i wish that he was watching our production, because i'm really proud of it, and i think he would be so proud of it. now, i would love him to see it, because i just think he would be so moved. i would really love it. >> that would be a nervous night. apparently, he's in (laughter) he knows the play very well, by the way, so no paraphrase. (laughter) >> charlie: you especially. well, he consistently entertains, by which i mean he stimulates and provokes and makes us laugh and cry and goes beyond words. you know, there is an atmosphere in the plays that is con voakd and present in the words which are only words on a page but they trigger these explosions in the human imagination and in the human spirit, and, you know, the truth is he just repeatedly proves he's not just good for us, he's just good. >> charlie: thank you. great to have you. >> thanks very much. you. >> charlie: go see macbeth at the armory, if you can. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org . this is "nightly business report" with tyler mathisen and susie gharib. >> strong finish, stocks sore into record territory after federal reserve chair janet yellen says she's not inclined to tighten policy. >> delivering results, fedex says business is good and getting better, sending shares to an all time high but there is one wild card that could change everything. >> under oath, general motors ceo on capitol hill filling pointed questions about the biggest safety crisis in the company's history. all that and more tonight on "nightly business report" for wednesday, june 18th. good evening, everyone. investors saying a big thank you to janet yellen, the federal reserve chair said policy makers will most likely keep interest rates right where t

Transcripts For KQED Charlie Rose 20140619

>> when i met ken, i thought, i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel will be right for the particular production and if it's not, it's not, and then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role. and it was just lucky that we both seem to have the same feeling. >> mackbeth for the hour, next. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: kenneth branagh is here. he's currently starring in and co-directing mackbeth at the park avenue armory here in new york city. the production comes from manchester, england, has received extraordinary reviews. michael billington of the guardian said at times he evoked golden memories of olivier in the role. here's a look at the trailer. >> what! can the devil speak truth? >> looks like the innocent! is this a dagger which i see before me? (singing) (indiscernible). >> i'm pleased to have sir kenneth branagh back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: have you been waiting to do this? >> i have, circling it. it's the copy -- the copy first came across our kitchen table when i was 10 or 11 years old. my brother was doing it at school. i saw the three weird sisters on the cover. i asked him what it was about. my first introduction to mackbeth. it's the same thing that's been with me every night and sitting on my table now, it's been with me 40 years. >> charlie: did you need to do it at a time in your life. >> i had an acting mentor and we often talked about this part and he said, you really have to wait till you're the right age. in my early 30s and 40s, he said, you're still too young. i didn't understand it, but i listened because i revered him. somehow it came together through virtue of the manchester festival and meeting rob ashford, the brilliant co-director and finding the right elements like alex kingston to be lady mackbeth. things started to fall together, so it became the right time to do it. >> charlie: you'd had a ten-year absence from shakespeare. >> yes, i had, and like many things in my career, although others may view it differently, these sort of accidents happen. you find yourself on wonderful diversion ritracts. it's often -- my wife jokes about it. she says people say to me, oh, does he read shakespeare? it's by the bedside, does he read it? she says, what do you tell them? i said, yes, i do. she says you're always doing that. so ten years away from doing it but quite a lot of years of just being exposed to it. so it's always in my life. >> charlie: how is this mackbeth different? >> every time a particular group do it, it is different. maybe we take a speech at the beginning spoken by the bloody y sergeant. macbeth is interesting for a character who is fearless that becomes fearful for most of the play. we dared to take that away and put what he describes on stage. and we wanted to do it for a couple of reasons. first, when you meet macbeth, you know a little of what they really mean about this fearlessness. this savage ri. he's a man who should not have the problems he has later on when faced with another murder. in battle, he seems fearless. what we chiefly wanted to do is introduce to the audience a a theatrical energy they can be a part of, the he can tick nature of the circumstances which mean these two fundamentally at the beginning of the play good people make very bad decisions because the play, circumstances, the plot doesn't give you time to -- >> charlie: ben bradford captured that thing. he said you hurdled forward by the beginning of the play and it had that kind of energy. >> well, because you're always so interested in terms of what goes on in the corridors of power. and when one thinks about why and how these two with people could do this extraordinary thing, when one thinks about it in plays, it's easy to think about it in melodramatic terms, but this man kills a friend of his, the king, whatever, and he does it swiftly though other people describe him as being conscienced. so other people dismiss the play and say it's absurd because it all happens too quickly. our production was trying to say perhaps these things only happen quickly, you know, without thought. >> charlie: and would he have done it without his wife? >> well, she, i think, describes him as being not without ambition but without the sickness, the milk of human kindness. there are remarks about an essentially good nature. but once he's had this amazing success, the reviews are brilliant, the duncan says fantastic, i'm planting you and you're going to be having all sorts of rewards -- >> charlie: and a new name, even. >> -- yeah, but actually i'm giving my job to him, my son. and immediately macbeth is a man with a witch's pronouncement in his mind in a few short moments ago saying well, why should he be in the way? i'll have to either -- it's a step that lies in my way on which i must fall down or else or leap, which means basically murder in this con text. so it's a wonderful play for putting people in this unusual extreme position. >> it's great. you see them opening up in a stone hedge kind of thing. it's extraordinary, and their prophecies one by one, so he's got to believe something. >> what do you feel about that,? the lives of the good and the great and the power of suggestion. some people would say that's a silly play about a man who believes his horoscope. someone for whom everything is going well. >> charlie: i think men and women of power believe in myth, too. >> interesting, yeah. and this idea of what the legacy is, you know macbeth and lady macbeth not being able to have children or haven't been successful yet, so immortality is not had by family, so maybe it's seized in the history books by being king. >> charlie: is she more ambitious than he? >> i think she's differently ambitious. one of the things we tried to bring in was the savage world where she says goodbye to him and he goes off to battle, the idea of whether he comes home or not is very heavily questioned and when we do come back, what we did present is we always wanted to present a functioning relationship. they fans idea the pants off each other and it's very passionate. >> charlie: the passion is clear. >> he said there are no successful marriages except macbeth's. they always die and kill a king along the way. the first conversation with alex central to the show and performance is he adores her and she's a natural companion for him and i think that they -- you know, the breakup -- >> charlie: was she stronger or weaker? >> well, again, you know, they both at different times invoke the dark world. >> charlie: they do. she's the first one to say, right, i'm inviting evil into the room. we're in a room where you believe in it. audience, you've just seen it because they're hanging around the stones and they're scary. i'm inviting them in. she has balls enough to do it the first time around. the balance of power in the relationship switches and she, interestingly, he's the one that says let's not do it night and she says you have to seize the opportunity now. then they get it, he becomes president, and she says, now leave everything alone. but now for him he has to be president and square off everything. >> charlie: wasn't that part of the prophecies of the witches, too? he was scared because of what they said so he went off killing anybody. >> yeah, they tried to square all those things. the one predicted to be the father of kings tries to kill both he and his son and his determination to leave no stone unturned means he won't ever sleep again and there is no satisfaction. and the first moment we see him as king, he's with her and they celebrate and the production has us walk down at the coronation and he sit down and says, to be thus is nothing but to be safely thus. now i have to -- i'm here, i have a crown a throne, and it's nothing! it's nothing! >> charlie: but to be safely thus. >> but to be safely thus. and then his splurge of paranoia. >> charlie: no one i know of is more identified with shakespeare tha. there is this question, when you prepare to do macbeth, do you look at every production to look at olivier, whatever form you could get your hands on? >> over the years, i suppose, but in preparation for this, no, i did the opposite. there was a point i wanted to do it or at least i knew i would do it when i started looking at other productions. >> charlie: that's when you thought the time is me. >> yes, and i didn't want my brain to be fluxed with the brilliance of other people. i thought, we have to find our own way to it. so i stopped as a kind of growing understanding that i felt ready to have a go. >> charlie: but i read you thought about doing it way up in the future, a very futuristic. >> yeah. >> charlie: and what drew you away from that to where you are? >> this difficult thing of when you come up with a sort of what you might call a strong concept for the world of the play and all these plays are very elastic so they can acome date anything we might try and trip him up there. but many times the idea ultimately has some reductive quality. you might get -- you know, in the new york stock exchange, you might get fantastic resonance in the world of money but the whole play is about love and the fifth act is whether the girl will choose the boy or whatever it might be. so ultimatelieth the futuristic macbeth felt as though it potentially denied the savage riand the primitive nature of some of the motivations. at the end of the play, malcolm, the new king to be, should be those who helped me here, earls, the first scotland ever had, and you sense a journey from a primitive to a more civilized world where people in power will give you an honor and then you won't be fighting it. >> charlie: it's interesting about shakespeare. first of all, i think i read james v who game james of england would come to shakespeare's plays? >> yes, indeed, and it was the author of a famous book on demonology, so he was particularly obsessed with the subject of macbeth. >> charlie: and the story some people thought he got from the holingshed chronicles? >> yes, shakespeare was comprehensive in where he went for his stories. he knew how to borrow and how to be inspired. kingston and i did clee cleopatra. says she sat on a burge and it burned on the water. >> charlie: there's a comparison between the two. >> in terms of the central focus on a relationship between two complicated people, a powerful man with a brilliant woman, and they have sort of balancing impact, but the barch speech in thomas north's lives of the ancient romans, et cetera, shakespeare pilfers fairly comprehensively. so he gathered his gatherings. >> charlie: every writer steals -- a great writer steals a lot. >> yeah, yeah. >> charlie: there's also this, in terms of this, when you -- there are sillo questions and lines that you have, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. did you approach those differently? did you have a mindset about them that you wanted to, in your own vision, not because you wanted to be alike or different than anyone else who had been macbeth, but some sense of how you wanted to take these pivotal moments? >> well, they all -- >> charlie: and deliver them. it's an interesting question. we -- for instance, tomorrow and tomorrow, it seems it grew organically out of this idea that aside from the sort of vast and dense existential howl that you might describe it as being, it is also specifically and particularly the beginning of the speech a sort of speech of mourning for his wife and in our production that he sort of understood lined the passion between them that the dynamic between the simple, painful personal loss of a woman that he adored through his own strutting and fretting and idiocy, if you like, informed the way that that came out so it became very personal. we wanted to take away from the show what i've seen sometimes in versions of the play which is perfectly fine but not to my particular taste that it be too dry and too intellectually extreme. >> charlie: you didn't want that? what did you want it to be? >> visceral, passionate, as much emotional intelligence as philosophical intelligence. it can get very dry because the poetry is so dense and complex. but the double up with shakespeare is if you can connect all of that brilliance, all of that sort of intellectual fire power at this incredible level with the sense that you're watching real, live human beings and there but for the grace of god go all of us. >> charlie: dealing with all the issues everybody faces in life, life, death, jealousy, rage, guilt or in this case guilt. >> guilt, yeah, and people, my goodness, you can feel the atmosphere in the audience when they have done swiftly within 20 minutes of the play in an atmosphere where the audience is backing away and the thing is throbbing. they've done it. they put the cold steel in the flesh of the person they knew! king duncan getting -- no, i killed one of our friends and now what do i do? suddenly they become like children, almost. that irrevocable moment, people understand that moment in their lives, they might not kill a king but they will do things from which they can never recover and in one nanosecond, life will never be the same again. and shakespeare writes and people go, oh, my god, that could be me. >> charlie: either because of choices you made or things thrust upon you. >> yes, and, of course, it's terribly moving. people find the particular production moving. why should you feel moved or even sympathetic to characters who performed such heinous act but somehow shakespeare's mast riallows you by the end when he loses her and when he can convey either in lady macbeth's sort of dissent into what may appear to be madness or just you already sense with macbeth at the end -- sounds like a grand thing to say, but the play does it, the bleakness in his soul is so profound that it's chilling. the glimpse of a kind of dark eternity that he shows us is so terrifying that you can't help but be moved because the price he has paid for this moment of reckless ambition is so deep and profound as to shape one to the -- shake one to the very core on his behalf. >> charlie: and lead to his death. >> yeah, yeah. one thing, isn't it strange, the end we talked about, he's fearless in battle at the beginning. then through the power of suggestion, he is fearful, guilt-ridden, dream-ladened and sleep deprived for most of the play. in the end, is what shakespeare admires in his characters, it's a simple thing -- he has guts! so he's right there at the end, i'm going to kiss the ground before mall come's feet. he has a forest moved and you weren't born of woman and the bear is against me. you know, come and get it! that's sort of a ridiculous quality, but shakespeare says, what else have you got? show me something! he hangs in there. somehow there's a profound respect for this. so i never ran away. and he talks to her and to bancroft and compliments them both and uses the word dauntless and shakespeare admires and i do, people who go through life just putting one foot in front of the other and the other, what else can you do? shakespeare says it must feel grander than that but sometimes all there is to do is show up. >> charlie: is there a one, two, three in shakespeare's works? >> your life changes, you're reacting to things, you know, and he's so comprehensive. you've had many brilliant conversations with blume who says shakespeare invented the human. the scholar in the '60s called him our contemporary. john guild says hamlet sums up the process of living. i feel that applies across many of these plays. right now one soul is shaken by what macbeth does to the audience. we are there, we are the lucky vessels through which this thing passes, currently, and this particular show. >> charlie: five minutes before you're going on, what are you doing, thinking and saying to yourself? >> i'm meditating is what i'm doing. yeah, meditating. >> charlie: you're clearing your mind? >> i'm getting ready. the readiness is all and it applies to many things, i think. my whole day really is devoted to getting ready for that moment. that's all do i right now. people say, oh, you're having a wonderful time in new york, well, yes, but partly because i'm at the theater hours and hours and hours before any sane human being would be. i do my meditation, listen to tapes, read, do the lines every day, you do the whole play in varying ways. you try to keep it fresh. in the five minutes before you go on, you meditate. the other thing, i swear to god i think this is just the most fantastic thing to be able to do. i mean it's really tingly and you know it's not an easy thing to do, given one's aware of the effort of it in terms of what we do, but it's absolutely glorious, glorious thing to do. i sometimes feel like i'm a big fan of sports, generally, and it feels like you're in the tunnel waiting to come out before a huge gauge, and it's like tournament tennis or something. some of it is up here, some in the body, you know, and in our case we start with a five-minute battle. >> charlie: just revs you up. man, does it rev us up, because we have to practice the fights every day. they're dangerous, drainage, we're in the dark, 25 enormously butch fellows coming at us with pieces of cold steel. >> charlie: so you have to be athletic, too. >> it's an all consuming things. i think i've learned more about the discipline required for doing this on this particular job than ever before. a wonderful learning experience. >> charlie: you do yoga and meditation. >> yes, all at the service of the thing itself. it's all absolutely built into getting to that moment before you go on, believing you can bring as much preparation and technique as you possibly can to it and then you create the conditions where tonight via mr. shakespeare, it might even be inspired. that's what you're trying to get to. >> charlie: it might even be inspired. >> yeah. >> charlie: when you -- were you born to do this? i mean, when you think of yourself now, i couldn't have done anything else, this is what i was, as some people say, put on earth to do. >> i guess it is what i think now. i used to sort of -- i was perplexed by it and now all i know is when i do it i feel as though this is who i am and what i do, and people are saying, why are you going to the theater so early? well, this is me, this is who i am. and to be able to say these -- people are saying, well, when did you think you would do this play or that play? i am profoundly grateful i get to -- >> charlie: my sense of you is that you had confidence in yourself. you had both ambition and confidence, you know, that you wanted it. >> you know where the confidence came from is the sense of doing something you're happy to be doing. that's the gift i had. i was about 16 years old with no sort of real goal ahead, i realized i can act and i want to act and that's it, just as simple as that. >> charlie: it's the greatest thing in the world. >> oh, my goodness. >> charlie: what i want to do is what i'm good always doing stories about big ideas and people with big responsibilities, you mentioned l.b.j. earlier and people with the kind of sense of things. really in the center of it is the same thing. you're happy to be creating, acting and telling stories, it's what you do. the blessing and privilege that has to be action films, you know, you get this opportunity, but really it's the same thing. sometimes the notch on the budgets go crazy but at the center of it you're really trying to enjoy that same fun of white hot creativity in those venues. sometimes you just get resources you would not otherwise get. and i ask for a camera crane or movie like that that i would have to be on my niece for something like love's labor lost. so for me there's also a balance and a balancing thing or a -- >> charlie: are you happiest when you're working? >> i'm very, very happy when i'm working and i'm enjoying it. sometimes stuff gets in the way. but i wouldn't say necessarily -- i love life. i love life. >> charlie: it's not that. it's not the comparison of not playing versus working. it is that if, in fact, doing things along the lines of excellence, using all your powers along the lines of excellence gives you a sort of unique satisfaction, whether at work or family or -- >> i think that's very well put. basically i try to look at every moment in life like that. it's just that it's all -- it's all a bit like a fortune cookie, unfortunately. but it is a gift. i suppose one has the tangible examples of it sometimes in something like macbeth because the work is so much bigger and richer than anything one could ever dream of and it is infinite that it continues to surprise at all times. so i'm in it some nights and walk out of the show perplexed by how bewilderingly full of wonder it is and you have a chance to do it and it becomes zonal. you are utterly in a zone, in flow, however one likes to put it, with this thing that is acting on you, plus you have this marvelous extra gift that is life, that is this relationship to all those people who are there at that time. and when the magic happens, my goodness, it goes wrong or when shakespeare kicks in and he's writing in, like, fifth gear and then has a sixth and seventh gear and then the hairs on the back of your neck go up and you are changed. you are changed and you're aware that his work is changing the lives of other people. >> charlie: another tep years you'll do lear? >> i would like to. >> charlie: you will have to decide what the right time is. >> hopefully, if that is to be on my dance card and i hope it is, yes. >> charlie: were you really proud of the fact that you did -- i mean, i couldn't wait to get it, especially when it was on dvd, the entire literal hamlet? >> yes, oh, yes. >> charlie: which made me remember so many people had it. >> it was a joyful thing. i was so proud to have done it. i can't believe we managed to do it. god bless martin shaffer, alan and all the people who wrote the check and had the faith. >> charlie: great to have you. we'll take a break and come back with the cast from macbeth at the armory here in new york. (bagpipes playing) >> you can call it an armory or whatever you like. it really is a theater. >> it's a theater. it's a place of fantasy. >> rebecca robinson is the executive producer of new york's park avenue armory which easts all manner of events including macbeth. in the guildle age it housed the silk stocking regiment. >> names like vanderbilt, astor, rhinelander, you know, that world. >> in 1880 new york's high society soldiers spent over a billion dollars in this day's money to build an armory. rebecca, this must be one of the most spectacular guilded age rooms in new york, not what you would expect in a military barracks. >> we talked about this being a military barracks but hobbles with a room like this, that you were also really steep. >> the armory has a 55,000 square foot drill hole. almost 100 men and women transformed it into a spectacular setting for macbeth. >> now you walk in and there's a huge group and you have hooded figures leading you. >> it's like stonehenge. yes, but that's not in scotland. i think that's the idea, it's primitive. >> look how bulky this is. you can smell the mud in the air. i've never been in a theater and feel wet mud on the floors. it's extraordinary. you walk past the bog and the rocks and through the mud and suddenly you're in the theater. >> yes. and lights. yes. but it has sort of a medieval feeling, militaristic, but also the medieval pew look, very simple and straightforward and you see all the faces on the other side. the thing about being in the environment, you are part of the crowd. >> this a dagger which i see before me? >> charlie: sitting on stage i asked robertson why she felt the drill hole was an appropriate setting for macbeth? i think it has military history, that helps. it has the pageantry that goes along with military. i think the strong thoughts you feel that sort of strength and the industrial nature of this drill hall kind of works with the fighting, the swords, the metal and the clash. seems to me to be kind of symbiotic. it works together as a place. then where else are you going to build a heap in new york. >> how have audiences reacted when they do this? >> we try to make the audience part of whatever is going on. you're in the blood, the action, you're moving. when you walk in and you see these stones and that light and that glow and that really creepy heap that has the witches rolling around in it, you're in a different world and that's what we try to do. >> charlie: that was oz take us inside the park avenue armory where macbeth is being staged. rob ashford joins me, co-director of macbeth, won emmys and tonys and other roles. liz liz is on e.r. i am proud to have all of them at this table. welcome. what is the melding of talent between you and you? >> hmm... well, you know, we never defined it, ever. >> charlie: you don't have a shakespearean background. >> other than in college, i played a part. but, no, it's the first and what a great teacher and partner. >> charlie: explain to me how it came together. not in terms of how you ended up in the deal, but how you approached the deal and how do you complement each other. >> well, i think when we first met to talk about the play and to talk about a -- ken had a very specific idea about the feel of the play tore the time period and the kind of rawness and the kind of visceral nature but is very clear which sounded thrilling to me and we worked together on making an edited of the play to cut it down because he said he'd love it with no intermission. two hours of intermission and i said sign me up for that. >> charlie: we talk about the pacing. is a lot of that what he does? >> all of us do it as well. it's such a determination to feel as though you can act on the lines and that the audience are enjoying having to be, you know, fairly fast thinking because these characters think faster. but as far as the mel, just having trust in each other. i didn't mind saying things about how people were moved around the stage and rob didn't mind saying, why not say it like this, or what does that word mean. we ended up popping into each other's territory, i think. >> it started with casting. when we made the edit, we read totally, and then also the casting, that we didn't, you know, say specifically to each other, we want a mcduff who does x, y, z, or anything like that. we just go in the room with actors and we both have the same tastes and things we liked about the castings and that came across easily. the design was so easy. we just fell in it together. >> charlie: how is it for you because you're getting rave reviews, too. >> i have to say just coming on to the last question you had, as one of the actors, it was amazing having ken and rob directing us because they were so incredibly complimentary and, you know, when ken, of course -- because he's on stage pretty much all the time, so it's not easy for him to be in the role but also be watching and directing while he's in the role. so he was able to sort of focus and work on his relationships with the other characters, knowing that rob was there as the eyes and just seeing in terms of the staging and the choreography and the feeling. i mean, even rob had never done a shakespeare before. he understands the emotions, even if he's not sort of as experienced with text. but, you know, you have to have emotion with text. so it sort of worked brilliantly, and they really -- i mean, it sort of is like the most awesome partnership, these two could possibly have created. >> charlie: what did you want to bring to lady macbeth? >> well, i think that -- i'd never done this play before. i'd studied it at school. i'd certainly watched some productions over the years. but i had to always a very instinctive feeling about who i thought she was and who they were as a couple, and i just thought when i met ken, i thought, i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel is going to be right for this particular production that they're going to put on or it's is not, and if it's not, then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role because i see it in a particular way, and it just was lucky that we both seemed to have the same feeling. and i think i have this theory about the play of mcbeth, which is it's one of shakespeare's later plays. >> charlie: 1600 was it? before, this already, he'd written amazing female roles, really complex. and i think that the interpretation ofo the play and of this couple has always made them sort of prtty two-dimensionally evil. my daughter, when i said i was going to do it, she said, oh, mommy, she's pure evil. she's been talk that by teachers because that's the interpretation people have sort of put on the play. my theory is that shakespeare is far too brilliant of a writer to write characters who were so, in a way, two-dimensional. you know, he's not that person. my theory is that, after the english civil war when theaters were closed down, shakespeare was banned, macbeth and in the restoration macbeth was one of the only plays that was allowed to be performed but it was used as a morality play about the evils of woman and how lady macbeth is this eve-like figure, this temptress, if it's not for her her husband wouldn't have done it. and she sort of -- and i think over the centuries, the shadow of that interpretation way back then has stayed with the play, and i think it's not right because i don't thing shakespeare would have -- >> charlie: so she's more than evil? >> she's not evil. >> charlie: she's not evil? no! i think as ken said, they are two characters who are in love, who areassionate, who are complex personalities, but take a tragically, awfully they make a wrong decision on -- >> charlie: a big decision. i know, but it's not -- it's something that they regret. there's nothing they can do about it. they regret it. it's -- you know, if they were just evil, you wouldn't care, and a lot of productions you don't care. >> they both do mad from the deed in their way. and if they were evil people to born to be evil, they would grow from that and not spiral down as what happened to both of them. >> i think it's a far more interesting play as you see them as good people who have gone bad because everybody can relate to that. >> charlie: why did they go bad? >> well, because there was this little opportunity that was presented to them. in a sense, the apple. >> charlie: why does she want to do it now, this evening? >> well, because it's so fast, they're not thinking. >> charlie: in her own home. yes, yes. well, she's being -- i mean, they have been been -- it's been predicted. the weird sisters basically -- if you think about the time, people really believed in spirits and witchcraft. society was paranoid. if you're told this ising going to happen, you're going to believe it. she's somebody who's, like, well, let's help it along a bit. >> charlie: how is it different what will be performed play in manchester at the church that was performed? >> well, richer because the actors have sat with it for a while. it's primarily the same cast. we have some additional new people, but the new people have inneinterjected a great truth t. this armory, the vast space, the heat that you enter, the stones that represent the pagan world, it's pulled the play nor, it's pulled it more and made it tighter in the same way. >> charlie: you walk in there, you think you're walking into history. >> mm-hmm. interesting way to put it. i think to answer your question, also, partly, what's happened in addition to what rob is saying is that the space, the armory is allowed for the epic dimension in the play to be there and it also emphasizes the cinematic quality in it. the audience looks here and they see alex and she finishes a scene and they're focused and goes suddenly down here and it's a simple slight of hand theatrically but it's effective. it means closeup, wide shot, close up, wide shot, intimate spectacle is the dynamic of play. >> and the audience goes with that. they like the focus here. they don't want to look back and see what i'm missing. they want to stay where the focus is and shift back and forth. >> it's almost like it's edit but it hasn't because it's scenes that have merged so deeply. >> charlie: combat is an essential part of this because combat was such an essential part of mcberkts right? >> yes. >> charlie: is there more to that than -- >> well, survival is at the heart. it's a very early -- >> charlie: it's critical. yes. and also they're a battle world of relative primitiveness which he who hacks longest and most manically wins. these spinning, he can tick, frantic -- i can tell you there's no acting required -- moments in this battle that just introduce the audience who frankly are also themselves -- no one with is ever going to get hurt, please, god -- but they are physically very, very near the danger and it's a real danger. sparks come off the swords. stuff happens and that immediately changes -- changes the atmosphere. they've just been wood by the sight of this beautiful woman doing her concentrated thing. and they come in also -- what i think is exciting at the armory is they come in to answer your we about what's different, they come in with a real sense of event. they see the huge set and you really, you can somehow feel them kind of relishing it and it had a different atmosphere or listening. >> charlie: beyond the fact she's good, not evil, what do you like about lady macbeth? >> well, i love playing the journey,. >> charlie: her journey. her journey, yes. because if you think of her -- or at least my interpretation -- in the beginning, she's on her knees, lighting candles, praying for the safety of her husband. she doesn't know if he's going to come back. she's longing for the letters that are going to tell her what's happening. so from seeing her starting off in that respect and then very, very quick through sort of the -- the excitement of this cede deed that's going to just propel them, that give them something, that talk about legacy, and they will have something that they can hold on to and be proud of, and they have no children. they have nothing else. and then just sort of -- the sort of slow dissent into loss, losing her husband, losing the great love in her life, the thing that is sort of the other half of her and just slowly -- >> charlie: but losing him in the end to death or madness? >> she wouldn't consider herself going mad, but it's just her not connecting. he starts not sharing with her, and she loses confidence then. you know, she's trying desperately to stay close to him, and he's starting to just do little things without actually informing her. that's not who they were before as a couple. it's that slowly starting to pull apart. >> charlie: do you believe as harold bloom said and ken referenced in our earlier conversation that this is the happiest marriage in shakespeare? >> well, i think it begins like that. >> it's one of the most passionate. >> charlie: the sexual dynamic is there. >> especially the way that you guys play it, that you keep, no matter what is happening to you, you keep trying to find each other through it. >> yes, yeah. the dearest partner in greatness. >> charlie: dearest partner in greatness. >> she's equal. he adores her, worships her. that's how he knows who he is because of what he feels for her. he loves her. he's a relatively simple soldier, loves his wife, you've got the great honor, and then -- it's that conversation that if we stop that conversation, if i had been able to convince you, we'll proceed no further in this business, let's take a few months of having the parties and all that -- >> if we were to use the evennality, when she opens up, that's the apple. >> charlie: that's the apple. because that's what suddenly makes him go. >> charlie: yeah. okay. >> charlie: okay what? we'll do it. >> charlie: we'll do it. because this matters to me, i'm telling you, this matters to me as much as kids do. so what do you think of that? and when he sees that from her -- >> charlie: more than anything i don't have. >> you know how much i want it. i'm giving you an image from taking this bone -- >> well, we had a child and he died. and that's it, no more. that's why -- i mean, in terms of actors playing it, you know, if you are a very young mister and missus in a production, they can't have more children. she's barren. it means much more when you're of an age where, you know, it really matters, you are aware as actors of your ability to have children or not. >> and shakespeare still cleferl wrote bancroft with a son in the play and macbeth with the wife and children in the play, i think everyone else has the family. >> and that's the case where most people would qualify as then completely filling that person with unconditional love for that other person that you would never have the time to think about whether you're going to kill the president. >> charlie: you have never bought into the superstition about macbeth? >> i was always cautious about it in my sort of daft irish way, like i will not walk under a lard, i will walk around. >> charlie: have you thought about macbeth? >> i've gone through phases. it's like playing the part, but i won't say it, just in case. i didn't believe it, but i won't be too cavalier with it but a little more bold. >> charlie: in scottish play. now that you brought it up, i feel like i want to say the name of the play in case in table colonel lams (laughter) a mixture of healthy respect and a little healthy irreverence about it is okay. but you have to remember with this play, you know, misfortune is sometimes associated with something that often takes place in the dark with lots of steps. there are many ways in which you can hurt yourself doing macbeth, so sometimes that superstition has a practical justification. >> charlie: let me close with this because i do a lot of shakespeare here in terms of trying to talk about the characters because it is so rich, for me, as one human being who has a table to talk about whatever he wants the talk about. so i want each of you to answer this question. why shakespeare? why is shakespeare shakespeare? >> i don't know. i don't know why he's so sturdy. i don't know why he's still so profound. i don't know why other than -- >> charlie: there's only one shakespeare. >> there is. and why is that what, you know, me growing up in a small town in west virginia, why is shakespeare the one play that we studied in school? why was it julius caesar? why is it the only one? something instead of diminishing, he somehow stacks it all up and it continues to be strong and vital somehow and i don't know why. i'm thankful for it, you know. >> charlie: it's good to do it. >> it's thrilling. whoever shakespeare was, i mean, i am continually just blown away by what a genius he was at such a sort of early time in the sense in our growth as a society, as a people. i mean, it's extraordinary the depth of feel and connection he seemed to have with the human spirit and the understanding. all i know is that i wish that he was watching our production, because i'm really proud of it, and i think he would be so proud of it. now, i would love him to see it, because i just think he would be so moved. i would really love it. >> that would be a nervous night. apparently, he's in (laughter) he knows the play very well, by the way, so no paraphrase. (laughter) >> charlie: you especially. well, he consistently entertains, by which i mean he stimulates and provokes and makes us laugh and cry and goes beyond words. you know, there is an atmosphere in the plays that is con voakd and present in the words which are only words on a page but they trigger these explosions in the human imagination and in the human spirit, and, you know, the truth is he just repeatedly proves he's not just good for us, he's just good. >> charlie: thank you. great to have you. >> thanks very much. you. >> charlie: go see macbeth at the armory, if you can. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org (man) support for this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you! from american university in washington dc, best-selling author and financial expert, suze orman, answers critical questions about your money. tonight is all about you! the goal of money is for you to feel secure. the goal of money is for you to feel powerful. you have problems-- but here's the good news-- i have the solutions. 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Transcripts For WHYY Charlie Rose 20140619

i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel will be right for the particular production and if it's not, it's not, and then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role. and it was just lucky that we both seem to have the same feeling. >> mackbeth for the hour, next. >> there's a saying around here: you stand behind what you say. around here, we don't make excuses, we make commitments. and when you can't live up to them, you own up and make it right. some people think the kind of accountability that thrives on so many streets in this country has gone missing in the places where it's needed most. but i know you'll still find it, when you know where to look. captioning sponsored by rose communications from our studios in new york city, this is charlie rose. >> charlie: kenneth branagh is here. he's currently starring in and co-directing mackbeth at the park avenue armory here in new york city. the production comes from manchester, england, has received extraordinary reviews. michael billington of the guardian said at times he evoked golden memories of olivier in the role. here's a look at the trailer. >> what! can the devil spe truth? >> looks like the innocent! is this a dagger which i see before me? (singing) (indiscernible). >> i'm pleased to have sir kenneth branagh back at this table. welcome. >> thank you, charlie. >> charlie: have you been waiting to do this? >> i have, circling it. it's the copy -- the copy first came across our kitchen table when i was 10 or 11 ars old. my brother was doing it at school. i saw the three weird sisters on the cover. i asked him what it was about. my first introduction to mackbeth. it's the same thing that's been with me every night and sitting on my table now, it's been with me 40 years. >> charlie: did you need to do it at a time in your life. >> i had an acting mentor and we often talked about this part and he said, you really have to wait till you're the right age. in my early 30s and 40s, he said, you're still too young. i didn't understand it, but i listened because i revered him. somehow it came together through virtue of the manchester festival and meeting rob ashford, the brilliant co-director and finding the right elements like alex kingston to be lady mackbeth. things started to fall together, so it became the right time to do it. >> charlie: you'd had a ten-year absence from shakespeare. >> yes, i had, and like many things in my career, although others may view it differently, these sort of accidents happen. you find yourself on wonderful diversion ritracts. it's often -- my wife jokes about it. she says people say to me, oh, does he read shakespeare? it's by the bedside, does he read it? she says, what do you tell them? i said, yes, i do. she says you're always doing that. so ten years away from doing it but quite a lot of years of just being exposed to it. so it's always in my life. >> charlie: how is this mackbeth different? >> every time a particular group do it, it is different. maybe we take a speech at the beginning spoken by the bloody y sergeant. macbeth is interesting for a character who is fearless that becomes fearful for most of the play. we dared to take that away and put what he describes on stage. and we wanted to do it for a couple of reasons. first, when you meet macbeth, you know a little of what they really mean about this fearlessness. this savage ri. he's a man who should not have the problems he has later on when faced with another murder. in battle, he seems fearless. what we chiefly wanted to do is introduce to the audience a a theatrical energy they can be a part of, the he can tick nature of the circumstances which mean these two fundamentally at the beginning of the play good people make very bad decisions because the play, circumstances, the plot doesn't give you time to -- >> charlie: ben bradford captured that thing. he said you hurdled forward by the beginning of the play and it had that kind of energy. >> well, because you're always so interested in terms of what goes on in the corridors of power. and when one thinks about why and how these two with people could do this extraordinary thing, when one thinks about it in plays, it's easy to think about it in melodramatic terms, but this man kills a friend of his, the king, whatever, and he does it swiftly though other people describe him as being conscienced. so other people dismiss the play and say it's absurd because it all happens too quickly. our production was trying to say perhaps these things only happen quickly, you know, without thought. >> charlie: and would he have done it without his wife? >> well, she, i think, describes him as being not without ambition but without the sickness, the milk of human kindness. there are remarks about an essentially good nature. but once he's had this amazing success, the reviews are brilliant, the duncan says fantastic, i'm planting you and you're going to be having all sorts of rewards -- >> charlie: and a new name, even. >> -- yeah, but actually i'm giving my job to him, my son. and immediately macbeth is a man with a witch's pronouncement in his mind in a few short moments ago saying well, why should he be in the way? i'll have to either -- it's a step that lies in my way on which i must fall down or else or leap, which means basically murder in this con text. so it's a wonderful play for putting people in this unusual extreme position. >> it's great. you see them opening up in a stone hedge kind of thing. it's extraordinary, and their prophecies one by one, so he's got to believe something. >> what do you feel about that,? the lives of the good and the great and the power of suggestion. some people would say that's a silly play about a man who believes his horoscope. someone for whom everything is going well. >> charlie: i think men and women of power believe in myth, too. >> interesting, yeah. and this idea of what the legacy is, you know macbeth and lady macbeth not being able to have children or haven't been successful yet, so immortality is not had by family, so maybe it's seized in the history books by being king. >> charlie: is she more ambitious than he? >> i think she's differently ambitious. one of the things we tried to bring in was the savage world where she says goodbye to him and he goes off to battle, the idea of whether he comes home or not is very heavily questioned and when we do come back, what we did present is we always wanted to present a functioning relationship. they fans idea the pants off each other and it's very passionate. >> charlie: the passion is clear. >> he said there are no successful marriages except macbeth's. they always die and kill a king along the way. the first conversation with alex central to the show and performance is he adores her and she's a natural companion for him and i think that they -- you know, the breakup -- >> charlie: was she stronger or weaker? >> well, again, you know, they both at different times invoke the dark world. >> charlie: they do. she's the first one to say, right, i'm inviting evil into the room. we're in a room where you believe in it. audience, you've just seen it because they're hanging around the stones and they're scary. i'm inviting them in. she has balls enough to do it the first time around. the balance of power in the relationship switches and she, interestingly, he's the one that says let's not do it night and she says you have to seize the opportunity now. then they get it, he becomes president, and she says, now leave everything alone. but now for him he has to be president and square off everything. >> charlie: wasn't that part of the prophecies of the witches, too? he was scared because of what they said so he went off killing anybody. >> yeah, they tried to square all those things. the one predicted to be the father of kings tries to kill both he and his son and his determination to leave no stone unturned means he won't ever sleep again and there is no satisfaction. and the first moment we see him as king, he's with her and they celebrate and the production has us walk down at the coronation and he sit down and says, to be thus is nothing but to be safely thus. now i have to -- i'm here, i have a crown a throne, and it's nothing! it's nothing! >> charlie: but to be safely thus. >> but to be safely thus. and then his splurge of paranoia. >> charlie: no one i know of is more identified with shakespeare tha. there is this question, when you prepare to do macbeth, do you look at every production to look at olivier, whatever form you could get your hands on? >> over the years, i suppose, but in preparation for this, no, i did the opposite. there was a point i wanted to do it or at least i knew i would do it when i staed looking at other productions. >> charlie: that's when you thought the time is me. >> yes, and i didn't want my brain to be fluxed with the brilliance of other people. i thought, we have to find our own way to it. so i stopped as a kind of growing understanding that i felt ready to have a go. >> charlie: but i read you thought about doing it way up in the future, a very futuristic. >> yeah. >> charlie: and what drew you away from that to where you are? >> this difficult thing of when you come up with a sort of what you might call a strong concept for the world of the play and all these plays are very elastic so they can acome date anything we might try and trip him up there. but many times the idea ultimately has some reductive quality. you might get -- you know, in the new york stock exchange, you might get fantastic resonance in the world of money but the whole play is about love and the fifth act is whether the girl will choose the boy or whatever it might be. so ultimatelieth the futuristic macbeth felt as though it potentially denied the savage riand the primitive nature of some of the motivations. at the end of the play, malcolm, the new king to be, should be those who helped me here, earls, the first scotland ever had, and you sense a journey from a primitive to a more civilized world where people in power will give you an honor and then you won't be fighting it. >> charlie: it's interesting about shakespeare. first of all, i think i read james v who game james of england would come to shakespeare's plays? >> yes, indeed, and it was the author of a famous book on demonology, so he was particularly obsessed with the subject of macbeth. >> charlie: and the story some people thought he got from the holingshed chronicles? >> yes, shakespeare was comprehensive in where he went for his stories. he knew how to borrow and how to be inspired. kingston and i did clee cleopatra. says she sat on a burge and it burned on the water. >> charlie: there's a comparison between the two. >> in terms of the central focus on a relationship between two complicated people, a powerful man with a brilliant woman, and they have sort of balancing impact, but the barch speech in thomas north's lives of the ancient romans, et cetera, shakespeare pilfers fairly comprehensively. so he gathered his gatherings. >> charlie: every writer steals -- a great writer steals a lot. >> yeah, yeah. >> charlie: there's also this, in terms of this, when you -- there are sillo questions and lines that you have, and tomorrow, and tomorrow. did you approach those differently? did you have a mindset about them that you wanted to, in your own vision, not because you wanted to be alike or different than anyone else who had been macbeth, but some sense of how you wanted to take these pivotal moments? >> well, they all -- >> charlie: and deliver them. it's an interesting question. we -- for instance, tomorrow and tomorrow, it seems it grew organically out of this idea that aside from the sort of vast and dense existential howl that you might describe it as being, it is also specifically and particularly the beginning of the speech a sort of speech of mourning for his wife and in our production that he sort of understood lined the passion between them that the dynamic between the simple, painful personal loss of a woman that he adored through his own strutting and fretting and idiocy, if you like, informed the way that that came out so it became very personal. we wanted to take away from the show what i've seen sometimes in versions of the play which is perfectly fine but not to my particular taste that it be too dry and too intellectually extreme. >> charlie: you didn't want that? what did you want it to be? >> visceral, passionate, as much emotional intelligence as philosophical intelligence. it can get very dry because the poetry is so dense and complex. but the double up with shakespeare is if you can connect all of that brilliance, all of that sort of intellectual fire power at this incredible level with the sense that you're watching real, live human beings and there but for the grace of god go all of us. >> charlie: dealing with all the issues everybody faces in life, life, death, jealousy, rage, guilt or in this case guilt. >> guilt, yeah, and people, my goodness, you can feel the atmosphere in the audience when they have done swiftly within 20 minutes of the play in an atmosphere where the audience is backing away and the thing is throbbing. they've done it. they put the cold steel in the flesh of the person they knew! king duncan getting -- no, i killed one of our friends and now what do i do? suddenly they become like children, almost. that irrevocable moment, people understand that moment in their lives, they might not kill a king but they will do things from which they can never recover and in one nanosecond, life will never be the same again. and shakespeare writes and people go, oh, my god, that could be me. >> charlie: either because of choices you made or things thrust upon you. >> yes, and, of course, it's terribly moving. people find the particular production moving. why should you feel moved or even sympathetic to characters who performed such heinous act but somehow shakespeare's mast riallows you by the end when he loses her and when he can convey either in lady macbeth's sort of dissent into what may appear to be madness or just you already sense with macbeth at the end -- sounds like a grand thing to say, but the play does it, the bleakness in his soul is so profound that it's chilling. the glimpse of a kind of dark eternity that he shows us is so terrifying that you can't help but be moved because the price he has paid for this moment of reckless ambition is so deep and profound as to shape one to the -- shake one to the very core on his behalf. >> charlie: and lead to his death. >> yeah, yeah. one thing, isn't it strange, the end we talked about, he's fearless in battle at the beginning. then through the power of suggestion, he is fearful, guilt-ridden, dream-ladened and sleep deprived for most of the play. in the end, is what shakespeare admires in his characters, it's a simple thing -- he has guts! so he's right there at the end, i'm going to kiss the ground before mall come's feet. he has a forest moved and you weren't born of woman and the bear is against me. you know, come and get it! that's sort of a ridiculous quality, but shakespeare says, what else have you got? show me something! he hangs in there. somehow there's a profound respect for this. so i never ran away. and he talks to her and to bancroft and compliments them both and uses the word dauntless and shakespeare admires and i do, people who go through life just putting one foot in front of the other and the other, what else can you do? shakespeare says it must feel grander than that but sometimes all there is to do is show up. >> charlie: is there a one, two, three in shakespeare's works? >> your life changes, you're reacting to things, you know, and he's so comprehensive. you've had many brilliant conversations with blume who says shakespeare invented the human. the scholar in the '60s called him our contemporary. john guild says hamlet sums up the process of living. i feel that applies across many of these plays. right now one soul is shaken by what macbeth does to the audience. we are there, we are the lucky vessels through which this thing passes, currently, and this particular show. >> charlie: five minutes before you're going on, what are you doing, thinking and saying to yourself? >> i'm meditating is what i'm doing. yeah, meditating. >> charlie: you're clearing your mind? >> i'm getting ready. the readiness is all and it applies to many things, i think. my whole day really is devoted to getting ready for that moment. that's all do i right now. people say, oh, you're having a wonderful time in new york, well, yes, but partly because i'm at the theater hours and hours and hours before any sane human being would be. i do my meditation, listen to tapes, read, do the lines every day, you do the whole play in varying ways. you try to keep it fresh. in the five minutes before you go on, you meditate. the other thing, i swear to god i think this is just the most fantastic thing to be able to do. i mean it's really tingly and you know it's not an easy thing to do, given one's aware of the effort of it in terms of what we do, but it's absolutely glorious, glorious thing to do. i sometimes feel like i'm a big fan of sports, generally, and it feels like you're in the tunnel waiting to come out before a huge gauge, and it's like tournament tennis or something. some of it is up here, some in the body, you know, and in our case we start with a five-minute battle. >> charlie: just revs you up. man, does it rev us up, because we have to practice the fights every day. they're dangerous, drainage, we're in the dark, 25 enormously butch fellows coming at us with pieces of cold steel. >> charlie: so you have to be athletic, too. >> it's an all consuming things. i think i've learned more about the discipline required for doing this on this particular job than ever before. a wonderful learning experience. >> charlie: you do yoga and meditation. >> yes, all at the service of the thing itself. it's all absolutely built into getting to that moment before you go on, believing you can bring as much preparation and technique as you possibly can to it and then you create the conditions where tonight via mr. shakespeare, it might even be inspired. that's what you're trying to get to. >> charlie: it might even be inspired. >> yeah. >> charlie: when you -- were you born to do this? i mean, when you think of yourself now, i couldn't have done anything else, this is what i was, as some people say, put on earth to do. >> i guess it is what i think now. i used to sort of -- i was perplexed by it and now all i know is when i do it i feel as though this is who i am and what i do, and people are saying, why are you going to the theater so early? well, this is me, this is who i am. and to be able to say these -- people are saying, well, when did you think you would do this play or that play? i am profoundly grateful i get to -- >> charlie: my sense of you is that you had confidence in yourself. you had both ambition and confidence, you know, that you wanted it. >> you know where the confidence came from is the sense of doing something you're happy to be doing. that's the gift i had. i was about 16 years old with no sort of real goal ahead, i realized i can act and i want to act and that's it, just as simple as that. >> charlie: it's the greatest thing in the world. >> oh, my goodness. >> charlie: what i want to do is what i'm good always doing stories about big ideas and people with big responsibilities, you mentioned l.b.j. earlier and people with the kind of sense of things. really in the center of it is the same thing. you're happy to be creating, acting and telling stories, it's what you do. the blessing and privilege that has to be action films, you know, you get this opportunity, but really it's the same thing. sometimes the notch on the budgets go crazy but at the center of it you're really trying to enjoy that same fun of white hot creativity in those venues. sometimes you just get resources you would not otherwise get. and i ask for a camera crane or movie like that that i would have to be on my niece for something like love's labor lost. so for me there's also a balance and a balancing thing or a -- >> charlie: are you happiest when you're working? >> i'm very, very happy when i'm working and i'm enjoying it. sometimes stuff gets in the way. but i wouldn't say necessarily -- i love life. i love life. >> charlie: it's not that. it's not the comparison of not playing versus working. it is that if, in fact, doing things along the lines of excellence, using all your powers along the lines of excellence gives you a sort of unique satisfaction, whether at work or family or -- >> i think that's very well put. basically i try to look at every moment in life like that. it's just that it's all -- it's all a bit like a fortune cookie, unfortunately. but it is a gift. i suppose one has the tangible examples of it sometimes in something like macbeth because the work is so much bigger and richer than anything one could ever dream of and it is infinite that it continues to surprise at all times. so i'm in it some nights and walk out of the show perplexed by how bewilderingly full of wonder it is and you have a chance to do it and it becomes zonal. you are utterly in a zone, in flow, however one likes to put it, with this thing that is acting on you, plus you have this marvelous extra gift that is life, that is this relationship to all those people who are there at that time. and when the magic happens, my goodness, it goes wrong or when shakespeare kicks in and he's writing in, like, fifth gear and then has a sixth and seventh gear and then the hairs on the back of your neck go up and you are changed. you are changed and you're aware that his work is changing the lives of other people. >> charlie: another tep years you'll do lear? >> i would like to. >> charlie: you will have to decide what the right time is. >> hopefully, if that is to be on my dance card and i hope it is, yes. >> charlie: were you really proud of the fact that you did -- i mean, i couldn't wait to get it, especially when it was on dvd, the entire literal hamlet? >> yes, oh, yes. >> charlie: which made me remember so many people had it. >> it was a joyful thing. i was so proud to have done it. i can't believe we managed to do it. god bless martin shaffer, alan and all the people who wrote the check and had the faith. >> charlie: great to have you. we'll take a break and come back with the cast from macbeth at the armory here in new york. (bagpipes playing) >> you can call it an armory or whatever you like. it really is a theater. >> it's a theater. it's a place of fantasy. >> rebecca robinson is the executive producer of new york's park avenue armory which easts all manner of events including macbeth. in the ildle age it housed the silk stocking regiment. >> names like vanderbilt, astor, rhinelander, you know, that world. >> in 1880 new york's high society soldiers spent over a billion dollars in this day's money to build an armory. rebecca, this must be one of the most spectacular guilded age rooms in new york, not what you would expect in a military barracks. >> we talked about this being a military barracks but hobbles with a room like this, that you were also really steep. >> the armory has a 55,000 square foot drill hole. almost 100 men and women transformed it into a spectacular setting for macbeth. >> now you walk in and there's a huge group and you have hooded figures leading you. >> it's like stonehenge. yes, but that's not in scotland. i think that's the idea, it's primitive. >> look how bulky this is. you can smell the mud in the air. i've never been in a theater and feel wet mud on the floors. it's extraordinary. you walk past the bog and the rocks and through the mud and suddenly you're in the theater. >> yes. and lights. yes. but it has sort of a medieval feeling, militaristic, but also the medieval pew look, very simple and straightforward and you see all the faces on the other side. the thing about being in the environment, you are part of the crowd. >> this a dagger which i see before me? >> charlie: sitting on stage i asked robertson why she felt the drill hole was an appropriate setting for macbeth? i think it has military history, that helps. it has the pageantry that goes along with military. i think the strong thoughts you feel that sort of strength and the industrial nature of this drill hall kind of works with the fighting, the swords, the metal and the clash. seems to me to be kind of symbiotic. it works together as a place. then where else are you going to build a heap in new york. >> how have audiences reacted when they do this? >> we try to make the audience part of whatever is going on. you're in the blood, the action, you're moving. when you walk in and you see these stones and that light and that glow and that really creepy heap that has the witches rolling around in it, you're in a different world and that's what we try to do. >> charlie: that was oz take us inside the park avenue armory where macbeth is being staged. rob ashford joins me, co-director of macbeth, won emmys and tonys and other roles. liz liz is on e.r. i am proud to have all of them at this table. welcome. what is the melding of talent between you and you? >> hmm... well, you know, we never defined it, ever. >> charlie: you don't have a shakespearean background. >> other than in college, i played a part. but, no, it's the first and what a great teacher and partner. >> charlie: explain to me how it came together. not in terms of how you ended up in the deal, but how you approached the deal and how do you complement each other. >> well, i think when we first met to talk about the play and to talk about a -- ken had a very specific idea about the feel of the play tore the time period and the kind of rawness and the kind of visceral nature but is very clear which sounded thrilling to me and we worked together on making an edited of the play to cut it down because he said he'd love it with no intermission. two hours of intermission and i said sign me up for that. >> charlie: we talk about the pacing. is a lot of that what he does? >> all of us do it as well. it's such a determination to feel as though you can act on the lines and that the audience are enjoying having to be, you know, fairly fast thinking because these characters think faster. but as far as the mel, just having trust in each other. i didn't mind saying things about how people were moved around the stage and rob didn't mind saying, why not say it like this, or what does that word mean. we ended up popping into each other's territory, i think. >> it started with casting. when we made the edit, we read totally, and then also the casting, that we didn't, you know, say specifically to each other, we want a mcduff who does x, y, z, or anything like that. we just go in the room with actors and we both have the same tastes and things we liked about the castings and that came across easily. the design was so easy. we just fell in it together. >> charlie: how is it for you because you're getting rave reviews, too. >> i have to say just coming on to the last question you had, as one of the actors, it was amazing having ken and rob directing us because they were so incredibly complimentary and, you know, when ken, of course -- because he's on stage pretty much all the time, so it's not easy for him to be in the role but also be watching and directing while he's in the role. so he was able to sort of focus and work on his relationships with the other characters, knowing that rob was there as the eyes and just seeing in terms of the staging and the choreography and the feeling. i mean, even rob had never done a shakespeare before. he understands the emotions, even if he's not sort of as experienced with text. but, you know, you have to have emotion with text. so it sort of worked brilliantly, and they really -- i mean, it sort of is like the most awesome partnership, these two could possibly have created. >> charlie: what did you want to bring to lady macbeth? >> well, i think that -- i'd never done this play before. i'd studied it at school. i'd certainly watched some productions over the years. but i had to always a very instinctive feeling about who i thought she was and who they were as a couple, and i just thought when i met ken, i thought, i'm just going to be honest about how i feel about the character of lady macbeth and either how i feel is going to be right for this particular production that they're going to put on or it's is not, and if it's not, then i'm absolutely not the right person for this role because i see it in a particular way, and it just was lucky that we both seemed to have the same feeling. and i think i have this theory about the play of mcbeth, which is it's one of shakespeare's later plays. >> charlie: 1600 was it? before, this already, he'd written amazing female roles, really complex. and i think that the interpretation ofo the play and of this couple has always made them sort of prtty two-dimensionally evil. my daughter, when i said i was going to do it, she said, oh, mommy, she's pure evil. she's been talk that by teachers because that's the interpretation people have sort of put on the play. my theory is that shakespeare is far too brilliant of a writer to write characters who were so, in a way, two-dimensional. you know, he's not that person. my theory is that, after the english civil war when theaters were closed down, shakespeare was banned, macbeth and in the restoration macbeth was one of the only plays that was allowed to be performed but it was used as a morality play about the evils of woman and how lady macbeth is this eve-like figure, this temptress, if it's not for her her husband wouldn't have done it. and she sort of -- and i think over the centuries, the shadow of that interpretation way back then has stayed with the play, and i think it's not right because i don't thing shakespeare would have -- >> charlie: so she's more than evil? >> she's not evil. >> charlie: she's not evil? no! i think as ken said, they are two characters who are in love, who are passionate, who are complex personalities, but take a tragically, awfully they make a wrong decision on -- >> charlie: a big decision. i know, but it's not -- it's something that they regret. there's nothing they can do about it. they regret it. it's -- you know, if they were just evil, you wouldn't care, and a lot of productions you don't care. >> they both do mad from the deed in their way. and if they were evil people to born to be evil, they would grow from that and not spiral down as what happened to both of them. >> i think it's a far more interesting play as you see them as good people who have gone bad because everybody can relate to that. >> charlie: why did they go bad? >> well, because there was this little opportunity that was presented to them. in a sense, the apple. >> charlie: why does she want to do it now, this evening? >> well, because it's so fast, they're not thinking. >> charlie: in her own home. yes, yes. well, she's being -- i mean, they have been been -- it's been predicted. the weird sisters basically -- if you think about the time, people really believed in spirits and witchcraft. society was paranoid. if you're told this ising going to happen, you're going to believe it. she's somebody who's, like, well, let's help it along a bit. >> charlie: how is it different what will be performed play in manchester at the church that was performed? >> well, rich because the actors have sat with it for a while. it's primarily the same cast. we have some additional new people, but the new people have inneinterjected a great truth t. this armory, the vast space, the heat that you enter, the stones that represent the pagan world, it's pulled the play nor, it's pulled it more and made it tighter in the same way. >> charlie: you walk in there, you think you're walking into history. >> mm-hmm. interesting way to put it. i think to answer your question, also, partly, what's happened in addition to what rob is saying is that the space, the armory is allowed for the epic dimension in the play to be there and it also emphasizes the cinematic quality in it. the audience looks here and they see alex and she finishes a scene and they're focused and goes suddenly down here and it's a simple slight of hand theatrically but it's effective. it means closeup, wide shot, close up, wide shot, intimate spectacle is the dynamic of play. >> and the audience goes with that. they like the focus here. they don't want to look back and see what i'm missing. they want to stay where the focus is and shift back and forth. >> it's almost like it's edit but it hasn't because it's scenes that have merged so deeply. >> charlie: combat is an essential part of this because combat was such an essential part of mcberkts right? >> yes. >> charlie: is there more to that than -- >> well, survival is at the heart. it's a very early -- >> charlie: it's critical. yes. and also they're a battle world of relative primitiveness which he who hacks longest and most manically wins. these spinning, he can tick, frantic -- i can tell you there's no acting required -- moments in this battle that just introduce the audience who frankly are also themselves -- no one with is ever going to get hurt, please, god -- but they are physically very, very near the danger and it's a real danger. sparks come off the swords. stuff happens and that immediately changes -- changes the atmosphere. they've just been wood by the sight of this beautiful woman doing her concentrated thing. and they come in also -- what i think is exciting at the armory is they come in to answer your we about what's different, they come in with a real sense of event. they see the huge set and you really, you can somehow feel them kind of relishing it and it had a different atmosphere or listening. >> charlie: beyond the fact she's good, not evil, what do you like about lady macbeth? >> well, i love playing the journey,. >> charlie: her journey. her journey, yes. because if you think of her -- or at least my interpretation -- in the beginning, she's on her knees, lighting candles, praying for the safety of her husband. she doesn't know if he's going to come back. she's longing for the letters that are going to tell her what's happening. so from seeing her starting off in that respect and then very, very quick through sort of the -- the excitement of this cede deed that's going to just propel them, that give them something, that talk about legacy, and they will have something that they can hold on to and be proud of, and they have no children. they have nothing else. and then just sort of -- the sort of slow dissent into loss, losing her husband, losing the great love in her life, the thing that is sort of the other half of her and just slowly -- >> charlie: but losing him in the end to death or madness? >> she wouldn't consider herself going mad, but it's just her not connecting. he starts not sharing with her, and she loses confidence then. you know, she's trying desperately to stay close to him, and he's starting to just do little things without actually informing her. that's not who they were before as a couple. it's that slowly starting to pull apart. >> charlie: do you believe as harold bloom said and ken referenced in our earlier conversation that this is the happiest marriage in shakespeare? >> well, i think it begins like that. >> it's one of the most passionate. >> charlie: the sexual dynamic is there. >> especially the way that you guys play it, that you keep, no matter what is happening to you, you keep trying to find each other through it. >> yes, yeah. the dearest partner in greatness. >> charlie: dearest partner in greatness. >> she's equal. he adores her, worships her. that's how he knows who he is because of what he feels for her. he loves her. he's a relatively simple soldier, loves his wife, you've got the great honor, and then -- it's that conversation that if we stop that conversation, if i had been able to convince you, we'll proceed no further in this business, let's take a few months of having the parties and all that -- >> if we were to use the evennality, when she opens up, that's the apple. >> charlie: that's the apple. because that's what suddenly makes him go. >> charlie: yeah. okay. >> charlie: okay what? we'll do it. >> charlie: we'll do it. because this matters to me, i'm telling you, this matters to me as much as kids do. so what do you think of that? and when he sees that from her -- >> charlie: more than anything i don't have. >> you know how much i want it. i'm giving you an image from taking this bone -- >> well, we had a child and he died. and that's it, no more. that's why -- i mean, in terms of actors playing it, you know, if you are a very young mister and missus in a production, they can't have more children. she's barren. it means much more when you're of an age where, you know, it really matters, you are aware as actors of your ability to have children or not. >> and shakespeare still cleferl wrote bancroft with a son in the play and macbeth with the wife and children in the play, i think everyone else has the family. >> and that's the case where most people would qualify as then completely filling that person with unconditional love for that other person that you would never have the time to think about whether you're going to kill the president. >> charlie: you have never bought into the superstition about macbeth? >> i was always cautious about it in my sort of daft irish way, like i will not walk under a lard, i will walk around. >> charlie: have you thought about macbeth? >> i've gone through phases. it's like playing the part, but i won't say it, just in case. i didn't believe it, but i won't be too cavalier with it but a little more bold. >> charlie: in scottish play. now that you brought it up, i feel like i want to say the name of the play in case in table colonel lams (laughter) a mixture of healthy respect and a little healthy irreverence about it is okay. but you have to remember with this play, you know, misfortune is sometimes associated with something that often takes place in the dark with lots of steps. there are many ways in which you can hurt yourself doing macbeth, so sometimes that superstition has a practical justification. >> charlie: let me close with this because i do a lot of shakespeare here in terms of trying to talk about the characters because it is so rich, for me, as one human being who has a table to talk about whatever he wants the talk about. so i want each of you to answer this question. why shakespeare? why is shakespeare shakespeare? >> i don't know. i don't know why he's so sturdy. i don't know why he's still so profound. i don't know why other than -- >> charlie: there's only one shakespeare. >> there is. and why is that what, you know, me growing up in a small town in west virginia, why is shakespeare the one play that we studied in school? why was it julius caesar? why is it the only one? something instead of diminishing, he somehow stacks it all up and it continues to be strong and vital somehow and i don't know why. i'm thankful for it, you know. >> charlie: it's good to do it. >> it's thrilling. whoever shakespeare was, i mean, i am continually just blown away by what a genius he was at such a sort of early time in the sense in our growth as a society, as a people. i mean, it's extraordinary the depth of feel and connection he seemed to have with the human spirit and the understanding. all i know is that i wish that he was watching our production, because i'm really proud of it, and i think he would be so proud of it. now, i would love him to see it, because i just think he would be so moved. i would really love it. >> that would be a nervous night. apparently, he's in (laughter) he knows the play very well, by the way, so no paraphrase. (laughter) >> charlie: you especially. well, he consistently entertains, by which i mean he stimulates and provokes and makes us laugh and cry and goes beyond words. you know, there is an atmosphere in the plays that is con voakd and present in the words which are only words on a page but they trigger these explosions in the human imagination and in the human spirit, and, you know, the truth is he just repeatedly proves he's not just good for us, he's just good. >> charlie: thank you. great to have you. >> thanks very much. you. >> charlie: go see macbeth at the armory, if you can. thank you for joining us. see you next time. ♪ captioning sponsored by rose communications captioned by media access group at wgbh access.wgbh.org (man) support for this program is made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you! from american university in washington dc, best-selling author and financial expert, suze orman, answers critical questions about your money. tonight is all about you! the goal of money is for you to feel secure. the goal of money is for you to feel powerful. you have problems-- but here's the good news-- i have the solutions. 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Transcripts For WPSG Eyewitness News On The CW Philly 20140904

today. lets see how things are starting off. we have beautiful clouds in our camera here rooftop cam at cbs broadcast center in spring gar even and a lot of sunshine, high clouds, out there a bought full shot. almost like a painting. nice start to the morning in center city philadelphia storm scan three in the showing any problems we have high pressure overhead is he showers and storms off the coast of virginia are staying suppressed to the south. next front will get here over weekend but in the meantime we are heating up and steaming up, once again, it has been a september swelter to start the month, right now comfortable 69 at the the airport. sixty-one atlantic city. your day planner warms us up to near 90 this afternoon. for more on some interesting things happening on the roads lets check with vittoria. >> thanks, kate. we have a live chopper three over the scene of this very serious incident. overturned gravel truck on the southbound side of easton road, if you are looking for a point have of reference right around willow grove naval air station. incident occurred southbound direction. we have emergency teams on the scene. this is north bound delay stemming pretty far back. if you are heading in this area lets talk alternate and switch up and get to the maps. if you air approaching county line, best thing to does to take county line to mapel avenue and remove yourself from that situation with that alternate. we will update you on. that hopefully clean up will be soon. the as far as your rush we have chase, 95 at 14 miles an hour, in the southbound direction heading out of north east philadelphia. nine on the schuylkill, expect usual delays there around the roosevelt boulevard, you have southbound volume there as well, 51 on 476, in major problems on northeast extension but we have sun glare to be mindful of that. ukee. >> developing right now, police in olney are looking for answers in the case of a mysterious murder. "eyewitness news" reporter jan carabao joins us from head lease headquarters and officers noticed a burning car but it is what they found inside that prompted this investigation. >> tell us more once this car fire was put out philadelphia police found a man's body inside. that man's body so badly burned that he still has in the been identified this morning. it will be up to the medical examiner's office to do that. meanwhile police are working around the clock to piece together this investigation. they say eyewitnesses are now helping to solve this mystery. a gruesome discovery on the 6100 block of north lawrence street in olney has shaken this philadelphia neigh hood. a man, found dead inside of a burning car. this car. a a black mitsubishi galante. >> the body was burnt beyond recognition. we cannot tell at this time age or a race. it is a john doe at this time. >> reporter: philadelphia police were ones to spot burning car just before 8:00 wednesday night while on routine patrol. victim was fun on the passenger side and pronounced dead on the scene. investigating believe he may have been involve in a shooting three blocks away on roselyn street earlier in the day no victim was found when he was reported there at 4:00p m but eyewitnesses describe seeing that same car. >> they interviewed several witnesses who did say that a man was shot while sitting in the passenger seat of the myths bushy driver then sped away, at this point, no arrests have been made, heavy set man was seen running away from the burning koran lawrence but it is unclear how or if he is involve. it is unclear who may have shot the victim as he is indeed the same man who was found burned beyond recognition. >> we cannot tell if he is shot, nobody touching body, nobody, and, and. >> medical examiner's office autopsy looking for the cause manner and death, and, looking to see, found and to attend as eyewitnesses reported on the scene. anyone with any information should call3police. reporting live outside police headquarters, jane carabao on "eyewitness news" at cw philly. also this morning on the first day of class mainland regional high school will have a moment of silence for a student killed in the horrific crash. >> more than 1,000 people attended a candle light vigil in linwood, new jersey last night. for 14 year-old ashley cook. the 14 year-old died just within day before her first day of high school. cook succumbed to injuries she suffered in the crash on saturday. she was in the car were four teammates in mays landing on her way to a charity soccer tournament. >> one of my best memories of her obviously scoring that goal in the final seconds to win the championship. >> next week, her soccer team will take the field without her but her number four jersey will be retired until the year she would have glad waited. funeral services will be held for cullen keffer, one of three council rock south high school students, killed in the crash in the poconos over the weekend. yesterday, classmates, held a moment of silence for ryan lesher and shamus digney. lesher's viewing will be tonight. >> new this morning, president obama is in wales meeting with other leaders for a nato summit. the the president has a pack agenda. he will meet with other leaders to talk about more economic sanctions on russia. leaders will also discuss ways to discuss isis militants out of eye rang and syria. later today the president is expect to sit down with king abdul a whose country is caught in the in middle of the crisis in the middle east. kay uses overnight as juvenile detention center in nashville, tennessee, guard attacked by teens who were running loose and authorities you november gained control of the situation. as susan mcginnes tells you latest trouble comes days after more than 30 teens escaped. >> reporter: about 20 teenagers broke out of their dorms and refused to return to their rooms overnight atwood land hills youth development center in nashville. some of the teens could be seen running around the campus with pipes, cameras caught one attacking a security guard. police moved in, surrounding the facility. police say some of the teens taking part in the unrest were involve in the massive broke out from the center earlier this week. monday, 32 young felons he escaped after they kick out metal panels and crawled under a weak spot in the perimeter fence. as of this morning six are still on the run. police say in one escape the facility during this latest disturbance. susan mcginnes for "eyewitness news" at cw philly. family of the american journalist steven sotoloff is breaking their silence for the very first time since his death. students gathered at the university of central florida in orlando to remember sotoloff, he studied there, until 2004 when he left for israel. and his grieving family issued a statement from their home. >> we will not allow our enemy to hold us hostage with the weapon that they possess, fear. our prayers go out to the family of james foley. like steve, he suffered but his jailers never broke him. >> isis is threatening to kill another hostage, british citizen david haines, says if the u.s. does not call off air strikes targeting militants in iraq. happening today the trial resumes for the woman accused of kidnapping a five-year old from bryant elementary in west philadelphia. cristina regusters is also accused of sexually abusing the girl that she kidnaped. yesterday the judge sent everyone home, after regusters lashed out when a relative accused regusters of abusing her as well. judge also tossed out regusters police statement because she was not read her rights. also happening today, fast food workers in philadelphia and more than a hundred other cities across the the country, they are expect to walk off the job. workers from burger king, duncan doughnuts, mcdonald's and wendy's in philadelphia and wilmington they plan to go on strike today. they want minimum wage raise todd $15 an hour. they will march from broad and girard, to mcdonald's at broad and arch. right now 7:09. get ready for a big grand opening. >> new dilworth park in center city will be unveiled in a few hours. grand opening of the newly renovated dilworth park in center city is looking good. philly's latest park is located at the foot of city hall. >> it stretches over 120,000 square feet including a huge lawn with trees, animated fountain. outdoor cafe too and later on an ice rink once it gets chilly. mayor nutter will kick off a ribbon cutting ceremony at 11:00 a.m. and full weekend of celebration will christened dilworth park. >> very nice. >> yes, i'll say it again, hard to say dilworth park and not plaza. >> got that right, congratulations to the men and women who put that together. days after two atlantic city casinos closed, more help is on the way for unemployment workers. >> also ahead a science experiment goes wrong inside a museum and sends several people to the hospital. >> unrest in ferguson missouri has quieted down but there is new problems for cities police department, we will tell thaw, kate? guys, it is another hot day across the the city of philadelphia, i am owe on twitter, david says thank you for the heat, love it. jane says it will be a great day in philly. you are both right. let me no what you think do you like it hot or do we have fall in the air. we mayay have both, i'll have tonight a few minutes. back on "eyewitness news" a look at damage left behind after a box truck slams in the house near this bar. the driver told the police that his brakes stopped working as he drove down the hill. home owner was sitting on the couch and impact push him in the wall. he escaped with just a few scratches. a museum experiment goes wrong hurting more than a dozen people this was the scene outside discovery museum in downtown reno. museum workers were conducting a routine experiment that was supposed to make a tornado of smoke when it malfunctioned. thirteen people including nine children were hurt. their injuries range from acid burns to smoke inhalation. fire fighters in boston spent the night putting out hot spots at this nine alarm fire. nearly a hundred people are home less after massive fire ripped through that apartment building near harvard. five fire fighters were also hurt baddeling the the flames, early estimates put damage at american $2 million. one month after an than unarmed teen was shot and killed by police department of justice is expected to announce a civil investigation in ferguson missouri's police department. investigators will look at arrest patterns and use of force by officers. missouri governor jay dixon lifted state of emergency after nights of violent clashes between police and protesters. well, there is more help for laid off casino workers in atlantic city. egg harbor township posted a information session for those affect by casino closings. it followed an event that drew hundreds to the atlantic city convention center. the event at the the convention center resumes this morning, representatives from several agencies, helped layoff workers apply for unemployment and other benefits. >> neglect that we're closing these doors and putting people out of work, will affect all of us. it is a time to come together and rally. >> meanwhile over in kennedy plaza contestant in the miss america pageant introduces themselves to the public. it will be chosen on september 14th. just past seven credit 13 we have our traffic and weather to go. >> good morning, erika, good morning. it is thursday, getting over the end of the week. first full week of september and felt more like august or july. temperatures have been up near 90, we are in the 90's this week, yesterday not as hot but today another warm one. beautiful start to the morning. great included formation there. over center city we are capturing here on sky cam three looking at center city philadelphia from our studios. storm scan three showing a nice picture and that high pressure is overhead, we are visualizing a dome keeping storms at bay one cold front moving through great lakes, another area have have storms over portions office coastal carolinas and virginia. this front will get in here, but not until later saturday. temperatures, comfortable, not too bad, cool in spots, especially in our outlying suburbs through lehigh valley, mount pocono five . 69 degrees in the philadelphia international airport. lets take a look at future weather. not expecting any rain. just some clouds through delaware beaches and mostly looking at full take of sunshine. tomorrow same story, warm humid, couple pop up showers and storms off to the south, in the afternoon but saturday, 2:00 p.m., showers and storms to the north and west. by 9:00 p.m. we will see a strong cold front coming through with a threat for locally strong or severe storms and that will usher in a change. for today mostly sunny warmer and more humid at 88. mainly clear and muggy. we are down to 07 for overnight low. jumping to sunday for eagles game. what a beautiful day. 77 degrees. on twitter slightly more footballish weather at least, footballish for first eagles game and sunday, monday and tuesday behind that front highs in the 70's, 10 degrees cooler, it will turnout fantastic starting for part two of the weekend. saturday is in the too bad either. >> not at all. >> that looks nice. >> torey is in the house. >> hey, hey, hey, hey, hi everybody, good morning. >> pick up tempo because delays out there will slow you you down. lets get outside and see how you are doing. not great. 422 shot at trooper road notice on the top that top road that is trooper and we have construction there. it is narrowing that roadway but then underneath is 422 and that is eastbound delay commuting from approaching trooper all the way down to 20 two. anticipate usual definitely something we are used to seeing during our morning rush. as we see something we are used to seeing. traveling on the eastbound side, this is your direction right here, making your way to downtown, let's map this out. let's pull it up and give you a better idea. eleven on the schuylkill. notice these sensors here, eastbound we are detecting delays from 202 down through vine street expressway you'll fine breaks but very little ones. westbound we will see pocket of volume approaching city avenue, southbound i-95, vine street expressway, blue route however you are moving good. no major delays for mass transit. >> with the alarm clocks, will be going off early for some students, more student go back to school today including chester and washington township. >> we have been asking to you see back to school pictures on twitter and, and, thank you for all of those. tina tucker tweeted this picture of ethan with a big smile on his face. he is ready to start third grade at this elementary school in springfield, thank you for that picture. great day of school, ethan. keep pictures coming, snap and share your pictures using hash tag, cbs-3 mornings and might see it right here on "eyewitness news". have a great year. >> um-hmm. new allegations are coming to light begins jerry sandusky. >> we will tell but that, plus this. >> reporter: unlikely venue for a rap video but boy is it a pur full within we will go inside this room coming up. but first here's is what coming up on the cw philly. uh-huhhicken, isn't it? mhm really good yep! do you like it? mhm remember the taste of kfc original recipe? it's really good. uh-huh so will they. a developing story leads the headlines on "eyewitness news" police are investigating the advertise coverry of a body inside a burning car in olney. it was found by police on lawrence street and could be connected to another shooting nearby. also breaking this morning, video shows teenagers attacking guard at the national juvenile detention center, that is where more than 30 teens escaped earlier this week, six of those escapees are still at large. two staff members at the center were injured in last nights confrontation. fast food workers in philadelphia, wilmington and dozens of other cities across the country will walk off the job as they want minimum wage raised to $15 an hour. lets give you a live picture from children's hospital of philadelphia where 13th annual 98.1, wogl, loves our kids radio-a-thon is underway. this is a two day event that benefits patient care programs at chop. all day from now until 7:00 p.m. you will hear stories of hope, courage and love from the brave families over there at chop. if you would like to make a donation call (866)266-8898 or go to wogl.com/radio-a-thon. we will chat with members of the breakfast club at 7:45 this morning. >> you cannot see a single person on the phone there, lets get those phones ringing. >> in your car after you get tour destination and get out this morning, place give them a shout. inside children's hospital is there a young man fighting cancer who is a you tube sensation. >> his coverage of two songs by rapper jay-z are hoping to shine light on the difficulties faced by cancer patients. he spoke with our carol erickson. >> reporter: music superstar jay-z thinks he is keeping it real but you want real, go behind this curtain to a you tube viral video superstar, and cancer patient, tomorrow gee, who can go head to head with anyone, even his own doctor on a jay-z inspired spoof called, bald so hard. >> ♪ >> reporter: nineteen year-old tom gillan lost his hair but not his lyric writing talent to cancer treatments for aml a form of leukemia. >> after my chemo ill have a week of really good days in whiz i will feel great and i can do a muse being video. >> can he ever, in less than a week his music video has 20,000 you tube views and counting but he is not counting on this for his name or fame recognition. he wants a cancer patient's daily life, and all of the chop staff like angela to get the headlines and credit. >> we are not just wittering in the hospital, we're fighting every day to get better. >> reporter: tomorrow's hospital room, since his april cancer diagnosis since his freshman year at ucla has ball so hard video propanol of the real ones too. dylan wants to meet jay-z some day mostly to have him spread word about cancer but the biggest hope tom has is to lose something, his hospital bracelet and all that goes with it. >> get out of here one day and opening of the doors and cutting up of the bracelet. >> reporter: he is on track to live that last music video frame and be discharge from the hospital in a few weeks. in philadelphia, carol erickson "eyewitness news" at cw philly. tommy gee, that is great. do your thing, man. >> so inspiring. >> no doubt bit. >> so clever too the way he did those lyrics. if you watch thaw will laugh out loud. >> very, very talented. good luck, man. we will take a short break you're watching "eyewitness news" at cw philly, good morning we will see new a bit. good morning, i'm ukee washington. lets get to your friday eve forecast, kate in the house in the weather center good morning. >> this is one of those days where kids back to school probably wish they weren't back to school yet. it feels like a fantastic summer day, sun shining, temperatures on their way up but right new comfortable. sixty-nine the at the airport. sixty-two in trenton. fifty-eight in allentown. chill in the air in our northern and western suburbs and through interior sections of south jersey, night and warm, 88 degrees, pair of eight's. more humid. tonight more muggy, mostly clear 70 degrees your overnight low. here's you're witness weather forecast and shore cast and split between summer and more fall-like weather. watch for thunderstorms late saturday and temperature drops and we are looking at comfort on sunday. good morning vittoria. >> good morning. talk about being stud in the mud, literally a truck, that was doing some clean up still from the made in america festival is stuck in the mud on kelly drive out bound and it is compromising the left-hand lane. things could get hairy around art museum area just note that. we have rush hour delays every where you would find them average speed 13 on i-95 southbound, ten on the schuylkill both directions there and 28 on the north bound side of 476, no major problems for mass transit. next update 7:55. up next on cbs this morning why your next flight may be more crowded. (prof. burke) the more you learn the more gaps you may find. like how you thought you were covered for this... (pirate) ahh, haha! (prof. burke) ...when you're really only covered for this. (pirate boy) ahhh, haha! (prof.burke)talk to farmers and get smarter about your insurance. ♪ we are farmers bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ developing right now, philadelphia police are trying to solve a mystery, a body found in a burning car in olney. >> good morning, everyone, "eyewitness news" reporter jane carabao joins us from police headquarters with the very latest on this investigation, jan. >> reporter: ukee and erika, what a gruesome discovery made by philadelphia police officers, they were on routine patrol in the olney section of philadelphia when they spotted this smoking car and the flames they called the fire department and once these flames were put out, they discovered that body inside so badly burned it has in the been identified this morning. question remains who is victim, how did he get inside that car and is his death related to a shooting that happened earlier just blocks away. those are main questions this morning. philadelphia police fund that man's body burning in that car wednesday night just before 8:00 on the 6100 block of north lawrence street. man was found on the passenger side of a black galante and pronounced dead on the scene. police say this man may have been a victim of the shooting that happened three blocks away earlier in the day. police had been investigating a shooting in 400 block have of roselyn street around 4:00 in the afternoon reported. no victim was found at that time but eyewitnesses on roselyn street described seeing that very same car, discovered three and a half hours later engulfed in flames. >> they said there was a male sitting in the passenger seat of a black mitsubishi who had been shot in the head and the driver, drove off east on roselyn street. >> reporter: medical examiner's office will conduct an autopsy to determine the id of this man and manner and cause have of death. they are looking to see if he was shot in the head as witnesses reported. as far as arrests go no arrestness this case at this time, police say eyewitnesses saw a heavy set man running away from the burning car but it is unclear if or how he is related to these incident. reporting from outside police headquarters, jane carabao for cbs-3 "eyewitness news". happening today within of the teens accused of assaulting a park ranger heads to court for a hearing. nineteen year-old curtis tanner is charge with assault, making terroristic assaults and endangering another person. a 17 year-old also faces charges in the videotaped beating in love park. also in court a police officer accused of bumping a man with his car and threatening him with a gun and shouting racial slurs. at ledge incident happened last october. officer edward sawicki the third faces charges including terroristic threats, simple assault, possession of an instrument of crime, harassment and disorderly conduct. coming up at 7:33. we will get our traffic and weather together. good morning, kate. >> good morning, everyone. it has been a nice start to the morning. temperatures in the 60's and good deal of sunshine already and it will get warmer, and brighter from here on out. lets take a look, beach looking open. you can stake out a decent spot in the sand getting your beach day started earlier. a lot of people had to come back from work and school this week. you are loving the weather. storm scan three right new shows storms off to the west over great lakes and back true chicago area, those are not getting here for now and not until saturday evening. that is when our next cold front will come through and high pressure remains in place. sixty-two in trenton. sixty-nine at the the airport. for your thursday across the region looking good 88 in the city. eighty-four down the shore. sunshine for new jersey beaches a few more clouds in delaware. in the poconos 79 degrees outside, sunny and pleasant, we have changes for weekend, your seven day in a bit, vittoria. we have a few changes that will affect your commute this morning like the vine street expressway we warned you dealing with rush hour delays, in the anymore. westbound side of the vine approaching the schuylkill expressway a four vehicle crash is blocking two left lanes. one vehicle here, behind and then here and then above. this is because of this incident and this blockage. it will only make matters worse if you are traveling on i95 is already jam. also the broad street line is experiencing delays. wilmington newark line is experiencing 20 minute delays inbound and traveling throughout the rest of the the region, 13 is your average on i-95, again that may drop because of the vine street expressway incident, ten on the schuylkill, 28 on 476 and traveling in horsham easton road at county line is closed as a result of the overturn gravel truck. your best alternate county line to mapel avenue. a new accuser is reportedly suing jerry sandusky and penn state. the associated press sites a report from the center daily times that a boy claims he was abused six years ago. he was reportedly a participant in the second mile charity a the time, the charity founded by the football coach. the charity is also named in the lawsuit. new information on the george washington bridge scandal to tell but. a summary provide to the panel investigating lane closures says police officers warned superior about the hazardous conditions. the officers said that they were told they were told not to talk bit on their radios. aids to new jersey governor chris christie ordered the lane closures as political pay back begins the democratic mayor of fort lee. governor christie continues his three day trade mission to mexico, he tweeted this photo of a meeting with mexican president pena. governor said he was looking forward to working with him for both new jersey and mexico's future. 7:35 let's get a check of business news. >> money watch's jill wagner joins us now. a mixed finish yesterday. what are investors watching this morning. >> reporter: good morning, erika and ukee. all about jobs here on wall street. we will learn how many people got hired in the private sector in august. tomorrow we will get bigger picture of the job market when government will release their monthly jobs report. we have seen really strong job growth and the best since before the great recession. the markets were mixed yesterday, apple stock fell four per september, the company dealing with still fall out from that celebrity hacking scandal. >> worthies disney is looking to build on the wild success of the film frozen. >> disney just can't seem to let it go. >> wow. >> frozen coming back. you know i cannot resist. it is just too easy. well, this time, frozen will be back with a short film called frozen fever. the follow-up will reunite els a and staff for ana birthday celebration. frozen has brought in a billion dollars in world wide sales and that means it is mess successful animated films of all time and we are not even talking elsa costumes and gadgets and stuff that the kid want. huge money maker. >> i cannot imagine how many el sa and ana we will see this halloween. >> yes good thanks, jill. >> for more i tips and information from money watch.com head to our web site at cbs philly.com. debate takes center stage in montgomery county. state representative mike verb hosted forum at the lower providence township building. he is supporting a bill legalizing medical marijuana in pennsylvania. the panel included two mothers who say their sons with benefit if the measure passes. medical marijuana is already legal in new jersey and delaware. septa does some name dropping, market east station in center city will be jefferson station. yesterday we told you thomas jefferson university happies buying the naming rights. you can see new name is covered up on signs right now, official announcement comes at 10:00 o'clock this morning over a couple hours. we are getting a look at a unusual x-ray, wait until you hear what doctors found inside a dog's belly. >> how many they have found. >> yes, you got that right. neighborhood is on edge one of the world's deadliest snakes is on the lose lust there we will latest as authorities try to catch a cobra. don't envy that job. >> not at all, erika. september sizzle continues for thus week, temperatures near 90 today, tomorrow and then gannon saturday and changeses for part two of the weekend in time for first eagles game i'll have your full forecast when we come righ hunt is underway for a dangerous snake. >> albino cobra escaped this holiday weekend. david begnot has details from thousand oaks, california. >> residents say it is most surprising threat this suburban community thousand oaks has faced 5-foot long albino cobra on the loose. >> neighbor comes walking over do you own a pet cobra. i'm like did you just say cobra. >> zach mcmilan's family dog was bitten on the neck after cobra came in the yard. >> it was around 6:30 labor day. his owner heard him barking in the backyard. she tried to call him back. as she looked out she saw white snake in the attack posture. >> reporter: he is doing well after being rush to the animal hospital on monday. animal control and fish, wild life agents spent hours canvassing several blocks on the hunt for the illusive snake and owner. >> initiately we told it belongs to a particular person. denied owning it. >> reporter: rick eddie was last person to see the cobra crossing the road escaping in the field. >> i thought it was a piece of rope. i said that is a snake. >> reporter: dozens of residents like peggy solomon are helping to look for a cobra which is illegal to own without a permit in southern california. >> it is incredibly irresponsible to have such ana mal. >> reporter: officials have located anti venom from the san diego zoo just in case the cobra attacks another victim. david begin the for "eyewitness news" on the cw philly. >> that is scary. >> i can't imagine volunteering to look for a snake. >> they necessity what they are doing. >> you ever wonder what happens tour missing socks. >> if so check your pet. a portland area family found their socks inside their great dane's stomach, look at those that were found. all 43 and a half in a variety of colors and sizes. disgusting advertise conferry was made after three-year old great dane started vomiting repeatedly, he was rush in surgery and those socks were removed. he was sent home with the warning, keep him away from the laundry basket. >> um, um, um. >> poor dog eating all those socks wondering where did the socks go, what did you do with the socks. >> we get our socks drag all around the house. the dogs don't eat them. >> mine is on will be down in a basket in a closet that closes. taking no chances. >> that is right. >> little momma loves laundry. >> my mother-in-law put a tie around her dog's neck, the dog ate the tie and got all wrapped around his intestines and all that stuff. dogs like to eat apparel, who knew. i don't know is what delicious bit but i don't question it i anymore. lets see is what happening today. i have nothing negative to say, sunnies shining, few high clouds out there, it is more steamy then yesterday but all we are complaining about is a few points on the dew point. we cannot complain too much. i'm hearing from a lot of you saying we like the heat. summer is here. sticking around. look at our steamy september pattern. high pressure overhead today will continue to be overhead moving further east tomorrow but still has that warm glow in the southwest. stray thunderstorm tomorrow. bigger deal on the saturday. we will see some sun in the first half, down the shore get your beach plans in saturday trying to get another shore weekend but saturday evening, a strong cold front passes through bringing some strong storms and then we will clear it out and cool it down on sunday just in time for the eagles game. for today mostly sunny warm and slightly more humid up to 88. tonight more muggy as well low around 70 and mainly clear. here is you're witness weather seven day forecast and shore cast we are hat through saturday, warm, steam which highs near 90, saturday evening those storms come through and look at the difference, upper 70es, sunny and fantastic sunny, monday and tuesday. so we will go from well above average to slightly below average. all and all that works out too average. that is how we get our norms also. enjoy beautiful sun today. see how roads are shaping up and we will check with vittoria. >> what we are looking at is video from earlier on an overturn gravel truck in horsham. this occurred an hour and a half ago and note thinks overturn truck, southbound side of easton road approaching county line road. they are still dealing with the clean up of this incident and therefore both south and northbound easton road in this area is still being affect. please note closures in that area mapel avenue is a good way to swing around to continue on to easton. just keep that in mind, in horsham. we will take you over to the vine street expressway where this will put definitely a damper on your commute this morning. this is a four vehicle crash westbound on the vine street expressway approaching the schuylkill. penndot and police are on the scene. one lane squeezing by. you can only imagine what that will do to i-95 as well. ninety-five southbound you are slow from that down to the vine. that will grow as a result of that incident. it is all connect. taking a look at 476 we have disable vehicle compromising right-hand lane on the southbound side of 476 approaching the schuylkill and be mine full of the broad street line running with delays due to equipment problems and delays on the wilmington newark line averaging 20 minutes inbound, erika and ukee. thirteenth annual wogl radio-a-thon is underway. >> right now breakfast club is broadcasting live from the children's hospital of philadelphia co host, my man frank lewis joins us to tell us more about the special event, good morning my friend. >> good morning, ukee erika how are you. >> how are things down there at the hospital. tell us about is what surrounding you right now, man, it is another good feeling. >> it is so fun, you are a catching phrase in the morning is it is all about family. truer word were never spoken at children's hospital. it is all about family, the family of philadelphia, families of delaware valley, having the number one children's hospital in america right here, and thinks our 13th year doing it. if you get a second today or tomorrow we'd love to hear from you on the phones. we have great volunteers, now answering phones. call is at (866)266-8898 or donate on line at wogl to the come. >> we have heard that all year long stories that are collected, children are spoke when, families are spoke went to get these great stories. have any stood out with you that you want to share. >> actually all of them are unique in their own separate way and special,'s and one of the major catch phrases is hepp lives here. whether you hear these stories when we're airing them on wogl and wog. l dot come when you sianni hear these stories how these kids pull through and how they succeed and pull out and survive at children's hospital f it doesn't give you hope and inspiration i don't know what will. >> for folks who are tuning into wogl for music, tell them exactly what they will be hearing throughout the the day, especially when it comes to our efforts there at chop. >> well, we are playing music, obviously today and tomorrow. we will kick it off at 6:00 a.m. and goes until 7:00 p.m. we are still playing music throughout the day but you'll hear stories of inspiration. we have different celebrities from the philadelphia area stopping by. we have big five basketball coach that he is will stop by hopefully you'll be moved by what you hear. this is my 13th year doing this as i said and it never gets old and each and every story and every situation still inspires me and really does touch you. >> frank, how has it grown in your eyes since you have been there all along how has it grown since the first year to today's event. what is the biggest thing. >> we used to do this in the shopping mall and they moved us here to children's hospital to do the radio-a-thon it has grown so much from the support of the community, from the things that we have going on here right here in the actual children's hospital, it has grown so much over the years and the most important part it is growing financially and that is thanks to the wonderful people in the delaware vale that is what it is all about frank lewis, thank so much, my man, thanks buddy, we will see you again. >> take care, guys guys in sports the fightin phillies are off tonight but they face a weekend series in washington beginning tomorrow against the first place nationals. yesterday's finally in atlanta, phillies looking for the sweep. grady sizemore's two run home run this is third inning tied the game at three runs appease. ben reveer still hot scored ahead have sizemore. he leads the league in hitting right now. miguel alfredo gonzales made his major league debut and allowed two runs in the inning of work. braves win this within your final score was seven-four atlanta. it is officially football season after tonight's game one kick off in seattle. seahawks host the packers in the first game of the season. it is on: we will get you ready for eagles season open they are sunday at # 1:30 on our sister station cbs-3. it is toyota sunday kick off at noon, it is nfl today and at 1:00 on our sister station cbs-3 jacksonville/birds live from links on field. foot the ball frenzy is coming up soon. do you load our audio road show app to click on the friday football frenzy spot poll and vote for our game of the week this weeks choices are conestoga and ridley, west catholic at north penn or abington at plymouth white harsh. we will let you know game of the week later today and sports director beasley reese will be live at the game friday night. still ahead this morning joan rivers is out of intensive care we will have the latest on the ailing comedian's heart health. also ahead the stars of boardwalk empire hit the red carpet, hear from steve, the start of the show, coming up next i in the word. stars of boardwalk empire hit the red carpet and new development in the condition of jones rivers. miranda lambert leads nominations for cma awards. susan marquez has those stories and more in eye on entertainment. >> jones river is out of intensive care, comedian's daughter melissa says her mother is now in a private hospital room where she's being kept comfortable. eighty-one year-old rivers went in cardiac arrest in insuring last week during a vocal cord procedure. miranda lambert is front runner for this years cma awards. country star has nine nominations, including entertainer of the year, and album of the year. platinum miranda lambert. >> reporter: bentley came in second with five nominations. insuring laid out red carpet for the premiere of the final season of hbo's boardwalk empire. >> such a nice celebration, five years at work, of course, it is sad but i'm also happy. >> steve buscemi is back as thompson running atlantic city with an iron fist. final season, begins september 7th. stars from the broadway musical, momma mia paid a visit to new york's madam toso's to unveil wax figures of ab ana the swedish ban. judy maclean says wax characters are spot on. >> you do know, you want to see how much, you look like them in person. i cannot get over that saying they look bizarre. >> momma mia has been on broadway 13 years and one of the most successful musicals of all time. that is your eye on entertainment, susan marquez, cbs news, los angeles. oscar winner george clooney is running to directing. variety reports clooney will collect hack attack a have movie based on nick davis account of the british phone hacking scandal. shooting scheduled to begin next year. they include monument's men and good night and good luck. >> he has done so much. >> he really has. >> no question about that, very talented. getting married. >> yes, he is getting married good morning, i'm erika von tiehl. i want to get your forecast right now. kate bilo in for katie and how are we looking, kate. >> we are looking fantastic, erika, starting off beautiful. afternoon will be just as nice if not even better than that in the morning. if you don't mind heat in the air it is still summer. get cold soon enough. we will even eye this while we have it. mostly sunny, slightly more warm and humid. 88 degrees. wind five to 10 miles an hour, and, 7:28. tonight, mainly clear but more muggy 70 degrees our overnight low. and eyewitness weather seven day forecast and shore cast, stay hot, highs near 90 friday and saturday. watch for strong storms, saturday evening and then cooler refreshing air mass sweeps in starting on sunday. good morning vittoria. >> good morning everyone. things are not looking great on roadways today, specifically anyone trying to get to center city philadelphia vine straight expressway a four vehicle crash approaching schuylkill compromising left-hand lane and starting to severely affect 95. traveling on i-95 in the northbound direction, we have a major accident, seven vehicle crash, approaching area of cottman avenue not doing great, sun glare and high volume watch out, erika. next update 8:25. next up on cbs this morning samsung's new phones a game changer, your local news continues with us on the traffic and weather on these cw sometimes, caring for your neighbors means going the extra mile. when our patient, susan, mentioned her dad couldn't make it in to pearle vision to get his eyes checked... we went to him. and we realized, if he had trouble getting new glasses... he probably wasn't the only one. to us, eye care is about living dr. pearles legacy. building a trusting relationship with the person behind the eyes. this is genuine eye care, right in your neighborhood. this is pearle vision. ring ring! progresso! it's ok that your soup tastes like my homemade. it's our slow simmered vegetables and tender white meat chicken. apology accepted. i'm watching you soup people. make it progresso or make it yourself. and now try new progresso chili. slow-simmered, homemade taste. good morning, everyone in the news philadelphia police are investigating a mysterious murder after a body was found in the burning car. >> "eyewitness news" reporter jane carabao joins us from police headquarters and we're hearing police hope to id the victim this morning. what do you know. >> reporter: erika and ukee, that is right. police will work with the medical examiner's office to identify this victim. they will have to perform an autopsy because this victim was so badly burned, he is unrecognizable. it was a gruesome discovery made by philadelphia police, late yesterday, they have been working with eyewitnesses to peace this murder mystery together. a gruesome discovery, on the 6100 block of north lawrence street in olney has shaken this philadelphia neighborhood. a man, found dead inside of a burning car, this car, a black mitsubishi galante. >> the body was burnt beyond recognition, we cannot tell at this time age or a race, it is a john doe at this time. >> reporter: philadelphia police are ones to spot burning car just before 8:00 o'clock wednesday night on routine patrol. victim was found on the passenger side and pronounced dead on the scene. investigators believe he may have been involve in the shoo

Transcripts For LINKTV Journal 20140304

is a grotesque monster who mishandles everything he touches and everyone he knows. where traditional drama seriously deals with plots against a ruler or the downfall of a kingdom, ubu goes to work with water pistol and kazoo. where traditional drama shows the whispered conspiracy of a queen inciting her husband to greater power, ubu roi shows a blowsy-looking, overstuffed woman hurling obscenities as undignified as any uttered by her husband. and where traditional drama carefully builds a plot from opening scene to final resolution, ubu roi jumps around in time and space, deliberately episodic, showing that plays should be constructed to match a world that doesn't make sense. at first glance, you may be amused by this comedy and yet startled to find that it has a place in the history of the theater. the date of its composition, 1896, helps to explain why ubu roi is important. it was new, different and shocking. as you watch it, keep that date in mind: 1896, when ubu roi was first performed in a theater which rocked with audience protest. in the years which followed, this play, written by a young frenchman, has been credited with having been a major influence on the theater of the absurd. and the outrageous events of the 20th century have made ubu roi seem prophetic and ominous as well as funny. great tragedy, telling the stories of great men, depends on a belief in order. the hero suffers because he has made an overwhelming error in judgment, or because he has incurred the anger of the gods. in either case, the hero is great, dignified and significant. as a schoolboy writing ubu roi in its first version when he was only 15, alfred jarry knew the great tragedies well enough to make fun of them. for instance, lady macbeth encouraging her husband to murder king duncan might look and sound like this. nor time, nor place did then adhere, yet you would make both. they have made themselves and that their fitness now does unmake you. i have given suck, and know how tender it is to love the babe that milks me. i would, while it was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed the brains out, had i so sworn as you have done to this. - if we should fail. - we fail. but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. when duncan is asleep, whereto the rather shall his day's hard journey soundly invite him. his two chamberlains will i with wine and wassail so convince that memory, the warder of the brain, shall be a fume, and the receipt of reason a limbeck only. when in swinish sleep their drench natures lie as in a death, what cannot you and i perform upon the unguarded duncan? what, not put upon his spongy officers, who shall bear the guilt of our great quell? bring forth men children only. [music] in the parody of the scene in ubu roi, the couple are decidedly less dignified. similarly, when king duncan rewarded macbeth with a new title, royalty is treated ceremoniously, like this. to contend against those honors deep and broad wherewith your majesty loads our house. give me your hand. conduct me to mine host, we love him highly and shall continue our graces toward him. by your leave, hostess. having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks when you-- in ubu roi, a similar scene is like an upside down version. dignity is as lacking here as in a groucho marx movie or a punch and judy show. where shakespeare's characters speak in blank verse, exploring the whole range of human emotion, jarry's shout out crude threats and insults. and my god, madam, you really have come too far. it is clear that ubu roi burlesques shakespeare, but it is unlike the drama of its own time too. during an age when ibsen and chekhov were commenting in their own daring ways on the beliefs of their society, no one was quite like jarry. other playwrights put daring words into the speeches of their characters. jarry provided characters who are distortions of people, anatomic miracles and sartorial disasters. ibsen, with his well-made play, suggests that once social laws and attitudes are changed, the world may be an orderly place for reasonable people to live. other playwrights examine the inner lives of characters or puzzled over a philosophy worth believing in. only jarry, by emphasizing the base, brute-like passions of cartoon characters in a chaotic play punctuated by rude music, suggests that humanity isn't worth taking that seriously after all. as you watch ubu roi, you will be amused, if not startled, by the language and the abrupt changes in scene and costume. the convention of announcing an entire army through use of a toy sign is one innovation. you will see other deliberate effects designed to destroy any sense of realism. but then again, whoever said that plays have to look real? [music] pshit. oh, what a nasty word. pa ubu, you're a dirty old man. watch out and don't bash your lot in, ma ubu. it's not me you want to do in, old ubu, oh, no. it's someone else for the high jump. by my green candle, i'm not with you. how come? do you mean to say that you are content with your lot? pshit, madam, yes. by god, i am perfectly satisfied. who wouldn't be? captain in the dragoons, aide-de-camp to king wenceslas, decorated with the order of red eagle of poland, ex-king of aragon. you can't get higher than that. so what? having been king of aragon, you are content to ride in reviews at the head of 50 bumpkins armed with billhooks, when you could get your loaf measured for the crown of poland? huh? i don't understand a word you're saying, my love. how stupid can you get? by my green candle, king wenceslas is still alive. but isn't he? and even if he does kick the bucket, hasn't he masses of children? why shouldn't you finish off the whole bunch and put yourself in their place? now, by god, madam, you really have gone too far. and you shall be, very shortly, beaten up, good and proper. you great slob. if i'm beaten up, who is going to put a patch on the seat of your pants? so what? haven't i a bum like everyone else's? if i were you, i should try sitting that bum on a throne. you could become enormously rich, eat as many bangers as you like, and roll through the streets in a fine carriage. if i were king, i'll get them to make me a great bonnet, like the one i used to wear in aragon, which those lousy spaniards had the cheek to pinch off of me. can't you go get yourself an umbrella and a guard officer's greatcoat that would come right down to your feet. that's more than i can resist. pshit the bugger, and bugger the pshit. if i catch him alone on a dark night, he's for it. well done, pa ubu. now you're talking like a man. oh, no. me, a captain in the dragoons to brutally murder the king of poland? i'd rather die. oh, pshit. so you want to stay as poor as a church mouse, hmm, mr. ubu? god's wounds, madam. pshit. i'd rather be poor as the stingiest mouse, than rich as the cruelest cat. and your bonnet and your umbrella and your officer's greatcoat? and then what, you old cow? [music] pfart, pshit, what a stingy bastard. but pfart, pshit. i think i've got him pshitting just the same. thanks be to god and myself, within a week, i may be queen of poland. [music] you're looking exceptionally ugly tonight, madam. is it because we have company? pshit. i'm rather hungry. i think i'll bury my teeth in this bird, a chicken. i fancy. not bad at all. you wretch. what are our guests going to eat? there's plenty left for them. i shan't touch another thing. go look out of the window, ma ubu, and see if our guests have arrived. ah, here comes captain manure and his merry men. old ubu, what are you eating now? nothing, nothing, just a spot of veal. the veal. he's eaten my veal, the lout. the veal. help. help. by my green candle, i'll gouge your eyes out. [music] good day, gentlemen. we have been awaiting your arrival with impatience. good day, madam. but where is mr. ubu? here i am. here i am. by my green candle, pshit. i shouldn't have thought i'm so easy to miss. good day, mr. ubu. well, madam, and what succulent dishes have you prepared for us today? polish broth, spareribs of polish bison, veal, chicken and hound pie, parson's noses from the royal polish turkeys, charlotte russe... that's enough. isn't there any more? iced pudding, salad, fruit, cheese, boiled beef, jerusalem pfartichokes and cauliflower a la pshit. do you think i'm an oriental potentate, shelling out all that money? take no notice of him. he's off his rocker. get away. i shall sharpen my teeth on your shanks. why don't you eat up and shut up, old ubu? here, try the polish broth. oh, what muck. you're right. hasn't quite come off. you ill-mannered louts, what do you want? i've got an idea. back in a jiffy. gentlemen, let's try the veal. oh, excellent. what there is left of it. and now, for the parson's nose. absolutely delicious. - hurrah for ma ubu. - hurrah for ma ubu. and soon you'll be adding, hurrah for pa ubu. try a taste of that. pass me the spare ribsbs of polish bison, mother, and i'll dish them out. get out, all of you. i know something i want to say to captain manure. but we haven't had our dinner yet. you've had your dinner. get out, i say, all of you. not you, manure. are you still here? by my green candle, i'll do you all in with a vice grip. go out. get out, all of you. - get out, i say. - help. rescue. men defend yourselves. - i don't have to say it again. - you run-- - get out. - you stupid old skunk. do i make myself plain? well, good, they've gone. that's better. now, we can relax. well, captain, did you enjoy your dinner? very good, sir, except for the pshit. oh, i didn't think the pshit was too bad. a little of what you fancy, they say. captain manure... ay. i am going to create you duke of lithuania. but i thought you were completely broke, mr. ubu. in a few days, with your help, i shall be king of poland. you mean you will assassinate wenceslas? the bugger's no fool, he's guessed it. if it's a matter of killing wenceslas, i'm with you. i'm his deadly enemy, and i can answer for my men. oh, manure, i love you dearly for that. oh, god, man, how you stink. don't you ever wash? occasionally. never. i'm going to tread on your toes. fat lump of pshit. well, manure, that's all for now. but i swear to you, on the head of ma ubu, that i'm going to make you duke of lithuania. - but-- - silence, my angel. [music] master ubu. i have resolved to reward you for your many services as captain of dragoons. and i therefore proclaim you count of sandomir. oh, sire, i'm speechless with gratitude. tut. think nothing of it. but be sure to be present tomorrow morning at our grand review. i shall be there, sir. in the meantime, kindly deign to accept this magnificently decorated kazoo. you don't expect me to start playing a kazoo at my age, surely? oh, well, i'll give it to young boggerlas. [laughter] now, who is this ubu creature? well, i'll bugger off. help. rescue. i've ruptured my gut and smashed my rattle box. oh, ubu, are you hurt? yes, badly. and i shall certainly croak. what will become of ma ubu? oh, we shall provide for her upkeep. you are most kind. [music] ungenerous sire, but you will be liquidated just the same, king wenceslas. [music] well, my good friends, it's high time we planned our little conspiracy. let each give his counsel. with your permission, we will begin with mine. speak, mr. ubu. very good, my friends. i am of the opinion that we should simply poison the king by stuffing his lunch with arsenic. [laughter] the moment he starts the grousing and scuffing he'll drop dead, and i shall be king. [laughter] you wicked old thing, you. why? you don't like that idea? all right, then. let's hear from manure. my suggestion is that i fetch him a good wallop with my sword and cleave him from top to toe. very -- and gallant. but, but, supposing he kicks out at you. oh, just a moment. for his grand parades, he wears iron boots, which can be jolly painful. if i'd half a chance, i'd snitch on the lot of you. that way, i'd be rid of the whole beastly business and very likely pick up a reward into the bargain. oh, the traitor, the coward, the rotten mean skunk. - oh, down with old ubu. - down with ubu. shut that ruckus, gentlemen, or i'll turn you all in. very well, i'll take all the risks on your behalf. captain manure, is it agreed that your job is simply to split the king down the middle? wouldn't be better if we all jumped on him at once, striving and yelling, in that way we have a better chance of winning over the troops. no, look. i'll tell you what. i'll try to tread on his toe. he'll kick out of me, i'll yell, pshit, and that will be the signal for you all to hurl yourselves upon him. and then the moment he's dead, you'll pinch his crown and scepter. and i and my men will go in pursuit of the royal family. leave a sharp lookout for young boggerlas. one moment, gentlemen, we are forgetting an indispensable ceremony. we must all take an oath to quit ourselves like men. but how can we? we haven't got a priest. my old woman will be the priest. well, so be it. do you all swear, on the head of madam ubu, to kill the king good and proper? we swear it. long live old ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] really, sire, are you quite determined to attend this parade? and pray, madam, why not? i'll tell you once more. no. i saw him in a dream smiting you with mass weapons and throwing you into the vistula. and an eagle, like that which figures in the arms of poland, placing the crown on his head. ah-choo! on whose head? old ubu's. oh, ridiculous. master ubu is a most worthy gentleman who would let himself be dragged apart by wild horses rather than betray my interests. how wrong you are. silence, young rascal. and as for you, madam, to show you what complete faith i have in master ubu, i shall attend the grand parade dressed as i am, without sword or breastplate. oh, what fatal rashness. i shall never see you again alive. oh. no. come, ladislas. come, boleslas. [music] may god and the great saint nicholas protect you. ah, noble master ubu, enter the royal enclosure with your followers. and we will review the march pass together. well, shall we? coming, sire. [music] ah! there's my regiment of danzig horse-guards. oh, what a magnificent spectacle. you really think so? looks like something the cat brought in. look at that one. you there. when did you last have a shave, you lousy slob? but this fellow is very well turned out. what on earth is the matter with you, old ubu? this! [stomps] treason! [stomps] pshit! after him! oh! help! help! help, holy virgin! help! i'm dying! help! i have the crown! death to the traitors! [chanting ubu, ubu, ubu] help! help! those maniacs have forced their way into the palace. they're coming up the stairs. may god protect us. that vile ubu, wretch, rascal. i just like to get my hands on him. i... you would, would you? and what, brave boggerlas, would you do to me? by god's will, i shall defend my mother to the death. the first man to make a step forward is good as dead. oh, get me out of here. i'm scared. boggerlas, surrender. here's one for you, you dog. that's the spirit, boggerlas. keep it up. we promise to save your life, boggerlas. i brought the army you broken laggards, swine blackguards, mercenary scum. oh, bother, but i'll still win in the end. mother, escape by the secret staircase. and you, my son, what about you? i'll follow you. capture the queen. pshit, she's got away. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. ubu. as for you, you little lamb. by god's will, here's my vengeance. mother, i follow you. [whistles "close call"] behold me, monarch of this fair land. i've already got a guts ache with overeating. and soon, they're going to bring in my great bonnet. we owe a great debt of gratitude to the duke of lithuania. - who is that? - why, captain manure. for god's sake, woman, don't you ever mention that slob to me. as far as i'm concerned, he can whistle for his dukedom. he's not gonna get it. you're making a great mistake, pa ubu. he'll turn against you. oh, i should worry. so far as i'm concerned, he and boggerlas can go and jump in the lake. bring out the chest for nobles. and the slash half on nobles, and the bolt hook for nobles, and the account book for nobles. and then bring in the nobles. for pity's sake restrain yourself, pa ubu. gentlemen, i have the honor to inform you that as a gesture to the economic welfare of my country, i have decided to liquidate the nobility and confiscate their goods. horror to all of us. soldiers and citizens defend us. bring on the first noble and pass me the bolt hook. those who are condemned to death, i shall push through this door here, where they will fall down into the bleed pit chambers and then proceed to the gas room where they will be debrained. what's your name, you snob? count of vitepsk. what's your income? three million rix dollars. guilty. [music] this is base brutality. you there, what's your name? come on, answer, you snob. grand duke of posen. excellent! excellent! i couldn't ask for a better. down the hatch. you there, what's your name, ugly mug? the duke of courlande and of the cities of riga, ravel, and mitau. oh, very good. i shall ask the lot. that's all? get down the hatch. what's your name, number four? prince of podolia. what's your income? i'm bankrupt. take that for disobedience. now get down the hatch. number five, what's your name? margrave of thorn, count palatine of pollock. that's not very much. are you sure that's all you are? it's been good enough for me. well, it's better than nothing, i suppose. get down the hatch. what's eating you, ma ubu? you're too bloodthirsty, pa ubu. i'm getting rich. now i'm going to have him read out the list of what i've got. registrar, read out my list and my titles and possessions. count of sandomir, count... the princedoms first, stupid bugger. princedom of podolia, grand-duchy of posen, duchy of courlande, county of sandomir, county of vitepsk, palatinate of pollock, margravate of thorn. - go on. - that's the lot. what do you mean that's the lot? oh, well, i'm going to make some laws next. hmm, that will be worth watching. i shall begin by reforming the judicial code, and then turn my attention to financial matters. [music] we are strongly opposed to any change. so, pshit. in the first place, judges will no longer receive a salary. and what shall we live on? we are all poor men. you'll keep the fines you impose, and the possessions of those you condemn to death. - that's unthinkable. - infamous. - scandalous. - contemptible. we refuse to judge under such conditions. down the hatch with the judges. what have you done, pa ubu? who will administer justice now? why, i will. you'll see how well it will work out. yes, it will be a right old mess. shut your gob, clownish female. i'm now going to turn my attention to financial matters. [music] in the first place, i intend to pocket half the tax receipts. - but that's ridiculous. - quite absurd. it doesn't make sense. are you making fun of me? get down the hatch, all of you. [music] calm down, lord ubu. kings are not supposed to behave like that. you're butchering the whole world. so, pshit. no more justice, no more financial system. fear nothing, my sweet child. i shall go around the villages myself and collect the taxes. - hey, did you hear the news? - huh? the king is dead, and all the nobles as well. what's more, pa ubu has seized the throne. and it seems they're going to raise all the taxes and that pa ubu is gonna make the rounds to collect them. great god. what will become of us? look. sounds like someone is knocking at the door. open up, pshit, in the names of saint john,

Transcripts For WJZ Eyewitness 11PM News 20130126

announcer: ethan hawke explores the black heart of the scottish play. hawke: you can watch polanski's "macbeth," you can watch orson welles' "macbeth," and of course the trick is then you have to forget all that and live it. man: ethan, over there is dunsinane hill. history is always written by the victors. as the loser, macbeth is invented as a tyrant. "it is a tale told by an idiot, "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing." announcer: "macbeth" on "shakespeare uncovered." captioning made possible by friends of nci major funding for "shakespeare uncovered" is provided by... the national endowment for the humanities... exploring the human endeavor... the howard and abby milstein foundation. shakespeare is an enduring treasure of western art. bringing new audiences to his work is a key reason we're funding "shakespeare uncovered." please join us in supporting your public television station. announcer: major funding is also provided by: rosalind p. walter; the polonsky foundation... virginia and dana randt; the luesther t. mertz charitable trust; and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. ethan hawke, voice-over: when you think of violent murders, brutal crimes, and nightmarish horrors, you might think of a big city, you might think of manhattan. or if you're like me you might think a little bit past that to about a 400-year-old play named "macbeth." this is the story of one man who will kill his way to win the scottish throne. "macbeth" is a play that you're not even supposed to say the name of it because even the name of it is supposed to conjure witches and the dregs of the universe. this tale of serial murder is the darkest and strangest of all shakespeare's plays. the play may be 400 years old, but anybody paying attention can recognize everybody in it. they can recognize the evil in the heart of man. ohh. hawke: it's probably never drawn a more beautiful portrait of a broken, greedy heart than the bloody heart of "macbeth." maybe foolishly, it's a part i've always wanted to play. i feel like if you're gonna play one of these parts you have to... seek out some truth about it. when shakespeare wrote "macbeth," he explored the darker side of the human psyche. macbeth will become a traitor, a butcher, a serial killer and yet what's so powerful is that shakespeare hasn't written a play about a monster. he's written a play about a man. "macbeth" explores our capacity for violence and evil, and for an actor that can be scary. i never wanted to play it. when i was younger i was petrified of the play because, to be honest, i thought i might go crazy if i did it but now for some reason, i'm not as scared of it as i was and i'm not saying that i'm braver. it's just i--i realize that there is that aspect to life and it isn't really worthwhile to pretend it's not there. playing this part would mean asking myself some tough questions so the essential thing for me would be to work out how to prepare for it. i think--and this is something that nobody really wants to say, but the best way that i can ever prepare for a part is to surround myself with really smart people. i'd seek advice and wisdom from historians, scholars, directors who have their own knowledge and experience. the other thing i would do to begin work on this is watch as many as i could find. you can watch polanski's "macbeth," you can watch orson welles' "macbeth," and of course the trick is then you have to forget all that and live it and make it real for yourself. welles: it isn't often one gets a chance to do these plays. this is great. i've done this one. through my long career i've played it on both sides of the atlantic, i've done a textbook on it. i don't know what i haven't done about this play except do it as well as i'd like to. it's a great feeling to be dealing with material which is better than yourself, that you know that you can never live up to. it's weird to see such ego and such humility at the same time. what a bizarre guy orson welles is. however you play macbeth this is the story. so foul and fair a day i have not seen. hawke: macbeth starts out as a warrior rewarded by the king for his bravery. the king hath happily received, macbeth, the news of thy success. we are sent to bring thee from our royal master thanks. macbeth: speak. hawke, voice-over: then 3 witches or weird sisters as shakespeare calls them, prophesy that he himself will be king. all hail macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter. hawke: macbeth and his wife decide to make it happen. he murders the king himself and then all other possible rivals. ohh! there's so much violent gore in the play, but it's the supernatural element these witches or weird sisters that trigger macbeth's dark dissent into murder. their prophecy will fire his ambition. when shall we 3 meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? when the hurly-burly's done when the battle's lost and won. that will be ere the set of sun. where the place? upon the heath. there to meet with macbeth. the funny thing about the witches is it's just the most genius piece of writing. the language is so evocative and strange. macbeth will murder to satisfy his ambition but the evil inspiration comes from the witches. they tell him he will be king, so the current king must die. that fatal decision is the pivot of the drama of "macbeth." first witch: when shall we 3 meet again in thunder, lightning, or in rain? hawke: at the globe in london, a replica of the theater shakespeare actually worked in they are running the opening scene. where the place? upon the heath. there to meet with macbeth. fair is foul... all: and foul is fair: hover through the fog and filthy air. most of this scene here you don't speak. so the rest of the--if you do turn back... hawke: now macbeth and his close comrade banquo encounter the witches for the first time. all right. let's see it one more time. ok. so foul and fair a day i have not seen... hawke: the witches deliver their prophecy. the thane will bypass his rivals to become king. macbeth's reaction will drive the action of the rest of the play, but had he always desired the crown, or have the witches planted that idea? all hail macbeth! hail to thee thane of glamis! all hail macbeth! hail to thee thane of cawdor! all hail macbeth! thou shalt be king hereafter! heh heh heh! man: it's like reading a horoscope, which i never do and the horoscope saying, "this is going to happen to you," and however sensible you might be and however much you might not believe in horoscopes, this thing has been planted in your head and we're quite susceptible to that, i think. hawke, voice-over: what's so unsettling about this play is that the one characteristic that undoes macbeth is simply ambition. what's scary about is what lives inside each one of us, and, you know, yeah, not all of us want to be king, but, you know, there's a ton of actors out there that would lie, cheat, and kill their mother for an oscar or an olivier award, whatever it is, you know. we have these ambitions, and we want to set ourselves apart so much that we're willing to forego all kindness and all the best parts of ourselves in the name of achieving the goal. as we've seen, the trigger for macbeth comes from witches. today, everyone's going to react to that differently, but i'd like to know what shakespeare's audience made of witches. this is an age in one sense of witchcraft. everyday lives are injected with... hawke: champion is an expert in the 17th century world. champion: for the early modern audience, witches are everywhere. they would have read about it, the would have sung about it discussed with their neighbors in the alehouses. she may not have been caught or she may have been executed, but you would know about a witch. so the magic and the witchcraft and the ghosts in shakespeare are not sort of frilly extras making it all a little bit more exotic. these are very powerful languages that the audience would have connected with almost straightaway. hawke: in shakespeare's time writing about witchcraft had major political implications. witches were taken seriously by almost everyone even by the king himself. in 1597, king james i had written a book on demonology correcting and reworking some passages, and he did so because he was convinced that witches could bring down the divinely ordained monarchy. so this play about killing a king was clearly a dangerous idea. the great anxiety that dominates 16th and 17th century political history is that the devil, normally through the agency of the pope and the antichrist are going to somehow topple protestant government in england. so this is, again, a very, very sensitive play. hawke, voice-over: the play questions where precisely dark forces come from. why does macbeth commit horrific acts? is it really because of witches, or is the darkness and evil already there in the man? even scholars aren't sure. woman: the real question that they raise of course is to what extent they plant or only see the evil that's in him. that's the question that the play really asks about the supernatural. does the supernatural cause anything in the play or does it simply forecast what is already going to happen. woman: this is really a play about the danger of interpretation, about the human desire to interpret to find certainty, to find meaning. man: part of the cunning of "macbeth" lies in the difficulty that everyone has in determining what it is that these creatures are doing and how much responsibility they have for what you see unfolding. hawke: in other words, is the driving force supernatural and external or the human character of macbeth? well, the first question i would have is who is he in the beginning? i mean, how noble is he when it starts, you know? on one level the strongest choice would be that he's a very noble person, that then the witches come on, and he just unravels. that might be kind of-- but it doesn't sound true to me. exactly what turns macbeth from a merely ambitious warrior into a conspiratorial murderer seems to be a tricky question to answer. shakespeare's wonderfully ambiguous, and it's up to the actor to decide. so to make up my mind, i thought it would help to know who shakespeare based him on. who was the real macbeth? because there was a real macbeth. macbeth is known to have lived in scotland in perthshire nearly a thousand years ago. no one knows for sure exactly where, but dunsinane is the most likely spot. let's see. we'll watch this thing. i've heard that name so often, but i've never actually seen an image of it. the historian justin champion has gone there. champion: ethan, i'm in scotland, and as you'll know from the play, behind me here is dunsinane hill, somewhere that's connected very much with macbeth. macbeth of course was a real figure and very closely associated with this area. so if i turn and let you have a look, over there is dunsinane hill. it's exactly like i pictured it. champion: so i'm right to the top of dunsinane hill now, which is a pretty dramatic sort of panorama and this is the site of a fortress we know from archeological records. it wasn't a castle. they didn't have castles a thousand years ago but the top of this would have been fortified. this would have been an absolutely almost impregnable defensive point. from the top here, we can see right over to the north sea we can look that way to birnam wood so it's an incredibly brilliant natural place to fortify. hawke: it's the perfect place to see some witches. i mean, that's for sure. even the moon out in the daytime is kind of creepy. so that's the place where macbeth probably lived but what about the actual man macbeth and the reigning king duncan that he kills in the play? champion: in shakespeare's account of duncan's death, macbeth is very much the tyrant, the deceitful host who murders his godly king in his sleep. in fact, we know that macbeth defeated duncan on the battlefield and it's more than likely that in that particular episode duncan was the aggressor. so he was invading macbeth's kingdom, and macbeth did as all good kings of their own lands would do-- defend his own rights and privileges. so in one sense, duncan's death was just a casualty of war. so macbeth does not display the sort of deceit and traitorous treason that shakespeare delivers to us in the play. hawke, voice-over: well, the question i wonder about is how much of a historian was shakespeare? did he just kind of know a few names and make this stuff up or did he study it and deliberately do it? is this what he kind of thought happened? did somebody tell him a story about how macbeth was actually a bad guy and so he just ran with it, or-- that i'd be curious to know. it's true shakespeare had a reputation for adapting and embroidering historical facts but here it seems the historical facts had already been adapted and embroidered. so why? i think we have to blame the historians. we need to think about how history is always written by the victors and macbeth lost. he was executed. malcolm took over the reign of scotland, so almost straightaway as the loser macbeth is invented as a tyrant, and that's the material that shakespeare has to work with. hawke: ruling kings were determined to show their claim to the throne was better than that of any rivals' and the historians were expected to help. we have historians who deliberately set out to invent tradition, but as long as they work as long as they suit the powers that be they are regarded as as credible as any other history that you might encounter. hawke: scottish history may not reflect the real macbeth but it does show the brutal, cutthroat world that kings lived in and their queens. i also need to understand macbeth's soul mate lady macbeth who is as notorious as her husband. she is his partner in crime, so how actor might play macbeth will depend a lot on who he thinks she is and on the influence she wields. lady macbeth: "they met me in the day of success"... hawke: she first enters, reading a letter from macbeth, where he can't contain his excitement about the witches' prophecy. lady macbeth: "when i burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air"... hawke: the question is is he likely to act on it alone, or will his wife push him over the line to dire actions in the hope of glory? then shalt be what thou art promised. hawke, voice-over: the nature of lady macbeth's role in their crimes has sparked a fierce debate. so this is the evil vampire judith anderson. it would be cool to do it as vampires. she was apparently described as a vampire. hawke, voice-over: i'm meeting with a performance historian to talk about the variety of different lady macbeths. we have ellen terry here in a famous pre-raphaelite painting. some of the really successful lady macbeths that the public has loved have been incredibly powerful and assertive and have really bullied their husbands into action. so one of the most popular in the 19th century-- charlotte cushman-- was a woman who was famous for towering over her macbeths. in fact, i do have a picture of that. she's quite powerful and you can imagine her playing this role-- she tells you to go kill somebody, you're gonna go kill them. you're gonna do it. or she's gonna kill you. edwin booth, who played macbeth to her apparently complained that he felt like saying, "why don't you just kill him yourself? you're a great deal bigger than i am." but she was a colorful woman. she lived openly as a lesbian which was not entirely typical at that time and she played the role tough. people were scared of her but people were also impressed by her because she knew what she wanted, she knew how to get there she knew how to get her husband there. hawke: apparently an alternative approach was sarah bernhardt's. she played up the inherent sexuality in the play. pollard: sarah bernhardt was seen very much as a sex symbol, and she really played that in lady macbeth to the hilt to the point where some people found it distasteful. they thought, "no. this woman's evil. "don't make her so appealing. don't make us feel so allured by her." and theirs was a very kind of lusty relationship. mm-hmm. which i think is in the text. i think that works really well. ironically, it's one of the happiest marriages that we see... that we see. i know. in a shakespeare play. i know. it's the only really happily married couple we get. we get people falling in love and breaking up a lot but rarely a portrait of a steady couple. hawke, voice-over: but whether you play her bullying or seductive, this idea of a manipulative woman pushing her man to excess has become iconic. you might remember in 1990s there was an article written about hillary clinton titled "the lady macbeth of little rock." and there's been a long tradition-- people saw her as lady macbeth a lot, as always manipulating him and bullying him. people want to be able to use her to explain away what they see as the failings or the drive or the mistakes made by a powerful man. there's a way that she can become an excuse for a man that you want to forgive, i think. men particularly like the idea of "i wouldn't have done anything wrong if it wasn't for that eve." absolutely. it's been done... hawke, voice-over: as we've seen, however lady macbeth is cast the one big question that has to be answered is does she make him a killer? who wields the power in this relationship? absolutely. how now! what news? he has almost supp'd: why have you left the chamber? hath he ask'd for me? know you not he has? just to see that change... hawke: back at the globe in london, they are working on the scene in which this question is most central-- who is in control? i think you've got to come right back at him physically. yeah. hawke: after the witches' prophecy, the couple had plotted to kill the king themselves but then macbeth has a complete change of heart and rejects the plan. his wife is furious. she knows him to be an ambitious man and she's more-- in a way, she's more realistic about what it will take to achieve what they both want and that's really what shakespeare's written here. he's written this couple that both want the same thing at a certain point. we will proceed no further in this business: he hath honour'd me of late; and i have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people that would be worn now in their newest gloss, not cast aside so soon. was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself? hath it slept since? and wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely? art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour as thou art in desire? garber: lady macbeth raises the question of what a man is and is a man someone who dares to take what he is promised, who dares to challenge authority who dares to kill the king? i dare do all that may become a man; who dares do more is none. what beast was't, then, that made you break this enterprise to me? when you durst do it then you were a man; and, to be more than what you were, you would be so much more the man. paster: he's really poised at that moment of possibility. he might go forward with it, he might not go forward with it, and yet it's the sense that if he doesn't do it he will be shamed in the eyes of his wife forever. if we should fail? we fail. but screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we'll not fail. well, it certainly feels that she's dominant that she has the power in the relationship in the beginning and that in many ways you can feel her manipulating him, but i think he's a person who wants to be manipulated. i mean, it's easy to say that she talks him into it but it's also he's not such a hard sell. fired up by his wife macbeth is on the brink of doing the deed. his thoughts are racing, he's hallucinating. he's about to give us one of the most famous speeches in the play, the dagger scene. so how would i play that? is this a dagger that i see before me? i see thee still. i see thee still! ha ha ha! ah... hawke, voice-over: one of my good friends actor richard easton has played macbeth and is gonna help. all right. so i'll read this and you teach me about it as you do. i mean, just help me with it. impertinent. yeah. "is this a dagger which i see before me, "the handle toward my hand? come, let me"-- i think that's an advance. you know, "is this a dagger that i see before me... the handle toward my hand?" that means it's being offered for you to use. right. so it's-- it's not just a thing floating in the air. hawke, voice-over: i think that one of the things that somebody needs to do if you really are gonna play any of these roles is not only break down all the language not only need to understand how it was meant to be played, you need to really understand all the rules that shakespeare was setting up before you can break them. ...of time we'll jump the life to come! part of the challenge is always just understanding the words. what does that mean, "proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain"? the heat-oppressed brain... because my brain's so hot. it's so hot, i'm-- i'm sweating i'm feverish. right, right, right. it's not fancy poetical. it's actually literal. it's actually his head his hot. yeah, right. ok. i get it. ok. "and on that blade and dudgeon gouts of blood." is that the right-- "gouts"? yes. "which was not so before." "hec-tate's offer"-- "hec-et's." "hec-et's." "hecate's offrings and wither'd murther." what's "murther"? murder. oh. oh. ok. will you read it for me? hawke: there's always a certain magic that happens when you start to say the lines out loud that you can't anticipate. it feels like a spell. "is this a dagger "that i see before me? "the handle toward my hand? "come, let me clutch thee. "i have thee not "and yet i see thee still. "art thou not, fatal vision, sensible "to feeling as to sight? "or art thou but a dagger of the mind "a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? i see thee yet..." "i go, and it is done; "the bell invites me. "hear it not, duncan; "for it is a knell that summons thee to heaven or to hell." see, what i find amazing is whenever i first start reading these, it does seem... it seems so hard to reach. you know, when you first start studying him i don't know what marshall'st means or i don't know what murther means and it cuts me off from it. but then, listening to you do it it's so obvious when you know what you're playing-- yes. but also i have played it. i know you have. so, and when you have played it, even when you've rehearsed it, you'll know that this is the beginning of act 2. you know, there are 3 more acts to go. so it can be... it hasn't...done it. it hasn't been there yet. hawke, voice-over: up until this point in the play, macbeth is still an innocent man. he's thought about killing, but he hasn't done it. the next time we see him he's a murderer emerging bloody-handed from the scene of the crime. i have done the deed. didst thou not hear a noise? i heard the owl scream and the crickets cry. did not you speak? when? now? as i descended? ay. hark! who lies in th' second chamber? donalbain. this is a sorry sight. woman: shock and numbness and denial are the first stages of human response after a massive trauma. hawke: gwen adshead has spent years working with people who have committed murder listening firsthand to their experiences. the fascinating thing about this is that shakespeare demonstrates this in the language. if you look at the language of "macbeth," the language falls apart into these staccato half-sentences. and shakespeare's really showing us through the language in exactly the way that happens in real life, 'cause people's language does fall apart when they're agitated or distressed. go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand. why did you bring these daggers from the place? they must lie there. go carry them, and smear the sleepy grooms with blood. i'll go no more: i am afraid to think what i have done; look on't again i dare not. hawke: in his panic, macbeth has emerged clutching the incriminating murder weapons and is frozen. lady macbeth steps in, returning them to the scene of the crime and now they're both covered in blood. adshead: you can never go back and that, i think, for me, rings very true in terms of working therapeutically with people who've killed. it's the absolute finality of this act. you've changed the universe and you can't ever go back to how it was before and that is so profound. hawke: the act of killing changes everything something macbeth must now face. the problem for macbeth is i always think, is that he gets caught up in this idea of whether to do it or not to do it and feels like once he does it, it'll be done. but, of course, it's not done. it's actually just beginning, and i think that's what hits him after the murder's over. he realizes he's entered some new part of his life, that he can never return to the old one and he has no idea what's coming now. [bells tolling in time with the traffic signal] movement and dance are not what we immediately think of with shakespeare. we think about words. here in new york, they're rehearsing a version of "macbeth" that relies on dance movement, and mime. i want to see how these performers portray the huge change that macbeth has to undergo without the help of language. yeah, amazing. unbelievable job. i will challenge myself if i ever get to play, do the scottish play to get buck naked.

Simile Examples in Literature and Everyday Language

Similes are like spices for writing: Used in the right proportion, they can add zest and verve to your prose. Once you're familiar with them, you'll likely notice that simile examples abound in everyday speech, writing, song lyrics and even advertising slogans.

Film review: Macbeth - InDaily