Much Ado about Macbeth Read online

  “Orgies!” the gorgon shouted then froze and looked around.

  Mrs. Kennedy, the school secretary, was smirking into her sleeve. Several students sat in the waiting area, staring at the gorgon in disbelief. Then they laughed and mimicked her.

  “Orgies!” they cried and pressed the backs of their wrists to their foreheads. “Orgies!”

  Paul sighed, wishing they were in his drama class.

  The gorgon wagged a finger in Paul’s face. “We’ll see what Winston has to say about this!” Then she turned and barged into the principal’s office.

  “You don’t have an appointment!” Mrs. Kennedy called after her.

  As Paul walked away, several of the students saluted or rose from their seats to give him a high five. Apparently the gorgon was as popular among the students as she was among the teachers.

  Scene 4: What Fools These Mortals Be

  “Double, double, toil and trouble . . . Is he gone yet?”

  Netty made one final slurp through her milkshake’s straw then rolled her bulbous head to peer toward the door past Agatha’s narrow, yet towering, shoulder. “Aye, Sister.”

  “What a schmuck,” said Gertrude. “Do these mortals never learn?”

  All three witches cackled, drawing looks from a nearby table of teenagers.

  Agatha let out a long, rancorous breath. “If they did, wouldn’t our lives get boring?”

  “How many Macbeth pretenders does that make?” asked Gertrude. “We’ve been doing this shtick how long? The story has to get old someday.”

  Agatha shook her wrinkled jowls. “So long as they put on the play, there will be actors looking for a leg up. And frankly, this last actor needs all the leg he can get.”

  “He’s just a lad,” said Netty. “Hasn’t even come into his own yet.”

  “And now perhaps he never will,” said Gertrude.

  Netty pursed her fleshy lips. “He did accept the bargain.”

  “Perhaps he’ll find his way,” said Agatha.

  The other two looked at her.

  “Well, there’s always a first time,” Agatha rasped.

  All three witches fell silent and shook their heads.

  “That drama teacher,” said Netty. “Not much of a challenge.”

  Gertrude chuckled. “Can you believe it? He thought Macbeth was his idea.”

  “A morality play about cheating?” Agatha chortled. “Oh, yes. Macbeth is the first play that comes to my mind.”

  “So susceptible to suggestion.” Netty poked at her teeth with a gnarled finger. “I was hoping for a bit of a tussle.”

  “Were you?” asked Agatha. “We’ve had hundreds of years of experience at this. That drama teacher’s had . . . what? Forty years of mortal coil? And face it; mortality isn’t as coiled as it used to be.”

  Again, the three witches cackled.

  “People have gone soft,” Gertrude said. “This job isn’t a challenge anymore.”

  Netty nodded. “Used to be we’d have to use lies and illusions to trick people into making mistakes.”

  “Now all we have to do is point.” Agatha pointed a long, skinny finger across the table, as if to demonstrate. “Damn disappointing in my book.”

  Again, silence.

  “I’m going to do it,” Agatha said, breaking the awkward moment.

  “Do what?” asked Netty. “Rain down curses upon The Bard’s Play and everyone involved?”

  “Maybe later. I was talking about today’s special, the poisonberry Blizzard. I’m going to give it a try.”

  Gertrude snorted. “You need glasses. The sign says boysenberry, not poisonberry.”

  “I’m a witch,” said Agatha. “I can’t wear glasses. You ever see a witch wearing glasses?”

  “Well, I—” Gertrude began.

  “I’m talking real witches. Not those Wiccan wannabes.”

  Gertrude drew a long breath in through her nose. “If you put it that way, then no, I haven’t seen a witch wearing glasses. Though I have witnessed my fill of stubborn, half-blind witches who can’t tell a broomstick from a coat rack.”

  “I rest my case,” Agatha said then frowned.

  “If you’re purchasing a Blizzard,” said Netty, “get an extra spoon. I want to sample a taste.”

  “Make it three spoons,” said Gertrude. “Heh. I’ve always been fond of boysenberry.”

  Agatha grumbled as she rose from the plastic bench seat. “The things you put up with when you’re a witch.”

  Scene 5: Under a Hand Accursed!

  “Macbeth. That’s nice, dear.”

  The words shocked Paul into immobility. “You know, you’re the first person today who hasn’t told me that I’m out of my mind.”

  Sylvia, Paul’s wife of twenty years, looked up from her magazine and cast him a familiar smile. “What was that, dear?”

  The shock began wearing off. “I said, you’re the first person today who hasn’t told me that I’m out of my mind.”

  Smile still in place. “I gave up telling you that years ago. If you don’t know by now . . .”

  “Fine, fine. Supper—”

  “Is in the fridge.”

  “Is Susie home yet?”

  “Been. Gone.”

  Paul sighed. “I never tire of domestic bliss.”

  “Me neither,” said Sylvia, her nose back in her magazine.

  Paul sighed again and went into the kitchen to inspect the contents of the fridge. Whatever supper Sylvia had alluded to escaped him, so he made himself a peanut butter sandwich and retired to his study.

  The study was Paul’s refuge. His Fortress of Solitude. It was also a mess.

  Sylvia hadn’t entered the room in years, having told him that if he wasn’t going to keep it clean, then neither was she. Books and boxes lay on every available surface, including the floor. Papers lay strewn everywhere, as though a hurricane had made a mad dash about the room. There were cups and plates and occasional silverware, some of which hadn’t seen the kitchen in days.

  Paul’s desk was the cleanest area in the study. Not that clean was an apt description. Organized shambles came closer. Everything on the desk was currently in use. If it wasn’t, Paul would place it elsewhere, such as on the floor.

  Even so, with the start of a new school year, Paul knew that he would have to clear his desk. He took a bite of his sandwich then picked up several books he had planned to read during the summer but hadn’t gotten to. A survey of the room revealed four bookcases with not an inch of spare capacity. No wall space for a fifth bookcase, either. Spotting a reasonably stable stack of books on the floor, he added those from the desk and watched a moment to see if they would topple. When they didn’t, he frowned at some papers that lay across his computer keyboard. Unable to remember what they were for, he added them to a pile of similar papers on the spare chair. Then he stacked several small plates, including the one with his sandwich, and placed them on top of the papers on the chair, promising himself that he would take the dishes to the kitchen. Later.

  It was enough to get started. He took another bite of sandwich and peered about the room.

  In addition to books, papers, empty dishes, and some clothing, his study was awash with boxes of scripts, many with Ashcroft Senior High stamped on them, some from other schools, most with no stamp at all. Paul had been collecting scripts for almost twenty-five years. In all that time, he had never developed anything remotely akin to a filing system. As a result, it took forever to find a loose-leaf script of Macbeth.

  When he finally found one, he ran his fingers through the remains of his hair and mentally kicked himself. How could he have forgotten? And neither Winston nor the gorgon had even mentioned it. There, below the title, in only a slightly smaller font, were the words The Cursed Play.

  Paul dug through his desk drawer for a bottle of correction fluid and, fingers trembling, obliterated the warning. He didn’t believe in superstition. What modern person did? But he couldn’t deny the play’s history. Countless renditions of
Macbeth had been plagued by accident, tragedy, and even death. Macbeth’s reputation as The Cursed Play was well earned, and anyone who knew anything at all about Shakespeare was aware of the curse. He was aware. Yet he had forgotten.

  Then again, perhaps the curse should be forgotten. Though he had never before directed Macbeth himself, he had seen several productions that had gone off without a hitch. He couldn’t help but believe that the accidents were a self-fulfilling prophecy. Was that it? Ignore the curse, and it ignores you?

  None of his students had mentioned the curse. Many claimed never to have heard of Macbeth, though he found that difficult to believe. Even with computer games and texting, is it possible to grow up ignorant of Shakespeare? Even so, after today’s read-through of the Penguin edition, they seemed eager enough to anticipate cast assignments. Well, as eager as disinterested students taking an elective course could be.

  Curse or no curse, it was too late to back out now without looking the fool. And he could just see the gloating look on the gorgon lady’s face. He would never give her that pleasure. No, The Cursed Play it was, and if anyone complained, he would simply ridicule them as superstitious. It was about time that he turned the tables and became the ridiculer rather than the ridiculee.

  With the skill and concentration of a surgeon, Paul worked his way through the script, writing up a list of roles as well as some production notes. Unlike the paperback edition from the library, the production script included stage directions and plenty of white space for performers to mark their lines and write in notes. When he was done, he turned the stack of sheets over and almost choked when he saw the title page.

  The Cursed Play glared up at him, with no evidence of the correction fluid he had applied earlier. It flaked off, he told himself. The bottle is old. But he saw no sign of any flakes, and the Liquid Paper had seemed fluid enough when he had applied it.

  Paul opened the word processor on his Mac computer and typed up a new title page, excluding the subtitle, and printed it on his inkjet printer. He crunched up the original page and threw it into an already overflowing wastebasket.

  The paper, ink, and font of the new page didn’t match the rest of the pages, but no one would notice. Tomorrow he would take the loose-leaf script to Mrs. Shean and have her make thirty stapled copies.

  Scene 6: What Noise Is This?

  Paul arrived for the second day of classes and found the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium almost filled to capacity, which was surprising as there were five hundred theatre seats and only thirty students in his class. Three hundred of the occupants were misbehaving, shouting into cell phones, engaging in loud conversation with their neighbours, or fidgeting with the contents of purses or briefcases. All of them were near Paul’s age. That left the students, sitting in the front two rows, calm as angels.

  Paul didn’t even have to look around. “Mrs. Cadwell, I see you’ve been busy.”

  The gorgon lady did not stand up from one of the seats, but instead stepped out from behind a backstage curtain and swaggered across the stage like a queen—a drama queen. She was a poorer actor than her son. “This play must be stopped!” she demanded.

  The Parent-Teacher Association occupying the seating area cheered.

  The Ashcroft Senior High School PTA was renowned as the most active Parent-Teacher Association in the country. It also had the rare distinction of having no teachers among its members. There were times when Paul felt convinced that many of its members did not actually have children attending the school. The PTA seemed to exist for the sole purpose of making teaching near impossible, and for the most part, they were astonishingly good at it.

  This did not deter Paul. He strode toward centre stage and waved his hands for quiet. “This play,” he echoed, “hasn’t even started.”

  “Nor shall it,” said the gorgon. “The PTA won’t stand for it.” Again, the PTA cheered. Some stood and she basked in the standing ovation.

  Paul again waved for silence and didn’t speak until he got it. He glared at the filled theatre seats. “We’re not going to have much of a discussion if you keep applauding every word Mrs. Cadwell says.”

  The PTA cheered.

  Paul shook his head. Dumber than the students.

  The gorgon lady motioned her followers to silence and immediately received it. “We don’t need a discussion. We are just here to inform you that there will be no play about witches, no Macbeth—”

  “But I want to do Macbeth!” shouted one of the students. He rose from his seat and faced down his mother.

  “Lenny?” The gorgon lady looked at a loss for words.

  “We read the play yesterday, Mum. It’s cool. It’s not about witches. It’s about war. And castles. And intrigue. It’s a James Bond play.”

  The rest of the students shouted support for their classmate.

  Not the argument Paul would have made, but coming from Lenny, it was probably more effective than anything he could have said.

  The gorgon lady looked dumbfounded. She glanced at the PTA and opened and closed her mouth, but nothing came out. Her eyes roved over the front two rows of shouting students then glared at Lenny. She seemed to reach a decision. “We’ll speak about this at home, young man.” To the PTA, she smiled and called, “We have delivered our message. There shall be no Macbeth. Our work here is done.” Then she turned to Paul and wagged her finger. “This isn’t over.”

  Paul sighed. “Of course it isn’t.” He could read on the gorgon’s face that she already had a Plan B in mind.

  The PTA left the theatre looking confused and shouting questions at Mrs. Cadwell, who answered them all by holding one hand palm out and shaking her head. Some few looked blank faced at Paul. One, an older man who looked as if he might have slept through the protest, asked, “So that’s it, then? No Macbeth?”

  Paul shrugged a reply, and the man turned to follow his tribe of lemmings up the aisle.

  After the chief obstruction to their children’s education had shuffled out of the auditorium, Paul retrieved the stapled scripts he had brought from the library’s copy room and gave them to Lenny to hand out. “Yesterday we read the words of the play. Today we’ll read them again in conjunction with stage directions. As we do, try to imagine yourself on the stage going through the motions of the characters.”

  “When do I get assigned my part?” asked one of the students.

  Paul let out a deep breath. “In due time. After we all get a better sense of what the parts are.” He dreaded the response he would receive when he told them they would have to audition for parts. He could already feel the lead balloon landing on his head.

  Scene 7: Cruel Are the Times

  The PTA was meeting in Paul’s living room. Or so it seemed. At least, his house felt as crowded as the Ashcroft-Tate Auditorium had been that morning. But Paul knew that it couldn’t be the PTA because the strangers in his home were cheerful rather than angry. Paul assumed that there must be times when the PTA wasn’t angry, such as when they plotted to re-create the school system in their own image, but Paul had never been present for one of those times.

  Sylvia also looked more cheerful than usual. “Paul! Don’t you dare sneak off to your hidey-hole. Come say hello.”

  Paul led his wife to a quiet corner of the hallway and spoke in a hushed whisper. “I don’t know any of these people.”

  “That’s because every time they come over, you hide in that office of yours.” “They” were the Hinton Valley Realtors Society, of which Sylvia was a member.

  Paul put on his best hangdog expression. “But you’ll just spend the evening talking shop. I’ll be a wallflower.”

  Sylvia forced a smile. “If you join us, we’ll have something to talk about besides shop.”

  Paul hated social gatherings, making small talk with strangers, and being made to reveal his ignorance regarding real estate. Sylvia had somehow managed to combine all three in his living room. He shook his head. “Can’t this time. I have to prepare for classes tomorrow. Start of the y
ear and all.”

  Sylvia’s smile drooped into a glower. She shook her head slowly then turned back to her guests.

  It had been a while since Sylvia had given him the glower. Paul knew his wife hadn’t been fooled; as a drama teacher, he had more prep flexibility than most high school teachers. He could easily spend some time at her work party. Guilt gripped his stomach as he hurried into his study, forgoing his ritual foraging in the kitchen. He’d wait until the gathering ended or hunger overtook him, whichever came first.

  Laughter from the living room echoed in Paul’s ears as he worked on putting together the list of cast, understudies, technicians, and ushers. Most of his thirty students would want to perform on stage, but there were only eight roles of substance and fifteen minor parts. That left seven students who would not get to perform. Two or three of those seven would be unsuitable even as stagehands and would be delegated the duty of usher and possibly receive a failing grade.

  Paul hated to fail anyone, but he always had a few students who signed up for his course believing it was an easy ride, that they could do nothing and receive an A for their lack of effort. Even those who did the bare minimum in first- and second-year drama, squeezing by with a C, somehow felt they could do even less in third year. They wouldn’t audition for the larger roles. Or if they did, they wouldn’t try to get the parts. Then they would sleepwalk through the bit parts or be relegated to moving props.

  A burst of laughter erupted from the living room, piquing Paul’s curiosity. He cracked open the study door to try to hear what was so funny.

  “And then he agreed that perhaps we needed a plumber after all.”

  More laughter.

  Gossip. Four things in the living room that Paul hated.

  He reclosed the door as a fresh wave of guilt roiled through his stomach. He really should spend a few minutes with Sylvia’s coworkers.