Updated 5/20/13
Shakespeare's macbeth: A metatheatrical Shadow puppet production
In the Macbeth Shadow Puppet production, our class was tasked with creating a metatheatrical production of Shakespeare's Macbeth using a combination of shadow puppets and live acting. Macbeth is considered one of Shakespeare’s darkest and most powerful tragedies. Set in Scotland, the play dramatizes the corroding psychological and political effects produced when its protagonist, the Scottish Lord Macbeth, chooses evil as the way to fulfill his ambition for power. I served as Sound Editor for the production. I was tasked with recording all of the actors lines. Then I edited the tapes and compiled them together, with sound effects, into tracks that would be played during the performance.
The biggest connection I had to this project was being able to modernize a very old play with today’s technologies. In original performances, there wasn’t an ability to pause a line, cut the sound out, and insert a new recording. The actors just had to get it correct, no exceptions. Having a prerecorded soundtrack allowed the actors to focus on moving the puppets, not talking. However, at times it did seem like nothing was working, and the play would be just one gargantuan disaster. Nevertheless, my favorite part was when all of the various puzzle pieces fit together perfectly at the performance: for example, when the puppets’ movements reflected the characters’ actions from the track with perfect timing. Just seeing this connection let the butterflies loose from my stomach.
Although the shadow puppet performance seemed simple from the audience’s view, it was harder than it looked. Personally, the most challenging part was to add pauses and correctly time sound effects on the soundtrack. Every night, for two to three weeks, I had to go home and listen to all of my classmates voices over and over and over again until the edits were completed and correctly placed. A week and a half in, I could barely handle the repetition. I was ready to quit, but I knew I couldn’t. No one else in our class knew the software well enough. Therefore, I took a deep breath and kept on going, just like “The Little Engine that Could.”
This process also revealed some things about myself that I never noticed until this point in my life. It turns out that I like to be in control and in charge. I don’t mean that I want to be bossy, just in a position of control. This need for control was revealed when I began to edit the sound according to my “artistic vision.” The very next day, I realized that some of my changes weren’t following the director’s master vision. Naturally, I changed things back to the way they were supposed to be. After that, I began to wean myself to only one injection per day. However, my ideas weren’t always a bad thing. The day of the show, I walked into class with a solution to a problem that was very concerning. Our stage was mounted on a table, but because it wasn’t very high off the ground, the puppeteers had to squat to work the puppets. Thus, whenever someone got up to change puppets, you could see their forms on the stage. My idea was to put two tables together and mount the stage on top (securely of course). This approach worked perfectly; people could walk between the light and the stage, and the puppeteers were comfortably seated.
One question that everyone asks themselves sooner or later is “Why, 400 years later, do we still study Shakespeare in school?” After finishing this project, I have a pretty solid answer. First and foremost, through his works, Shakespeare improved upon the basic structure of the English language. Shakespeare invented thousands of new words and phrases. In his time, his plays were so popular and so well regarded that people took to using the words from his plays in their everyday life. When you study Shakespeare, you're literally watching the birth of modern English. Shakespeare is also known for inventing situations that did not exist until his time and giving us new phrases to describe those situations. In fact, many phrases that we still use today, like "all's well that ends well," were invented by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's ability to interweave his tragedies with comic relief, and the way he brought deep human emotion into his comedies broke new ground. The final reason for the continued Shakespearean analysis is that people can relate to what is happening to his characters. They are multidimensional, often-flawed characters that face some of the same struggles as people today.
The biggest connection I had to this project was being able to modernize a very old play with today’s technologies. In original performances, there wasn’t an ability to pause a line, cut the sound out, and insert a new recording. The actors just had to get it correct, no exceptions. Having a prerecorded soundtrack allowed the actors to focus on moving the puppets, not talking. However, at times it did seem like nothing was working, and the play would be just one gargantuan disaster. Nevertheless, my favorite part was when all of the various puzzle pieces fit together perfectly at the performance: for example, when the puppets’ movements reflected the characters’ actions from the track with perfect timing. Just seeing this connection let the butterflies loose from my stomach.
Although the shadow puppet performance seemed simple from the audience’s view, it was harder than it looked. Personally, the most challenging part was to add pauses and correctly time sound effects on the soundtrack. Every night, for two to three weeks, I had to go home and listen to all of my classmates voices over and over and over again until the edits were completed and correctly placed. A week and a half in, I could barely handle the repetition. I was ready to quit, but I knew I couldn’t. No one else in our class knew the software well enough. Therefore, I took a deep breath and kept on going, just like “The Little Engine that Could.”
This process also revealed some things about myself that I never noticed until this point in my life. It turns out that I like to be in control and in charge. I don’t mean that I want to be bossy, just in a position of control. This need for control was revealed when I began to edit the sound according to my “artistic vision.” The very next day, I realized that some of my changes weren’t following the director’s master vision. Naturally, I changed things back to the way they were supposed to be. After that, I began to wean myself to only one injection per day. However, my ideas weren’t always a bad thing. The day of the show, I walked into class with a solution to a problem that was very concerning. Our stage was mounted on a table, but because it wasn’t very high off the ground, the puppeteers had to squat to work the puppets. Thus, whenever someone got up to change puppets, you could see their forms on the stage. My idea was to put two tables together and mount the stage on top (securely of course). This approach worked perfectly; people could walk between the light and the stage, and the puppeteers were comfortably seated.
One question that everyone asks themselves sooner or later is “Why, 400 years later, do we still study Shakespeare in school?” After finishing this project, I have a pretty solid answer. First and foremost, through his works, Shakespeare improved upon the basic structure of the English language. Shakespeare invented thousands of new words and phrases. In his time, his plays were so popular and so well regarded that people took to using the words from his plays in their everyday life. When you study Shakespeare, you're literally watching the birth of modern English. Shakespeare is also known for inventing situations that did not exist until his time and giving us new phrases to describe those situations. In fact, many phrases that we still use today, like "all's well that ends well," were invented by Shakespeare. Shakespeare's ability to interweave his tragedies with comic relief, and the way he brought deep human emotion into his comedies broke new ground. The final reason for the continued Shakespearean analysis is that people can relate to what is happening to his characters. They are multidimensional, often-flawed characters that face some of the same struggles as people today.