“His wife made him do it,” said Adam, who played Macbeth. I stuck out my tongue at him, and he winked back.
“You’re all correct,” Peter answered, “but the underlying theme is desire. What happens to him—what could happen to any of us?—if we pursue our darkest desires? What do we lose of ourselves when we cross that line? What does it cost those around us?”
His fingers squeezed mine.
“Macb—MacBee,” Peter amended, drawing a gleeful smile from Portia, “crossed that line anyway. He took what he wanted, regardless of the consequences, regardless of society’s conventions, of the mental anguish, or even of his own life. That’s what makes this play so timeless. He’s just an ordinary man who understands, I believe, at least in part, what his temptation will cost him, and he succumbs anyway.
“This is what you’ll show our audience this weekend: the consequences of a man’s ugliest and most powerful desires. After all the work everyone has put in, I know you’re going to crush it. You’ll have no mercy on this poor bastard’s soul.”
Everyone broke apart and clapped and cheered. I didn’t move. I didn’t know what to do. I just stood there, not looking at Peter, while the rest of the cast and crew yelled. He gave my hand one last lingering squeeze and then walked away. I turned and slipped backstage, waiting numbly for Act 1, scene 5, when I would make my entrance.
Even though it didn’t go perfectly, the dress rehearsal was pretty good. One of the thugs dropped his sword at one point, right when he was supposed to be killing Banquo. Banquo laughed, but then the thug pretended to snap his neck and Banquo obediently fell over dead.
Adam had his lines down and worked up some pretty good emotion during the monologues. Some of the cast hadn’t liked that he looked so babyish, but I did, because it helped me appear like I was manipulating him to commit the murder in the first place. I was almost a foot taller than him in my heels and I really laid on the power in our first scene where we plan the murder. Harsh, high tones. Severe expressions.
My best performance, though, was the sleepwalker scene, my last scene. The crown slipped sideways in my hair and my dress was almost completely red down the front. I looked more like the murder victim than the murderer now, which was the whole point. Our treachery was killing us. I paced upstage in agony, holding my hands in front of me like I couldn’t figure out how they were connected to the rest of my body. I stared blindly into the gymnasium walls and over the space where the heads of the audience would be, where Peter sat by himself in the dark. I didn’t even realize I was crying until the room blurred. I poured my heartache into the scene. In rehearsals I had played this act just as strong as the waking scenes, shouting sleeping instructions to myself to shake off the murder.
“Wash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale!”
But now my lines hinted at desperation, like I knew I was heading over the abyss into madness and could not understand the fall. My voice trembled, threatened to break.
“I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried. He cannot come out on’s grave.”
If Lady Macbeth had been frightening in her cold, murderous calculations, now her unconscious confession was shocking. From the very first read, I’d seen her as a strong villain, a Cruella de Vil with no heart or conscience. The sleepwalking scene was just a hiccup, I thought. Now, though, I saw how it revealed everything. She was as tormented as Macbeth: her desire was her undoing. After my final exit, I went directly to the greenroom and sat in a daze for the rest of the play.
I had to keep Peter in my life. I had to. New life or old life, it wouldn’t matter without him. My desire was my undoing—I knew it and I still couldn’t turn away. We wanted each other beyond all reason or caution, regardless of the consequences, just like he’d said in the power circle speech. I had to find a way to talk to him.
After the last scene, I heard everyone applauding and walked back out to the gym, my mind racing.
“Where did you go? I’ve been looking everywhere for you,” Portia said, running up to me.
I looked at her and suddenly smiled from ear to ear.
“Macbeth!”
I yelled it again and again, laughing at Portia’s horrified glare, at everyone who ran desperately to the doors. They all left the gymnasium and I could hear the trample of the crowd as they made the long circle around the halls outside. A single, abandoned spotlight lit the stage and Peter stood on the opposite side of it from me. Our eyes struggled through the light and we stepped forward to the edges of the shadows.
“I still have your money.” I said the first thing that came to mind, even though it was a lie.
“Hattie, please,” he whispered.
“I want to give it back to you.”
“I don’t want it.”
The thunder of feet got louder. They were past the halfway point.