˝The Macbeth Karaoke allows you to play two scenes from Macbeth opposite Lisa Harrow (Lady Macbeth) or Robert Thaler (Lord Macbeth).
HOW TO PLAY THE KARAOKE
As the Karaoke plays, a dot will move down the center of the screen, pausing by each line of the scene as it is being spoken in order to help you better pace your performance.
Hear Both Parts is used to allow you to familiarize yourself with the scene. Clicking this button will play the scene starting from the top of the current page.
Choose Your Part lets you choose which of the available parts you get to play. The heading above the part you choose will appear in red, and a hand will point to the heading.
Play the Karaoke takes you to the beginning of the scene and starts the performance. If you have not yet chosen a part to play, it prompts you to do that first. (Note that if you choose to play the character who speaks first, you won’t hear anything until another character speaks: pay close attention to the moving dot, which will indicate which line you should be performing.)
Pause halts the performance; the moving dot will remain visible. Clicking Pause again will start the performance from exactly where you left off. (You may also click anywhere in the text to start the performance. The performance will start at the line on which you click. Clicking on the text again will stop the performance.)
WHY THE MACBETH KARAOKE?
by David S. Rodes
We offer this Karaoke for at least two reasons. One is the sheer pleasure of speaking Shakespeare’s language aloud, in consort with an accomplished professional actor. Plays are meant to be spoken, not merely read, and only in sounding out the words can an actor or critic begin to hear the clues as to meaning and emotion that are conveyed in the repetition and variation of sound and in the modulation of rhythm.
We also want to give a sense of just how demanding a rich, complex tragedy like Macbeth is in the performing – and how much of its power depends on alert timing and on a rigorous and continuous movement forward. In a silent reading, one can stop to muse or drift – or go do the laundry; but in performance, the text becomes a script that moves compellingly onward. A good performance has the unstoppable propulsion (and immediate complexity) of a great string quartet.
Indeed, music offers the best analogy to Shakespeare’s rich, contrapuntal dramatic language, since in both music and drama players must learn to work together and in precise cooperation. And like a musical score (though less insistently) Shakespeare’s verse has an underlying metrical and rhythmic structure that he can break or vary (as, for example, in the edgy version of 2.2 we present here) to convey order or disorder. Normally, this musical “heartbeat” of a Shakespeare verse line comes in the form of iambic pentameter blank verse. In other words, a non-rhyming poetic line with five “feet” (of 10 syllables) that fits a pattern of unstress-stress/unstress-stress/ unstress-stress/unstress-stress/unstress-stress/
unstress-stress (often represented by the symbols u'/u'/u'/u'/u'). The main variation on this pattern – a foot that works on the pattern stress-unstress ('u) – is called a trochee.
By the way, please try both parts in the Karaoke. In our gender-bending and gender-curious world it is allowed and it might provide unexpected insight and empathy. And once you have played and enjoyed this game a number of times, try memorizing the lines. No professional theater could happen if actors were not quick and accurate with their memorizations – the great 18th-century actor David Garrick is said to have kept hundreds of roles in his head ready for performing. Memory is, after all, like a muscle and benefits from challenging exercise. The poetic meter of the text will help you, as will the carefully calibrated movement of emotions and ideas. I also suggest that you learn in units of thought, not simply line by line. When I ask my students to memorize, they sometimes grumble at first, but they soon discover how easy and fun it is, and how much it helps them literally to internalize Shakespeare – and show off at parties and on quiz shows. All Renaissance education, including Shakespeare’s, was based on memorization and repetition – and his great dramatic art grows from this very practical act. 3 Palex Palex Palex 7Palex 7 >Palex > ÜPalex Ü äVoyager ä °Palex °TPalex TcPalex cˆPalex ˆPalex ßPalex ß∏Palex ∏IPalex IMPalex M#Palex #(Palex (jPalex jlPalex loVoyager owPalex w~Palex ~àPalex àéVoyager é°Palex °‹Palex ‹ÍPalex ÍjPalex jsPalex sëPalex ëòPalex ò °Palex ° ßPalex ß ±Palex ± ∑Palex ∑ ¬Palex ¬ »Palex » “Palex “ ÿPalex ÿ ‚Palex ‚ ËPalex Ë ÛPalex Û ˘Palex ˘ sPalex s yPalex y ∑Palex ∑ ªPalex ª
