Creating Music for Dark Dramas!

Poster design by Bri Clark

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing…..”

-Macbeth, Act V, Scene 3

My recent projects for the Heidelberg School of Music and Theatre have been on the dark side, to say the least. Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure explored the depths of a would-be leader, one who wished to deprive his subjects of basic freedoms. There was some comedy on the side to balance things out, but perhaps this is why scholars refer to this venture as a “problem play.” Last winter’s production of The Trojan Women by Euripides was a very extensive challenge, with recorded cues, a live women’s singing chorus and timpani, two players who performed on each side of the stage! The subject matter explored an end-of-the-world scenario as the women of defeated Troy faced a future that was to be worse than death. So when the assignment for Macbeth came along, I was concerned. More darkness! Am I getting in a rut? How can I stay fresh as a theater composer?

Fortunately, Heidelberg director Karla Kash cut me some slack. She elected to set her version of the famous Scottish play during the Prohibition Era of other 1920s.  This gave me the opportunity to liven up the performing forces!  She also elected to expand the role of the three witches. In her production the witches were to be a constant presence onstage, not just in the scenes where they are supposed to appear.

From ClipartMax. Used by permission.

Macbeth is a very dark play, perhaps the darkest of the three plays that I have scored most recently. Macbeth sees an opportunity to rise up on the leadership ladder. With the help of his nefarious spouse, he succeeds in gaining power and glory, but not without the use of lies, deceit and murder. It is only a matter of time before justice catches up with you when you employ this level of attack……

Dark is one thing; depressing is another! My goal was to enhance the drama and perhaps let a bit of light in, the better to contrast with the darkness that prevails throughout the evening…..

Setting the play during Prohibition helps!  Instead of bagpipes and timpani, my score relies at least partially on the resources of a jazz band. I prepared for this assignment by listening to jazz music from the first quarter of the twentieth century, early Duke Ellington recordings especially. Ennio Morricone’s classic score for Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables (1987) inspired me to create music for Macbeth and his followers that was aggressive and driving. Here was a place to use a common theme to identify the clans (gangs) whenever they appeared onstage. The nature of this theme evolves through the play. As the play descends into greater terror, so does the music. Some of the lighter cues from the gang music are dropped in favor of the darker ones. By the time of the battle scenes of Act V, one of the triumphant chords from the opening fanfare is now strikingly dissonant.

The play’s famous banquet scene, where the ghost of the murdered Banquo haunts Macbeth, required incidental music for the entire scene. What’s a celebration without a house band?  Write a charming tune, allow the instruments of the ensemble to solo on it at the appropriate time, and voila: background music fit for a king! (even a false one……).  When the ghost of Banquo

enters, the party music is drowned out by a darker, sinister cue that sounds like……well, perhaps you can imagine…..

But by and large, the most fun was achieved while creating supporting music for the three witches or “weird sisters,” as they are sometimes called. The first major decision: let them sing!  Not always, but at a few advantageous moments.  Songs are often inserted into Shakespearean plays; I saw no reason why we could not do this here. The witches are the closest thing that we have related to “comic relief” in the play. As a composer, I had to take advantage of this opportunity.

The witches sing a brief song at their first encounter of Macbeth: The accompaniment introduces a simple 3-note motive that will follow the witches around the rest of the production.

Later, in Act IV, they sing another song, a further attempt to entice Macbeth. This tune uses some of the play’s most famous lines. This song is a simple and perfectly dorky little tune; its angular construction. allows only four pitches to be used.

The witches perform this tune twice; in the next chorus, the witches sing the lyrics backwards.  Macbeth is entering the scene as this happens; I wanted my witches to continue to keep him off-balance. Performing the song in reverse certainly appealed to the three young actors who are playing the roles in this production!

By far though, the witches’ best scene occurs at the end of Act 1 of our production (Act III in the Shakespeare script).  The script gives a simple command to sing “Come away, come away,” as the character Hecate exits. Some scholars believe that this scene late in the act was not written by Shakespeare but by Thomas Middleton, from his play, The Witch. The scene may have been inserted by Middleton to flesh out a current production. I found an online copy of The Witch and went to the passages mentioned by scholars. In it, I found a provocative text, one that almost sounds like it could apply to Macbeth himself:  

Come away, come away,

There’s one come down to fetch his dues,

A kiss, a coll, a sip of blood,

And why thou stays’t so long, I muse.

Since the air’s so sweet and good.

Come away, come away…..

         -Thomas Middleton, The Witch, Act 3

This provided a more substantial text to work into the scene!  The Witches sing the song once using the text above. A longer instrumental section follows, giving the witches time to work up some mayhem onstage. One more triumphant return to the song follows and then they exit. End of our Act One!  All of this may seem to be a bit flashy, but it is also a lot of fun. There is nothing like a bit of energy and surprise to send the audience to intermission. After all, we do want them to come back to witness the  rest of the story…

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I always hope that I will be able to use one of my incidental music scores again in a future production somewhere. In this case, chances are good that I won’t visit the Roaring Twenties a second time. Some of the more classically based music in my score can remain for future productions, but a lot of the jazz band scoring will have to go away in favor of a new solution. But for the moment’s Karla’s decision to set her drama in the world of the gangster has been a hoot! 

Fair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

(Witches, Act 1 Scene 1, Macbeth)