Macbeth

As with Julius Caesar, Macbeth is one of those treasure troves of well-known fragments of the English language that you know must come from somewhere – but it’s entirely possible you’ve forgotten it’s Macbeth. The Weird Sisters • ‘double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble’ • ‘Eye of newt and toe of frog’ • ‘Is this a dagger which I see before me?’ • ‘Out, damned spot!’ • ‘Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow’ • ‘ a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury Signifying nothing’ and ‘Lay on, Macduff,’ which gives us the popular misquotation, ‘Lead on, Macduff.’ With all of this, I decided to play it simple. At the end of the play (Spoiler Alert!) Macduff beheads Macbeth and walks back on stage holding the bloody morsel. What you see on the front of this card is a small ceramic chess piece (a pawn) that had already lost its head due to droppage. I had to snap off the base to fit it into its compartment and there it was. Doing early test shots of this particular piece made me realize two key things that were very helpful: 1) Objects should be positioned as close to the front edge of the compartment as possible, where practical, protruding beyond it, and 2) From time to time a dash of colour in the background livens things up a bit.