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I hope this is going to be filmed Ian!

I'll try to film it but am not making any promises. I don't even know if I'm going to perform the effect because if I can't perform it the way I have it planned I'd rather not perform it. We will see.

It sounds weird but I'm going to incorporate dialogue from Macbeth into the act towards the end when I kill the butterflies.

Oh, and I selected a song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Su8LXNS16A&feature=PlayList&p=40759E3E96BB0320&index=0&playnext=1

It's not what I originally intended to find but, regardless, it's the best fit.

Ian: KILL the butterflies!!!!! What kind of audience are you performing to.
City of The Dead!

Someone will be upset. Why not use flash paper & simply , light and vanish them?

Macbeth ? My favourite Shakespeare. I have played him 4 times & directed the play 3 times. My wife & I performed another version in in our Sunshine Theatre Company back in 2004. This was 'Elsie & Norm's Macbeth'. A 2 person play about a dotty old couple's version, in their garden to their friends. Playing some 10 characters each and with 32 costume changes. Now thats Magic! There was only one witch because of the recession and Banquo & his son were played by huge and small Pandas! Great fun for us and the audience.

Which lines are you using.Just name the Scene. I know the lines.

Do you need any help with Butterflies. I have several versions of the set up. Not performed it myself since my first 'Chinese' Act as a teenager but i have, in the last 2 years done a lot of research on it for a Japanese magician friend who was writing up the trick's history.

PM me if you need help

Allen Tipton

Thanks for the offer, but I already have a preferred set-up with the butterflies.

This routine is not supposed to be a happy routine IMO but a rather sad one hopefully.


The Macbeth dialogue is still just a maybe. But, it happens at the death of the butterflies, so naturally... it will be the:

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day until the last syllable of recorded time;

And All our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death, out, out brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player who struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a story told by a fool, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

There are errors in there but that's what I typed from memory. That will be mingled with the song and not recited aloud during the the performance but simply pre-recorded and placed into the song. Plus my set up for the butterflies doesn't allow it.

I don't want to say to much about the routine at the moment as it's not fully developed.

I would however love any advice on the shakespeare dialogue, is it just to over the top and superfluous, or does it fit rather well to the death of the butterflies?

That's Act 5, Scene 5 Ian. I won my Gold Medal at London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art with that scene. And yes you nearly got it all right except about 3 words. The worst being 'fool' instead of 'idiot'

Have you considered 'To Be or Not To Be'--Hamlet.
or part of Prospero's farwell to his magic,( Ye elves of hills; last scene.) including 'We are such stuff as dreams are made of'
or from Cymbeline, the song,;;'Fear no more the heat of the sun'

Music: I had forgotten The soundtrack to Space Odyssey 2001.
Then there's one of my favourite soundtracks..'Edward Scissorshand'.

And wouldn't it be theatrically effective if on, 'Full of sound & fury---signifying--nothing', you could slowly clench the 2 butterfiles in your hands and they either, just vanished or changed into a small fall of confetti; even that synthetic snow.

The thing with 'Tomorrow & Tomorrow' is it must be delivered quietly, with very, very little or preferably--NO movement.

Allen Tipton

That vanish at the end would be perfect and very effective to do!


I like Prospero's farewell. I have an idea how to use it in the song but I still need to mix the song. Once it's mixed and everything, I'll post it and ask everyone's opinion. It's sort of complicated to explain what I want to do with it so I'll just wait until it's done rather than try to explain it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6zEVZGuU3BU

And of course there is always:

The Dying Swan -- Saint Saens or

The Swan of Tuonela- Sibelius. Very plaintive.

Allen Tipton