Macbeth

They blamed that girl for the fire
Which was...

Well, it was the plan, I suppose

I wanted her gone, that's true
But I didn't want her put away

Just fired

Then again I didn't mean for the whole place to burn down either

I guess I could have said something
When they were strapping her in the straightjacket
But what?

'It was me?'

An actress without a strong sense
Of self-preservation
Shouldn't plan on having a long career

So why did I do it?

I guess you could say I was concerned

Back then, Beau and I would chat every night

I'd give him ideas
Suggestions
And he'd take them
And they'd work

Do this, do that
Reblock that scene
Fix that poster

We were on a roll

Did his wife know about it?

Maybe...

Maybe she did

Who knows?

Who can say, right?

Maybe she just didn't care

God knows she had other people to screw

She stayed out of my way
And I stayed out of hers
And so we got along just fine

But then that girl came along
And suddenly Beau was...distracted

He wanted to listen to her ideas
Young ideas
Fresh ideas

As if I was some old crone

He loved that warehouse
We would have stayed there
Stuck there
All of us

Doing third-rate productions
With two platforms
And forty folding chairs
And all of us catching t.b.
Because the place was freezing

I wanted to move on
Move up
But Beau said that girl loved the warehouse
Just like he did

She thought it was 'fun'

I wasn't in it for the fun
She might have been, but I sure as hell wasn't
This was my career we were talking about

So when Beau hired her as a stage manager
I waited until the second or third week
After she'd locked up the warehouse
Then I went in through the side door I'd left open
The one I told her was already locked

I knew the one thing Beau couldn't stand
Was a lack of responsibility

If anything happened to that location
The owner would kick us out
And we'd have to find another one
And then he'd stop listening to the little girl
In love with warehouses

So I lit a match
And threw it in one of the trash cans

Then I called the police from a payphone down the street
And went home

I'm not sure what happened after that

Apparently sparks flew
And one caught a pile of rags
And the whole place went up in flames

It should have just been perceived as an accident
But I guess Beau and his little Lolita
Hadn't been getting along all that well
And so people thought she started the fire on purpose

I tried to tell him it was probably just negligence
And firing her would be punishment enough
But at that point, ironically, he'd stopped listening to me

The accusations drove her crazy
Which I guess is understandable
Of course she still seemed pretty lucid
When they put her away

And I felt...

Look, I'm not interested in sharing a story with you here
The story's just meant to illustrate a point
About influence

Hell, I only stayed with the company
Until the ninth season
When in the middle of Macbeth
A reporter at the local newspaper
Started investigating reports about the fire
And I decided it was time to make that move to Minneapolis

They say it's bad luck to say 'Macbeth' in a theater
I say there are worse things you could do

Prove that you're influential
That's much more dangerous

Influence is a powerful thing
In the theater

You whisper in someone's ear
You plant an idea
You create, because that's what you do

Cause and effect
Actions and consequences
Protagonist, antagonist

And somewhere in all that
There's always a victim

There can't help but be

With all those people
Moving around
Going after the things they want

Somebody's bound to get hurt
That's just the nature of a beast

It's a little like a fire

Once it starts

It's hard to control it