Script analysis only starts to mean something when you watch it applied to a real scene. So below is one of the most famous scenes in English drama, the murder scene from Macbeth, broken down in the order you would do the work on a set of sides. (For the method on its own, see how to break down a scene.)
The full text is free online and runs about three pages. Read it twice and make your own guesses first. Where you disagree with what follows, check the text: if your reading fits the facts, it is valid.
The scene in brief
It is the middle of the night in Macbeth's castle at Inverness. King Duncan is a guest, asleep upstairs. Lady Macbeth waits alone below, listening. She has drugged the king's two attendants and laid their daggers ready, and she tells us she would have killed Duncan herself if he had not looked like her father as he slept.
Macbeth comes down from the king's room. He has done it. But he is in pieces: two sleepers in a nearby chamber woke and said their prayers, he could not say "Amen" with them, and he thinks he heard a voice cry out that he had murdered sleep. Worse, he has carried the bloody daggers away with him instead of leaving them with the grooms. He refuses to go back. Lady Macbeth takes the daggers and goes up herself to smear the sleeping grooms with blood. Alone, Macbeth hears knocking at the gate and stares at his hands. She returns, her hands now as red as his, and hurries him off to wash and change before anyone finds them awake.
Here is how it opens. Look how short the lines are.
MACBETH I have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?
LADY MACBETH I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
Did not you speak?
MACBETH When?
LADY MACBETH Now.
Step 1: What are the given circumstances?
Start with facts only, the things the text states or makes unavoidable. These are the scene's given circumstances.
- Who: Macbeth, a nobleman and celebrated soldier, and his wife. Earlier in the play three witches told him he would be king.
- Where: their own castle at Inverness. The king is their guest, under their roof and their protection.
- When: past midnight, in darkness. The previous scene tells us the moon has set and no stars are out.
- Who else is in the house: Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, are asleep nearby. Lady Macbeth names Donalbain's chamber.
- What was planned: drug the grooms, kill Duncan with their daggers, leave the daggers with them so they take the blame.
- What went wrong: Macbeth brought the daggers back. That single fact drives the middle of the scene.
- History between them: at the end of Act 1, Macbeth tried to call the murder off and his wife talked him back into it. She owns this plan as much as he does.
- The clock: someone is knocking at the gate, and the household will soon be up.
Now note what the text leaves open. Did Lady Macbeth drink to steady herself? She says the drink that made the grooms drunk has made her bold, which allows it. How much time passes before the knocking starts? How close are they, as a couple, at this moment? You will need to decide, specifically.
Step 2: What does each character want, and what is in the way?
An objective should be something the other person can give you, phrased so you could tell whether you are getting it.
Lady Macbeth wants to get her husband cleaned up and in bed before anyone sees them. Everything she says serves that: stop thinking, wash your hands, take the daggers back, put on your nightgown.
Macbeth wants his wife to understand what he has just done. He keeps telling her things she does not want to hear: the prayers, the "Amen" that stuck in his throat, the voice. He wants someone to share the weight, or to tell him he can still be forgiven. A weaker version would be "Macbeth wants to escape," which the text does not support. He stays, and keeps talking to her.
Each is the other's obstacle. Her refusal to dwell on it blocks his need to confess. His paralysis blocks her plan. And each has an inner obstacle too. Hers is the moment by Duncan's bed when the old man looked like her father, which tells you her nerve is less total than her words. His is conscience, which has already begun to speak to him in voices.
Step 3: Where are the beats, and what is the action in each?
A beat changes when something shifts: new information lands, a tactic fails, someone gives in. If the term is new, here is what beats are in acting. This scene has five.
Beat 1, the return. From his entrance to the question about who sleeps in the second chamber. Short, frightened lines. Both are listening for the house waking. They talk only about noises.
Beat 2, the confession. Macbeth looks at his hands and calls it "a sorry sight." She dismisses that, and he tells her about the two sleepers praying and the "Amen" he could not say, then the voice crying that he would sleep no more. She keeps trying to shut the subject down. It does not work.
Beat 3, the daggers. She tells him to go and wash, then sees what he is holding. This is the turn of the scene. The danger is now evidence, in his hands.
LADY MACBETH Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
They must lie there: go carry them; and smear
The sleepy grooms with blood.
MACBETH I'll go no more:
I am afraid to think what I have done;
Look on't again I dare not.
LADY MACBETH Infirm of purpose! Give me the daggers.
Beat 4, alone with the knocking. She exits with the daggers. Macbeth, alone, hears the knocking and looks at his hands, and imagines all the ocean failing to wash them clean. His scene partner here is his own hands.
Beat 5, the cover-up. She returns, bloodied too, and takes charge: water, nightgowns, bed. Macbeth barely answers. The scene ends with him wishing the knocking could wake Duncan.
LADY MACBETH My hands are of your colour; but I shame
To wear a heart so white.
...
A little water clears us of this deed.
Actions are what you do to the other person, as transitive verbs. Here is one strong set of choices. A longer menu is in the list of acting action verbs.
| Beat | Lady Macbeth's action | Macbeth's action |
|---|---|---|
| 1. The return | to question | to alarm |
| 2. The confession | to hush, then to scold | to confess, then to plead |
| 3. The daggers | to command, then to shame | to refuse |
| 4. The knocking | (offstage) | to accuse (himself) |
| 5. The cover-up | to steady, then to hurry | to withdraw |
Step 4: What is the subtext?
Shakespeare's characters say a lot of what they think; the subtext is in what they are trying to do with it. For more on the idea itself, see what subtext is.
- The rapid "When?" and "Now." exchange
- Neither of them can afford to hear the other properly. They are both listening to the house, and talking to fill the silence.
- Her dismissal of "a sorry sight"
- Do not start. If you start, I will have to hear it, and I cannot.
- His story about the "Amen"
- Tell me God has not shut me out. He asks her, more or less directly, why he could not say it. She has no answer and changes the subject.
- "Infirm of purpose!"
- Contempt on the surface. Underneath, possibly fear: if he will not go back up those stairs, she has to.
- "I shame to wear a heart so white."
- I did it too, and I am fine. Whether she is fine is the actor's choice, and the rest of the play suggests she is not.
Keep the subtext inside the action. If Lady Macbeth plays "secretly terrified" on top of her commands, the audience sees the trick. If she plays to hurry, hard, and the fear leaks out only when he will not move, they see a person.
Step 5: What is the moment before?
The moment before is what each person is carrying when the scene arrives.
Lady Macbeth gets hers partly on the page. She opens the scene alone, wired, startled by an owl, imagining what is happening upstairs. One option: she went partway up herself, stood over Duncan, saw her father's face, and came back down. She has been listening ever since. When Macbeth enters, the first thing she sees is that he is alive and it is done.
Macbeth has just killed a sleeping old man who trusted him, then stood frozen while two sleepers in the next chamber woke, prayed and went back to sleep. Make it specific: how long did he stand there? He enters still holding the daggers, which means he has not yet noticed them. That detail tells you how far gone he is.
Two valid ways to play this scene
Good analysis narrows the field to choices the text supports. Here are two that hold up against every fact in step 1.
Version A: she is the steel
Lady Macbeth is fully in control. Her impatience is real, and her contempt for his fear is real. She handles the daggers like tools. "A little water clears us of this deed" is said as plain fact. In this version the scene is about the gap between them, and the horror is how little the murder costs her, for now. Her later collapse in the play lands as a delayed bill.
Version B: she is holding on by her fingernails
She could not kill Duncan herself, and she knows it. Every command is her keeping her own panic down by managing his. "Infirm of purpose!" is said as much to herself as to him. When she comes back with blood on her hands, the line about her white heart is bravado, and the line about the water is something she needs to believe. In this version they are two frightened people, and the gap between them is only in who shows it.
What neither version can do is play Macbeth calm or proud, or Lady Macbeth surprised by the murder. The daggers, the prayers and the plan rule those out.
The same steps on a film scene: When Harry Met Sally
The method works the same on screen. Take the famous lunch scene in When Harry Met Sally, set in a busy New York deli.
Given circumstances. Harry and Sally are close friends, not a couple. Harry is newly divorced and sleeping around, and he has just described, with some pride, how he leaves women's apartments soon afterward. Sally asks whether those women enjoy it, and he insists he would know. They are in public, at a crowded table.
Objectives and obstacle. Sally wants Harry to admit he does not know as much about women as he thinks. Harry wants to win the argument and keep his picture of himself intact. His obstacle is her. Hers is his certainty, which no argument will dent.
Beats and actions. Beat one, the argument: she probes, he brags. Beat two, the turn: she stops arguing and decides to show him. She fakes an orgasm, loudly, right there at the table, while the whole deli turns to stare. Beat three, the button: she stops, picks up her fork and goes back to her lunch as if nothing happened, and he has nothing to say. Her actions run to needle, to dare, to demonstrate, to dismiss. His run to boast, to scoff, then to gape. The scene then lands its famous last laugh on a stranger, an older woman at the next table, ordering what Sally is having.
Subtext. On top it is a dare between friends. Underneath, Sally is defending the women he walks out on, and perhaps herself; one reading is that she is telling him exactly how little he knows about her, too.
Two ways to play it. Sally can do it purely for fun, delighted to win. Or she can be genuinely annoyed, so the performance is a small act of revenge and the calm return to lunch is the knife. Both fit the facts. Neither works if she is embarrassed, because the whole beat turns on her total commitment.
How to do this with your own sides
Run the same five steps, in the same order: facts, wants, beats and actions, subtext, moment before. Write it in pencil on the page: the objective at the top, a line where each beat changes, the action verb in the margin.
For the method without the worked example, including what to do when your sides leave out half the story, see script analysis for actors. Then say it out loud with someone reading the other part; choices that look clear on paper often change the first time you hear the cue.
More questions
How long should a script analysis take?
For a two or three page audition scene, roughly twenty to forty minutes once you are practiced. The first few times it takes longer. A full role in a play or film is a different project that unfolds over weeks of reading and rehearsal.
Do you write your script analysis down?
Most actors write down at least the basics: the objective, the obstacle, the beat changes and the action verbs, usually in pencil on the script itself. Writing forces you to be specific, and a vague idea in your head tends to stay vague when you play it.
Why use Shakespeare for a script analysis example?
Because the same tools work on any text, and a famous scene lets you check the analysis against a play you can read in full for free. Shakespeare also hides very little: the facts, the wants and the turns are all in the words, which makes the method easy to see.
What is the difference between an objective and an action?
The objective is what you want from the other person over the scene, such as to get Macbeth to clean up and go to bed. The action is the verb you use to get it in a given beat, such as to hush, to command or to shame. One objective, several actions.
Should both characters be analyzed, or just mine?
Both, at least briefly. You cannot play against someone without knowing what they want, and their objective is usually your obstacle. You do not need to make their choices for them, but you should know what the text gives them.