This fucking play. It has injected itself into my life more than I could have ever intended, and I've come to realize how essential it is to my continued love and respect for Shakespeare. It's what I call the Tom Cruise Effect: you accept that he's super famous and recognizable and you don't think too much of him until you watch him in something and you remember just how charismatic and good he actually is. That's Macbeth for me, anyway. Although it's much better than Tom Cruise, of course.
In 2012, I was fortunate enough to experience perhaps NYC's trendiest treatment of Shakespeare: Sleep No More at the McKittrick Hotel. After enjoying a cold "Damn'd Spot" cocktail on the roof, my dearest Elissa and I got into the elevator and descended into the darkened bowels of the old re-purposed warehouse building. We proceeded to wear masks and not speak for two hours while blindly wandering up and down and around the various corners where (mostly) silent performance artists vaguely acted out scenes inspired by Macbeth. Events unfolded essentially as the play did, with all kinds of weird and bloody acts. As an anonymous voyeur, you're free to intrude or move on as you please. One of the actors beckoned me to assist him in putting his trousers back on at one point. There was bloody nude bathing, a woman giving birth in a ditch, an ominously laser-lit feast, moving trees, a trippy orgy, and everything you'd expect from a hallucinogenic wet dream about this fucking play. It was brilliant. Elissa and I went home on the subway carrying our grey masks and a purloined slip of letterhead from one of the sets (we're bad girls).
A year later, my second visit to Newcastle coincided with the hotly-anticipated live theatre broadcast of Macbeth being put on in a deconsecrated church for Manchester's International Festival. It starred none other than my Shakespeare husband Kenneth Branagh in the title role and Doctor Who's Alex Kingston as Lady M. National Theatre Live is a godsend, allowing lowly Americans like me the ability to once in a blue moon attend a real screening of something I'd never have the chance or the cash to see otherwise. I went with my friends Anne and Chris, and it was every bit as fantastic as I could have imagined. Sir Ken (SIR KEN! *girly sigh*) was a badass and visceral stud of a Macbeth, braving the slop and bloody mud of the "stage" created in the old church to put on probably the most physically demanding performance of his life. He and Alex were a great duo, playing off each other's natural gifts like the pros they are. I hope to see a recording of it someday, just to revisit that night at the old Tyneside Cinema.
Macbeth is the shortest of the tragedies and the fourth shortest of all the plays, but it reads like a blue streak. Sure, the stage or screen production can be stretched out to add even more weight to the famously portentous text, but the overall speed of the action in the first two breathless acts take place in little more than 48 hours, which plunges the audience into a bloody world of phantasmagoria largely unemployed by Shakespeare. By the time the action jumps ahead a few weeks or months into Macbeth's reign, we're already so steeped in a sea of darkness made incarnadine by all the foul death.
Christine Varnado, in her piece about the "Queer nature" of the play, interestingly and curiously focusses on the differing fashion over time of scholars interpreting the role of "Nature" in Macbeth. She points out that all the creepy "omens" and terrifying behavior of the natural world as described by many characters actually represents how the word "natural" used to mean "correct, normal, and good," whereas modern understanding knows "natural" to also mean "of uncontrolled nature" which is scientifically chaotic and unpredictable. Few other plays (Julius Caesar, King Lear, The Tempest) evoke the powers of "Nature" with as much fury and fear. The irony of having a bevvy of predictions tossed around a play set in a world so unpredictable is fiercely palpable.
Macbeth is also of great interest to psychologists for its portrait of a human descent into psychosis. Although scholars point out that this is a piece of literature and not a forensic case study, it's nonetheless perpetually intriguing for us to explore the possibilities of what runs through a criminal mind. See: every true crime book, movie, podcast, documentary, tv series ever made. Our odd fascination with the development of a twisted killer is near universal, and we eat it up like Hannibal Lecter's fava beans. For most of human history, anti-social acts were considered "evil" or "demonic" and involved some supernatural explanation. Only recently have social and behavioral sciences revealed that murderers, serial or otherwise, more often than not have tangled motives or personal histories of violence or abuse that lead to their "evil" acts. Macbeth, 400 years ahead of the FBI, proffered this possibility by outlining Macbeth's ambitions and outside influences. Some are "supernatural," yes, but others are very much coming from within rather than without.
ACT I
We come right out of the gate with a storm, and the iconic opening introduction to the "Weird Sisters," who are preparing to meet Macbeth upon the "blasted heath" somewhere in Scotland. "Wyrd" is an Old English word meaning "fate" and was retained in Scots, then reintroduced into English (probably) by Shakespeare in this play, where it picked up the meaning of "strange," which is how it is understood today. Anyways, the sisters call upon their familiars and all chant "Fair is foul and foul is fair, Hover through the fog and filthy air." Everything about this play is not what it seems. The theme of equivocation runs throughout, as we shall discuss later.
At a royal camp, King Duncan and his sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, receive news from a sergeant that Macbeth and Banquo have been kicking serious ass on the battlefield against the rebel Macdonwald, but that the King of Norway then led a second attack. A nobleman, Rosse, comes and reports that in fact Macbeth has defeated Norway as well as the traitor the Thane of Cawdor. Thrilled with this news, Duncan decides to award Macbeth with the traitor's former title.
The Witches return, discussing the mischief they've been getting into until they hear Macbeth and Banquo coming toward them. Banquo describes their otherworldly appearance:
What are these
So wither'd and so wild in their attire,
That look not like the inhabitants o' the earth,
And yet are on't? Live you? or are you aught
That man may question? You seem to understand me,
By each at once her chappy finger laying
Upon her skinny lips: you should be women,
And yet your beards forbid me to interpret
That you are so.
The Witches greet both men with greater titles than they currently have, and they take this as proof that the women can "look into the seeds of time." They hail Macbeth as Thane of Cawdor and King and Banquo as a begetter of kings. Macbeth insists they explain how they know what they know, and they disappear. Banquo wonders if they ate something to make them hallucinate. Just then, Rosse and another nobleman, Angus, find them and tell them about how happy Duncan is with their success that Macbeth has been given Cawdor, just as the Witches predicted. Macbeth knows that Cawdor still lives and asks "why do you dress me In borrowed robes?" and they explain that Cawdor turned out to be an asshole.
Macbeth and Banquo both wonder at the words of the Witches, as some of their claims are correct, but there is contention between the "two truths" told them. Macbeth, in an aside, seems very confused:
This supernatural soliciting
Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,
Why hath it given me earnest of success,
Commencing in a truth? I am thane of Cawdor:
If good, why do I yield to that suggestion
Whose horrid image doth unfix my hair
And make my seated heart knock at my ribs,
Against the use of nature? Present fears
Are less than horrible imaginings:
My thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical,
Shakes so my single state of man that function
Is smother'd in surmise, and nothing is
But what is not.
At a palace in Forres, Malcolm reports that the previous Thane of Cawdor is executed, and that Macbeth and Banquo are not returned yet, but while Duncan is speaking, Macbeth and Banquo arrive, to Duncan's happy surprise. Macbeth says he is honored enough to be serving the King, much less be promoted. Duncan appreciates his humility, and also holds Banquo in high esteem for his work. Duncan announces that Malcolm, his eldest son, will now be Prince of Cumberland, and be next in line for the throne. Macbeth says he shall take his leave to tell his wife about the good news. In an aside, Macbeth immediately knows that Malcolm stands in his way if he is to become King as the Witches said, and he just as quickly chides himself for thinking it.
At Macbeth's castle in Inverness, Lady Macbeth receives a letter from her husband and she reads it aloud. In it, he tells her everything about the battles, the Witches, and his promotion. Lady M is super excited about this news, but says she fears his nature, as it is "too full o' th' milk of human kindness" to do what is required of an ambitious man:
thou wouldst be great;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it: what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win: thou'ldst have, great Glamis,
That which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it;
And that which rather thou dost fear to do
Than wishest should be undone.' Hie thee hither,
That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;
And chastise with the valour of my tongue
All that impedes thee from the golden round,
Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem
To have thee crown'd withal.
A messenger comes, announcing that the King and Macbeth are on their way. She is already hatching plots:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman's breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature's mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry 'Hold, hold!'
This speech, IMHO, sounds like a pagan invocation--something that would better fit a Druid ceremony than someone's lonely bedchamber. It raises the question: is Macbeth plagued by women (and strange omens) in this play, or is he especially prescient, with a supernal power that flusters him on occasion? He's not especially intelligent--unlike all the other great villains we've encountered before, because Macbeth is not a villain--but as the play unfolds, he has these tendencies toward proleptic visions.
When Macbeth comes in, his wife salutes him heartily with his new titles and tells him that the King's visit is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of the premonitions he has heard. She says she will take care of the dirty business while he caters to the King. He is noncommittal about it.
The King comes to Macbeth's castle, along with his sons and several noblemen. Duncan ironically says that
This castle hath a pleasant seat, the air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses.
Yeah Ok, we'll see how that goes, buddy.
Banquo agrees with Duncan's assessment of the air because the marlet, a bird that usually breeds in churches, is happily nesting there. Fair is foul and foul is fair. Lady M comes out to greet them and Duncan thanks her profusely for putting them up for the night. She says it's her pleasure and they go in to find her husband.
Inside the castle, servers fret over preparing the table for dinner. Macbeth comes in by himself and has a whole vacillating soliloquy about what is to be done that night and in the future.
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'ld jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips. He's here in double trust;
First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,
Strong both against the deed; then, as his host,
Who should against his murderer shut the door,
Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan
Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been
So clear in his great office, that his virtues
Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against
The deep damnation of his taking-off;
And pity, like a naked new-born babe,
Striding the blast, or heaven's cherubim, horsed
Upon the sightless couriers of the air,
Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,
That tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
And falls on the other.
Here we see just how full of the "milk o' th' human kindness" he truly is. A decent human being would of course be torn up about whether or not murdering your beloved King and cousin is a great idea. But then of course, he has Lady M, the scariest woman on the planet, come up behind him. He tells her they cannot do murder and she just dumps a Gatorade barrel of toxic masculinity all over him:
What beast was't, then,
That made you break this enterprise to me?
When you durst do it, then you were a man;
And, to be more than what you were, you would
Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place
Did then adhere, and yet you would make both:
They have made themselves, and that their fitness now
Does unmake you. I have given suck, and know
How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me:
I would, while it was smiling in my face,
Have pluck'd my nipple from his boneless gums,
And dash'd the brains out, had I so sworn as you
Have done to this...
But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
And we'll not fail.
Lady M's reference to having "given suck" is a clue that perhaps she has had a child at some point. Did it happen recently or ages ago? What calamity took it from them? Or was it hers from a previous marriage? Does this childlessness fuel her desire for her husband to grasp ultimate power so they may establish a legacy by some other means? In the same line wherein we find an ounce of sympathy for her, she clobbers us with the image of her bashing a child's head in for the sake of ambition. It's shocking, and she just digs into her husband even more straight after that with some serious sexual innuendo. She lays out the entire dark plan for him: get Duncan's grooms drunk, then go in and stab the King in his sleep. This idea so quickly convinces Macbeth of her passion that he praises her strength:
Bring forth men-children only;
For thy undaunted mettle should compose
Nothing but males.
Macbeth worries only for a moment that they might be found out, but she says they'll just act so upset and clamorous at Duncan's death that no one will suspect them. Macbeth loves this (you can almost see the boner in his pants) and says "False face must hide what the false heart doth know."
ACT II
Banquo and his son Fleance are stumbling to their beds after Macbeth's feast to honor the King's arrival at the castle. Banquo mentions that "there's husbandry in heaven," which pretty much sums up the through-line of Nature's "queer" generative tendencies around Macbeth's Scotland, where animals and plants and even rocks are overactive and speaking out against the evil goings-on surrounding the human action of the play. Things are being spontaneously created out of thin air, owls are screaming, stones are "prating" and so on and so forth.
Anyway, Banquo meets Macbeth in the dark, and they shortly talk about dreaming of the Weird Sisters. Banquo and Fleance go to bed and Macbeth has one of his visions as he prepares his mind for action:
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee.
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible
To feeling as to sight? or art thou but
A dagger of the mind, a false creation,
Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
I see thee yet, in form as palpable
As this which now I draw.
Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going;
And such an instrument I was to use.
Mine eyes are made the fools o' the other senses,
Or else worth all the rest; I see thee still,
And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood,
Which was not so before. There's no such thing:
It is the bloody business which informs
Thus to mine eyes. Now o'er the one halfworld
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtain'd sleep; witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murder,
Alarum'd by his sentinel, the wolf,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace.
With Tarquin's ravishing strides, towards his design
Moves like a ghost. Thou sure and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my whereabout,
And take the present horror from the time,
Which now suits with it. Whiles I threat, he lives:
Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.
[A bell rings]
I go, and it is done; the bell invites me.
Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knell
That summons thee to heaven or to hell.
Everything's alive! And they're all protesting Macbeth's very thoughts! My vote is that he's a repressed warlock whose owl got lost with his letter from Hogwarts a long time ago. Perhaps Lady M sensed this in him and latched onto this apparently very sexy aspect of his personality and planned to ride it all the way to the throne. Also, "Dagger of the Mind" is totally a strong cocktail name. I'm going to invent it. Hold tight.
Lady M, looking for her husband after making sure Duncan's grooms quaffed their poisoned possets (another cocktail name!), is startled too easily by owls (but perhaps it's bringing Macbeth's wizarding school letter?). She tells herself that she would've stabbed the old King if he didn't resemble her father (interesting!). Macbeth finds her and says he's "done the deed." There was no sound except crying crickets and screeching owls. Macbeth recounts that he watched the grooms pray, and Macbeth was concerned that he could not bring himself to whisper "Amen" when they did, as the word "stuck in my throat." Lady M tells him not to worry about it, that it will drive them mad if they dwell on it. No shit.
Macbeth tells her that he thought he heard a voice say "Sleep no more! Glamis hath murther'd sleep." Lady M tells him to shut up and fetch some water to wash the "filthy witness" away. She sees that he still has the daggers and takes them to bring them back to the scene where he was supposed to leave them. She even says she'll swear Duncan's blood on the grooms' faces to stain them with guilt.
Knocking comes from the main gate, startling Macbeth as he washes his hands:
Whence is that knocking?
How is't with me, when every noise appals me?
What hands are here? ha! they pluck out mine eyes.
Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood
Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather
The multitudinous seas incarnadine,
Making the green one red.
A note on this last line: nearly every actor I've seen reads it with the wrong emphasis. They always say "green one, red" instead of "green, one red" because they suppose that "one" refers to "the sea" when "one" actually describes "red." "One red" indicates "entirely red." At least that's what the Riverside says in the footnotes. Of course Sir Ken said it right, and Michael Fassbender, in the 2015 film Macbeth, actually delivered this line correctly, which is one of the few genuinely nice things I can say about that movie, but we'll get to that.
Double side-note: the sea was often described as green and not blue because either Homer was colorblind or most languages just didn't have words to distinguish between green and blue until later in history. Shakespeare used the word "blue" 34 times in his works, btw. It's a rabbithole. I'm not going there.
Lady M returns and says "my hands are of your color" and upon hearing the knocking, she leads her husband to their chamber where they can change clothes.
Then comes the awkwardly placed "Porter scene" which provides a soupçon of humor at this most dark moment. The Porter makes all kinds of comments about what devil would come knocking so late. Indeed, the Macbeth castle has become a portal into Hell itself after what they just did. The Porter lets Macduff and Lennox inside the gate and he says he took so long to answer because everyone was busy drinking to the King:
PORTER: 'Faith sir, we were carousing till the
second cock: and drink, sir, is a great
provoker of three things.
MACDUFF: What three things does drink especially provoke?
PORTER: Marry, sir, nose-painting, sleep, and
urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes, and unprovokes;
it provokes the desire, but it takes
away the performance: therefore, much drink
may be said to be an equivocator with lechery:
it makes him, and it mars him; it sets
him on, and it takes him off; it persuades him,
and disheartens him; makes him stand to, and
not stand to; in conclusion, equivocates him
in a sleep, and, giving him the lie, leaves him.
HAHAHA yes that's so true and hilarious and OH GOD gird your loins because you're about to be made wide awake. The Porter mentions the word "equivocator" three times, which is a pretty obvious reference to secret Catholics in Protestant England, specifically surrounding the treasonous men behind the infamous Gunpowder Plot of 1605, which was meant to blow up King James. Equivocation was known as a Jesuit tactic to say one thing but mean another without giving yourself away, therefore allowing Catholics in a country of Protestants to go about life without being accused of treason. King James, the ultimate witch hunter and author of the book Daemonology was on a mission to rid his nation of witches (and treasonous Catholics, apparently), and isn't it nice of Shakespeare to write a whole play about your favorite subject in the world? Shakespeare knew what he was doing. Always kissing royal butts so his theatre wouldn't be shut down.
Macduff thinks his knocking has awakened Macbeth, who comes out to greet him. Time is "out of joint" here, because suddenly, it is dawn. While Macduff goes to wake Duncan (good luck), Lennox mentions that he and Macduff saw some #weirdshit during the night:
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i' the air; strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch'd to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour'd the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
Macduff comes out screaming bloody horror--the King has been murther'd! He yells for everyone in the castle to wake the fuck up. Lady M comes out, pretending to be sleepy and confused at this bell-ringing and acts totally surprised at the news. Macbeth does one better and doth protest too much:
Had I but died an hour before this chance,
I had lived a blessed time; for, from this instant,
There 's nothing serious in mortality:
All is but toys: renown and grace is dead;
The wine of life is drawn, and the mere lees
Is left this vault to brag of.
Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain come out and Lennox tells them he thinks the King's grooms killed their father because their faces are bloody. Macbeth describes the terrible scene in detail for them and says he himself just killed the "murderers" in his fury. Lady M is carried away after she "faints." Malcolm and Donalbain whisper to each other, distrustful of anyone in the castle, and decide to flee to England and Ireland, respectively. Donalbain says "there's daggers in men's smiles."
Outside the castle, Rosse and an Old Man talk about the #weirdshit they saw during the night of this MURTHER, like an owl attacking a falcon and horses eating at each other. Macduff finds them and says while Macbeth killed the guilty-looking grooms, Duncan's sons have fled, which makes them seem suspicious. Rosse shakes his head at the young men's "thriftless ambition" that may have spurred them to murder, and proposes that Macbeth may become King now. Macduff says he's already been made King and went to Scone for the coronation while Duncan has been carried to Colmekill (on Iona, the traditional resting place of Scottish kings) for burial. Macduff and Rosse decide to head to Fife.
ACT III
Banquo whispers to himself about how the witches' predications have comes true for Macbeth, so why not for him? The new King and Queen Macbeth enter with their peeps and greet Banquo, their honored guest. Macbeth says he's heard that Malcolm and Donalbain have fled the country. Banquo says he's taking his son Fleance with him on a ride. When Macbeth says "Fail not our feast," Banquo says "My lord, I will not" and neither have any idea in what form Banquo will most definitely keep his word!
Everyone leaves and Macbeth asks a servant to call some men to him. While waiting, Macbeth soliloquizes a paranoid screed about the threat of Banquo's line to his throne, and how he basically killed Duncan on their behalf and not his own. The servant brings him two Murtherers who are sworn enemies of Banquo. Macbeth asks if they have the balls to do a job for their King, and they say they're both so incensed and weary that they will do anything. Macbeth orders them to kill Banquo and his son because he cannot do it himself, lest he look bad in others' eyes. The men agree and go on their mission.
Lady M asks her servant to fetch her husband and she says to herself " 'Tis safer to be that which we destroy Than by destruction dwell in doubtful joy." Macbeth comes and she asks why he's so sulky lately (as if she doesn't know!). Macbeth says:
better be with the dead,
Whom we, to gain our peace, have sent to peace,
Than on the torture of the mind to lie
In restless ecstasy.
He adds that Duncan is lucky because he can sleep now that he's dead. Lady M chides him and says he must put on a good face for the guests. Macbeth says they both need to praise Banquo publicly to hide their true thoughts. He says "O full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!" (because he's hatched a plot against Banquo). He refuses to tell her about the men he hired, as he wants her "innocent of the knowledge." A little too late for that, aren't we?
Three, not two, MUTHERERS run into Banquo and Fleance in the woods and in a tussle, they kill Banquo but Fleance escapes. Goddard makes the argument on both sides that this mysterious third man is Macbeth himself, and it is a juicy tidbit of a theory.
At the Banquet, Macbeth and Lady M greet everyone just as one of the Murtherers comes to tell the King that Banquo is killed but Fleance lives. Macbeth immediately has a panic attack and as Lady M is asking him to rejoin the group, he sees Banquo's Ghost sitting in his seat. People comment on Banquo's absence, and ask Macbeth to sit with them, and he dares not. Macbeth, feeling safe from blame because he didn't slay Banquo, can't believe his Ghost has come to haunt him. Everyone wonders WTF is going on and Lady M awkwardly explains that
my lord is often thus,
And hath been from his youth: pray you, keep seat;
The fit is momentary; upon a thought
He will again be well: if much you note him,
You shall offend him and extend his passion:
Feed, and regard him not.
With this, she confirms that Macbeth does in fact experience the odd brain fevers, and she must know that they're useful in their predictive nature. She tries to talk him down, reminding him that "This is the very painting of your fear" (reminiscent of Gertrude's words to her son "this is the very coinage of your brain"). Lady M clearly knows her man's most intimate secrets, as her words to him prove that he has revealed all his visions to her. The text indicates that she sees nothing, but a director could decide that she sees what he sees. Either way, the effect of their words shows that he feels more guilt than she does.
Macbeth kind of recovers when the Ghost disappears, but as soon as it comes back, he freaks out again and yells at it to go away. When it finally does, Lady M throws in the towel and says "You have displac'd the mirth" and asks everyone to just go to bed now. Macbeth asks Lady M where the F Macduff is and says he will go back to find the Weird Sisters and see what else they have to say. Macbeth feels he is in too deep now:
I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er:
Strange things I have in head, that will to hand;
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
Lady M says "You lack the season of all natures, sleep."
Out on the heath or a cave or wherever, Hecate meets with the witches. In a rhyming couplet poem, she chews them out for talking to Macbeth without her being present. She says they will meet him again soon to make up for it.
Lennox meets with a Lord and they gossip about all the latest bloody bullshit. They sarcastically talk about how great a job Macbeth is doing and all the other craziness going down. The Lord says that he heard Macduff has gone to Malcolm's side, and they are hoping King Edward will help them take Macbeth down.
ACT IV
The Weird Sisters are busy concocting a brew that sounds like an Iron Chef challenge gone off the rails:
Round about the cauldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.
Toad, that under cold stone
Days and nights has thirty-one
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot...
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the cauldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt and toe of frog,
Wool of bat and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg and owlet's wing,
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble...
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches' mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg'd i' the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver'd in the moon's eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar's lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Just try sourcing "Nose of Turk" in Medieval Scotland. You can't even get that shit on Amazon.
Hecate praises the witches on their cooking skills and they start singing around the fire. Macbeth arrives and says "I conjure you" to tell me WTF is in my future and they are eager to comply. He sees Apparitions that report future intelligence that he takes all wrong:
Macbeth! Macbeth! Macbeth! beware Macduff;
Beware the thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough...
Be bloody, bold, and resolute; laugh to scorn
The power of man, for none of woman born
Shall harm Macbeth...
Be lion-mettled, proud; and take no care
Who chafes, who frets, or where conspirers are:
Macbeth shall never vanquish'd be until
Great Birnan* wood to high Dunsinane hill
Shall come against him...
(* I've seen it spelled as "Birnan" in Riverside and "Birnam" in other editions)
For each warning, Macbeth happily responds with an answer to reassure himself that he's basically invincible. Like a dumbass. He asks one last thing: Will Banquo's issue feed Scotland's line of Kings? The witches shrug and another vision comes: eight Kings in a row, the last holding a mirror, with Banquo at the end. This vision sears Macbeth's eyes and asks "What, will the line stretch out to th' crack of doom?" The Witches disappear, leaving him to fret until Lennox comes and asks him WTF he's been up to. Macbeth asks him if he's seen the Weird Sisters and Lennox is like "Nah, brah, but we just got word that Macduff has fled to England." Macbeth is amazed and tells Lennox he will send men to slaughter everyone in Macduff's household.
In Fife, at Macduff's castle, his wife asks Rosse where the F her husband has gone and complains that this will leave them vulnerable. She compares him to more courageous animals:
for the poor wren,
The most diminutive of birds, will fight,
Her young ones in her nest, against the owl.
All is the fear and nothing is the love;
As little is the wisdom, where the flight
So runs against all reason.
Rosse assures her that Macduff is acting in everyone's best interests, just chill out woman, let the men work. He leaves her to tend to her children, who ask if their father is a traitor and if she will get another husband. She jokes about buying another one in the marketplace until the Son makes an unexpectedly sharp point about society:
Then the liars and swearers are fools,
for there are liars and swearers enow to beat
the honest men and hang up them.
A Messenger comes in to warn them that danger is coming. Lady Macduff is frozen with fear and laments the injustice of the world:
I have done no harm. But I remember now
I am in this earthly world; where to do harm
Is often laudable, to do good sometime
Accounted dangerous folly...
We only meet this family for one scene and they have more wisdom in their left pinkie fingers than most do in their whole bodies. Too bad MURTHERERS come in and slay them.
In England, at Edward's palace, Malcolm and Macduff determine what they need to do about Scotland's current state of horror. Malcolm probes Macduff about his loyalties, telling him that he [Malcolm] would be a worse King than Macbeth, to make sure Macduff is not just luring Malcolm back to Scotland for an ambush. Malcolm piles on insults to his own person so high that Macduff finally weeps for his beloved country and Malcolm finally admits that he was just testing him because he's had many of Macbeth's spies come to him. He even admits that he's a virgin (TMI, dude), and has never even had a touch of lechery in his life. A Doctor comes to tell them that Edward (the Confessor) is going to help them, but first he has to cure a bunch of people with his magic touch. Malcolm tells Macduff all about how miraculous Edward is just as Rosse comes with news of Macduff's family. Rosse hesitates with the terrible facts, and when he finally spills about Macduff's family being killed, he watches Macduff's heart give out:
All my pretty ones?
Did you say all? O hell-kite! All?
What, all my pretty chickens and their dam
At one fell swoop?
Macduff can barely conceive of the news and asks Rosse twice if his wife is dead. Malcolm says that Macduff should use this hot grief to boil his blood for revenge, for they have ten thousand of Edward's soldiers behind them and they're gonna kick Macbeth's ASS! Malcolm says "Dispute it like a man" and Macduff answers:
I shall do so;
But I must also feel it as a man:
I cannot but remember such things were,
That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on,
And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,
They were all struck for thee! naught that I am,
Not for their own demerits, but for mine,
Fell slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!
He's a decent guy, that Macduff. Malcolm says they're ready to go.
ACT V
A Doctor and a Waiting Gentlewoman are up late, gossiping about Lady M's behavior.. She's been sleep-walking and apparently writing letters and washing her hands in the process. Lady M comes out, carrying a candle, her eyes open "but their sense are shut." She rubs and rubs for a quarter of an hour at a time and uses the following twenty-second handwashing speech to make sure she doesn't spread the 'Rona:
Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why,
then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--Fie, my
lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we
fear who knows it, when none can call our power to
account?--Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him.
They watch her continue to say suspicious things and the Doctor shakes his head, saying
Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets:
More needs she the divine than the physician.
Meanwhile, Lennox and some other men march toward Birnan, discussing Macbeth's insanity and how they plan to attack the fortified castle.
Macbeth assures himself that despite reports about all his Thanes fleeing and an army coming, Malcolm is born of woman and cannot harm him. A Servant enters and swears ten thousand men are coming. Macbeth scoffs and waves him away, but then kind of admits defeat:
I have lived long enough: my way of life
Is fall'n into the sear, the yellow leaf;
And that which should accompany old age,
As honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,
I must not look to have; but, in their stead,
Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour, breath,
Which the poor heart would fain deny, and dare not.
Macbeth asks the Doctor what's up with Lady M. The Doctor says she lacks sleep and he cannot cure her. Macbeth is disappointed.
MACBETH: Cure her of that.
Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?
DOCTOR: Therein the patient
Must minister to himself.
Macbeth says "FUCK IT" and goes to put on his armour and prep for battle.
Malcolm, Macduff, Lennox, Rosse, and a bunch of other dudes have marched to Birnan Wood. Malcolm orders that every man cut down a branch and carry it with them as they march to hide their numbers. They know Macbeth is still just battening down at his castle and not going anywhere.
Macbeth is running around, shouting orders until a woman's scream interrupts him. He is barely perturbed by such scary things anymore, and when Seyton comes to say that Lady M is dead, Macbeth launches into his most dour and famous speech:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To 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
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
The most insightful explanation of this speech comes from Sir Ian McKellan, who did a 90-minute one-man TV special in 1982 titled Acting Shakespeare. While he does a number of speeches and soliloquies from the plays, even doing multiple parts at once, he slows down to parse every word in this particular passage. Please watch the ten solid minutes of his "university lecture" from an actor's perspective, for he tells it best.
Oh Sir Ian. You are a treasure. Anyway, thanks for indulging in that interlude.
A bemused Messenger comes to Macbeth and reports that Birnan is fucking MOVING and Macbeth calls him a LIAR even though he now doubts his interpretation of the Witches' prophecy.
Malcolm and Macduff toss down their boughs and lead their army to charge the castle.
Young Siward finds Macbeth and Macbeth slays him and hides just before Macduff enters, calling out Macbeth for killing his family. Malcolm and Old Siward keep fighting, sure they are to win soon.
Macbeth comes out and Macduff finally finds him. They fight and Macbeth haughtily says "I bear a charmed life which must not yield To one of woman born." To which Macduff famously says
Despair thy charm;
And let the angel whom thou still hast served
Tell thee, Macduff was from his mother's womb
Untimely ripp'd.
Oh, so because Macduff never saw his momm'a birth canal, he's special. Now Macbeth gulps hard and shits himself. Macbeth refuses to give up and they lay on a good fight before Macduff finishes him off.
Malcolm and his dudes come in and talk about who died and who survived. Macduff finds them and ceremoniously carries Macbeth's head.
Hail, king! for so thou art: behold, where stands
The usurper's cursed head: the time is free:
I see thee compass'd with thy kingdom's pearl,
That speak my salutation in their minds;
Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:
Hail, King of Scotland!
Malcolm accepts the fact that he is now King and has a goodly speech about how he is going to reform the governmental system that led to this garbage. He re-titles all the Thanes as Earls, because that's somehow better I suppose. He calls all the exiles back home and also sort of answers the question about Lady M's strange death, announcing that Macbeth's "fiend-like queen, Who, as 'tis thought, by self and violent hands Took off her life." Ok nice to know. Finally, Malcolm invites everyone to the big coronation party at Scone. Woohoo!
Ok, movie time. So many fucking movies.
Of course, Orson Welles brought his usual awesomeness to Shakespeare in the early film version of Macbeth in 1948. The production design and camera angles are so Orson that I'm willing to overlook even the terrible Scots accents the actors put on the entire time. That one castle shot is the medieval version of that Xanadu shot in his perfect masterwork Citizen Kane (1941). But before Kane he also famously put on a stage production for the Federal Theatre Project in 1936 lovingly called "Voodoo Macbeth" set in Haiti with an all-black cast. Produced by the very experienced John Houseman under the aegis of the FTP's "Classic Branch" of the "Negro Theatre Unit," 20-year-old Orson was brought on despite his initial refusal due to his busy and thriving radio schedule. It was Orson's idea to do the whole thing set in Haiti with voodoo motifs to make the "witchcraft" stuff more viable in the modern era.
At first, it was protested because African American people were afraid it was going to be a parodic minstrel show, but as soon as it premiered, it became a box office sensation. I wish they had filmed it, man, I would have loved to have seen that! The production went on to successfully tour the country, although it ran into interracial relations issues when it played in the still segregated South (UGH no surprise there, but UGH). I'm amazed they even got off the ground with this concept in their time period, so major kudos in the end.
Akira Kurosawa was always a fan of the play Macbeth, and always wanted to make his own film version, but he held back on it after he found out that Welles was making his film. Nine years later, Kurosawa released Throne of Blood (1957), known in Japan as Kumonosu-jō, or "Spider Web Castle." Set in medieval Japan, it follows the plot fairly closely, and has all the famous set piece moments. Lady M is downright frightening with her cold ghost-like facial expressions and even the swishing of her robes as she walks is creepy. My favorite thing about this film is that it presents the elemental and ethereal themes perfectly by often making people and surroundings appear to come out of nothing through fog or clever lighting effects. Kurosawa cites his affection for Noh theatre for inspiration for the characters' makeup and acting techniques.
The entire film has a fairy-tale sensibility, floating in our imaginations. The image of the forest creeping toward the castle at the end is the most effective portrayal of "Birnan Wood coming to Dunsinane" ever. Also, legendary actor Toshiro Mifune out-Boromirs Boromir by becoming an actual pin cushion for all the real-life arrows being shot at him by skilled archers off camera. That took some balls to agree to that kind of action scene.
I had NO IDEA Roman Polanski made The Tragedy of Macbeth (1971), much less that it was a means of him coping with what happened to his pregnant wife Sharon Tate. You'd think with the whole Manson family thing, one wouldn't necessarily want to do a project involving dead babies and multiple hideous murders, but hey, we all deal with our shit in different ways. It was filmed in several beautiful locations in Wales and Northumberland, many of which I've visited myself, so I can attest that it's a far cry from hot homicidal Los Angeles, so that could have been part of the appeal.
For some reason, Playboy Productions backed the film. Just so you know. The work itself is classic Polanski and has some of his signature moments a la Rosemary's Baby. It totally works. It has some truly beautiful shots and contains the most warmly attractive Lady M I've seen this week. Francesca Annis (Lady Jessica in David Lynch's Dune, WTF I am shook) is sensual and seductive in the least scary way (unlike most Lady Ms), but she still has that power-hungry streak that she is meant to embody. At the end, the script goes off-text and shows Donalbain sneaking around trying to find the Weird Sisters, presumably to ask them what's in his future, which brings the story to a nice cyclical closing. Four stars.
Vishal Bhardwaj once again delivers another darkly compelling modern translation of Shakespeare with Maqbool (2003). This was actually the first of his "Shakespeare Trilogy," the other two of which we've already reviewed earlier for Hamlet and Othello. It sets the story in Mumbai's criminal underworld, whichis run by Jahangir "Abbaji" Khan (Duncan). He confers upon longtime captain (who's basically an adopted son) Miyan Maqbool (Macbeth) control over Bollywood interests after he kills a rival. Two corrupt policemen (witches) prophecy that Maqbool will be the next Don one day. Abbaji's mistress, Nimmi (Lady M) seduces Maqbool into shooting Abbaji one night and Maqbool becomes the next Don. Maqbool soon kills off his friend Kaka (Banquo) and helps prepare Abbaji's daughter to marry Kaka's son Guddu (Fleance). Nimmi actually gets pregnant, but no one is sure if it's Maqbool's or Abbaji's. Throughout the movie, the policemen come in to consult Maqbool using Hindu astrology charts to determine his most auspicious decisions. Eventually, Nimmi gives birth, but due to complications, she dies, leaving Maqbool to be shot by Riyaz (Macduff) as he leaves the hospital after checking on the baby, who appears to be adopted by Guddu and Abbaji's daughter.
Irrfan is, as always, the emotional center of every scene he's in, and he portrays a truly conflicted "Macbeth" character. Turning the witches' predictions and warnings into the policemen's multiple readings of their many charts is a clever choice, as is adding the pregnancy twist to the plot. Making Nimmi the consort of Abbaji provides a more overt motivation for Maqbool'd actions, as he battles with both love of his adopted father and his jealousy for Nimmi's exclusive affections. I really hope Vishal does more adaptations because he has more than proven how a talented filmmaker can effectively bring Shakespeare into the present and make it both entertaining and relevant.
Rupert Goold, who also directed Richard II for the BBC's 2012 Hollow Crown series, set his Macbeth (2010) in communist Romania in the 60s. It stars everyone's favorite Shakespeare Uncle, Sir Patrick Stewart, and the director's wife, Kate Fleetwood. We are dropped down into the literal underground of royal corruption and power. Most of the scenes are in dank hallways and dripping tunnels that are connected by deep elevator shafts of DOOM. The witches come in the guise of super creepy nurses, one of which is currently the wife of our favorite UK mascot Benedict Cumberbatch (she's the tallest one and I'm more than a little jealous that she got to manhandle a bloody Sir Patty Stew on top of marrying Benny). Fleetwood is by far the most fearsome and slithering of the Lady Ms, easily tempting her confused husband into murder. Fleetwood was raised near Stratford-Upon-Avon so she was almost bred to do this shit.
This production reminded me of why the alternate fascist UK universe of Richard III (1995) starring Sir Ian McKellen worked so well: depositions a la murder are still the bread and butter of corrupt governments. We like to think that these heavy-handed tactics are medieval, but they're very much alive and well in our modern era.
When I first went in to see Macbeth (2015) in theatres, I had high hopes. I've respected Fassbender ever since his Peter O'Toole impression as the Lawrence of Arabia fanboy replicant in Prometheus. Marion Cotillard is a fucking Oscar-winning gem, and who doesn't love seeing even a short-lived role for David Thewlis (King Duncan)? But I guess director Justin Kurzel was a bit of a wildcard for such an ambitious film. I recall kind of hating the movie the first time I saw it, mostly because I didn't like how they opened the story with the deceased child of the Macbeths, which eliminates all the ambiguity and shifts the motivations of the characters away from the original text too much.
They made some CHOICES for this version, tell you what. Upon second viewing, I have come to respect some of those choices, but still take issue with it overall. Scenes and lines were frequently mixed around and put in other character's mouths to emphasize different emotions and visual cues, which is fine. It's been done and it works just fine most of the time. But it was grim AF. Even for Macbeth it's grim AF. Ninety percent of the time, it rings with this tiresome emotional monotone of flat wet grief surrounding CHILDREN and DEAD BABIES and that's not really what this story is about goddamit. This is the first time I actually got to thinking that Lady M actually sacrificed her child to the spirit world so that her husband could gain power. That is FUCKED UP.
Visually, it was gloriously cinematic, with all those bleak unearthly on-location beauty shots of more fondly remembered Scottish places I've visited on the Isle of Skye and seaside castles in Northumberland. More than any other film I can remember, this one captured the stark stoic elegance of those dramatic landscapes. As a whole, this film failed to coalesce as a means to pull you into the character's experiences as Shakespeare's text does with aplomb. Everyone is too mired in dull depression and resignation to resonate with us. I don't feel for the characters so much as I feel bad for the actors who had to slog around in the mud or the icy rain of those desolate locations for weeks on end. There are films that better present the text, and some that take bold artistic liberties to present a new perspective on this timeless classic, and we need both in this world. This one, because it was imperfect, wrestled with Shakespeare's material and made me better appreciate what I love most about the original source. The best compliment I could come up with was backhanded. Sorry/not sorry.
This week was a lot. If I were back at work already I would taken two weeks on this one. Luckily, I got to do the biggest plays over the usual summer vacation. I've already decided to swap Coriolanus with Antony and Cleopatra because I have one week left before pre-week school prep starts (UGH *crosses fingers*). I have a particular fondness and respect for Coriolanus and I feel its complexities are best hashed out while I still have more time. These next two plays were written pretty much at the same time anyway. I am excited to develop an even deeper adoration for this fairly unknown play.