Day 28 of 38:38
Macbeth
What amazing timing. The day of this play happened to be the day I had an audition for this play, so I needed to re-read it anyway. This is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and I found it exciting to read. Shakespeare really had hold of dramatic tension here; you can't help but get swept up in the build to "Macduff was from his mother's womb / Untimely ripped." Even when you know that's coming, it's still exciting.
I noticed reading the script that the only time Lady Macbeth speaks in prose is in the "Out, damned spot" scene. Everywhere else (except reading the letter -- not her words) she speaks in verse. This is very suggested of her as being a poised, intelligent, woman, knowing how to handle herself in court and public situations. She has truly gone mad, and we are seeing into her very soul in her final scene. There is no artifice left, she is simple herself, and as so, speaks in prose.
The one problem I generally have with this play when I see it in performance, is that productions tend to not do enough with Fleance, Banquo's son. Often when I see Macbeth performed, the audience is allowed to forget by the end of the play that the Weird Sisters promised Banquo that his children would be kings (But that myself should be the root and father / Of many kings). It is absolutely imperative for productions to not let us forget this -- after all, peace has been restored, Macbeth has been defeated, and the crown of Scotland is given to Malcolm. All is perfect in the world. Except not, because if we've been paying attention, we know this isn't the end of the story and somehow Fleance becomes king.
Finally, I found this passage of Macbeth's quite striking
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. Duncan is in his grave;
After life's fitful fever he sleeps well;
Treason has done his worst: nor steel, not poison,
Malice domestic, foreign levy, nothing
Can touch him further!
It's a slight variation on the typical "It's not so great to be king" speeches we find in Shakespeare.
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Favorite Female Character:
Lady Macbeth
Favorite Male Character:
Macbeth
Laugh out loud:
Macbeth O! yet I do repent me of my fury,
That I did kill them.
(okay, this isn't a comic line, per se, but it still makes me laugh)
"That's what she said!":
Malcolm I am yet
Unknown to woman
How insulting:
Macduff Not in the legions
Of horrid Hell can come a devil more damned
In evils, than Macbeth.
Shakey loves his meta:
Macbeth Life's but a walking shadow; a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more.
Oh, misogyny:
Macduff O! I could play the woman with mine eyes,
And braggart with my tongue.
Boys are silly:
Lady Macbeth 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.
Favorite Moment/Line:
Macbeth My dearest love,
Duncan comes here to-night.
Lady Macbeth And when goes hence?
Macbeth To-morrow, as he purposes.
Lady Macbeth O! never
Shall sun that morrow see.
Your face, my thane, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under ’t. He that’s coming
Must be provided for; and you shall put
This night’s great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
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Fleance doesn't actually become king -- one of his remote descendants marries Robert the Bruce's daughter centuries later, and that's how they become kings.
ReplyDeleteI've been enjoying your posts a lot, by the way. Hope you don't mind a small correction.
I had to resist talking to you all weekend about this because I wanted to continue the blog discussion!
ReplyDeleteI won't deny that you are historically speaking quite right, but I wonder if dramatically speaking, it plays as if Fleance will be king? I would also argue that assuming the prophecy speaks about Fleance is more dramatically tangible.
Also to a modern audience, the words of "father", "son", "seed" we correlate to direct offspring, even if that original audience would understand a greater sense of ancestry.
And Macbeth seems particularly concerned with Fleance "O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife; / Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives." (But of course you can argue that Macbeth is concerned with Fleance because as long as Fleance lives he could have children that would depose Macbeth).
But I should have said "Except not, because if we've been paying attention, we know this isn't the end of the story and somehow someone in Banquo's line becomes king."
That's an interesting question, especially since I don't have the foggiest idea how much the average Jacobean playgoer would have known about the ins and outs of Scottish royal genealogies. I do think it adds a rather cool extra layer, though, if the audience does know how things unfold and recognizes that Macbeth is in fact making a false assumption when he thinks that Banquo and Fleance pose an immediate threat, just as he misinterprets most of the other prophecies in the play.
ReplyDeleteOh, yes. Macbeth misinterpreting the prophecy and making a false assumption about Banque and Fleance being an immediate threat = very good point.
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