College Geeklet Stories: Macbeth

Hello! It is so cool for me to be writing for my dad’s blog after reading stories about me as a young kid reciting Shakespeare and the fact that I named my dolls Goneril and Regan before I had even read King Lear. There is something so full circle about this, and I’m so excited.

I’m in college, studying English with a Creative Writing concentration and Journalism. Unfortunately, I have no plans to be a Shakespeare academic (right now). I’m actually leaning more toward the journalism path. But of course, when I saw a Shakespeare class offered, I knew I had to take it. Learning Shakespeare again in college has been so fascinating as someone who grew up with Shakespeare. I have so many thoughts now that I’m old enough to have a deeper understanding of the plays.

My college offers two Shakespeare classes, one from the beginning portion of his life, focusing on comedies, and another on the second half of his life, focusing on tragedies. The tragedies course was the only one offered this semester, so I signed up. So far, we’ve read Macbeth, Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and Othello. Currently, we’re reading King Lear, and we still have Antony and Cleopatra and, finally, Pericles.

I had read the first three before the course, which made rereading them at a college level interesting. I didn’t have to focus on understanding the plot at first because I already knew the summary of these plays. That’s why when I read Othello, I interpreted it a lot slower because I wasn’t as familiar with the characters and story the way I knew Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet from the heart. Not that I didn’t love Othello, but it’s much easier to take away specific details when you know the basic summary of the story by heart.

The most significant discovery from this class was how much I love Macbeth. If you were to ask me my thoughts on Macbeth pre-college, I wouldn’t have thought much about it. To me, Macbeth and Hamlet were very interchangeable, and I would have preferred to discuss Much Ado About Nothing or As You Like It. I think I was more familiar with comedies because while my dad always taught me about tragedies, it’s hard to teach a little kid a story about a guy who wants to kill his uncle for revenge compared to a guy who turns into a donkey.

My new love for Macbeth came from my class’s in-depth analysis of Lady Macbeth and gender. Reading Macbeth in high school, the complexity of Lady Macbeth never crossed my mind. But when I sat down and read her monologue, I was blown away. When she said, “Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,” I knew that this character was different than any character I had ever read. Most of Shakespeare’s women I had read were very restricted by the gender norms of the time. Now that I’m thinking out loud, most of the comedies I read are heavily romance-driven. This was one of the first plays I had read that not only had zero romance but also a female character who took on the male characteristics of the time.

This led to me being fascinated with how exactly Shakespeare can challenge gender roles in some of his plays while also reinforcing them in others. I would say Taming of the Shrew is a pretty blatant example of him enforcing the rules, but most of the tragedies I’ve read break away from the gender rules. Except Ophelia, that I know of. I wrote my first paper for the course about the irony of Shakespeare’s strong female characters being in the tragedies, almost symbolizing that women who defy what society expects from them will meet tragic demise.

In my essay, I wrote about how women at the time were associated with Eve for being manipulative and needing a man to control them so they would not cause harm. I took this to explain why Lady Macbeth is villanized by most readers, rather than being a woman who knew what she wanted but was frustrated by the limits of her gender. Growing up reading Macbeth, I fell victim to this, and I thought she was the story’s villain. And while I obviously think murder makes someone a wrong person, I have a better understanding of why she wanted to kill Duncan so severely. I used to think she was crazy for wanting to kill Duncan so badly, but she is such a complex character.

Frankly, her character makes me sad. She isn’t afraid to face the challenges her gender presents her. Still, in the end, she falls victim to her biological gender (Though I do have questions about this, I think this was Shakespeare’s intention). In my essay, I wrote,


“Lady Macbeth mentally recognized that she needed to take on male characteristics to get what she wanted, but this was not something she could maintain, as she died shortly after going mad, presumably by suicide. Shakespeare believes that the cruelty that Macbeth can maintain naturally as a man is not something Lady Macbeth can hold on to for a very long time.”

The idea that she was doomed from the beginning is frustrating. She felt guilty about the killing, and she wasn’t entirely inhumane. There are several cases where she expresses her worry for Macbeth, which shows that she isn’t sociopathic but does show emotions and regret.

In the other plays I’ve read so far, there have been women who strayed from the gender norms of the time, but I have yet to find a character who stands out to me the way Lady Macbeth has. The comparison between Emilia and Desdemona in Othello is probably a close second for me. They weren’t as intense with their gender defiance the way Lady Macbeth was, but the small moments throughout the play interested me. When Emilia announces that she believes women should be allowed to cheat on their husbands, I was kinda like…oh wow, that was not something I would ever expect a Shakespeare character to say. I found Desdemona frustrating, but the fact that she married Othello despite society being against interracial marriage I thought was interesting. Though if she actually loves Othello, that’s an entirely different question that I will try and figure out for my second essay on Othello.

This is a lot of writing, so I’ll cut it here. But I’ll continue to brain-dump my thoughts on relearning Shakespeare as a college student regularly!

Commonwealth Shakespeare presents Macbeth on Boston Common

I’ve been attending Commonwealth Shakespeare’s annual free production on Boston Common for longer than I can remember. I think my first show was their previous Macbeth in 2003, where we went with friends and only saw part of it in a right place, right time, “Oh, they’re doing Shakespeare? Let’s watch!” situation. Since then, I missed 2005 (Hamlet, a long story) and 2019 (Cymbeline, my mom was sick). So I’ve seen … 17 of their shows. Only Macbeth and Much Ado have repeated on my watch. The great thing about going now is that my kids are old enough to come with us, and have been to several shows now. So it’s a family affair! We rent our chairs; we get our spot, and we bring a Chinese takeout picnic. Gotta love traditions.

When I saw the burned-out jeep, I posted wondering whether we were going to get a dystopian Macbeth. That’s kind of like the generic interpretation, don’t you think? I feel like dystopian Macbeth is clichè. “Watch,” I told the kids, “everybody will be dressed in military uniforms and camouflage.”

Possessing the bodies that were available, maybe?

So, there’s that. 🙂 In fairness, Macbeth gets to change his clothes, but nobody else does. Where’s the camo, though, you ask? Let’s talk witches. The witches weren’t just in camouflage, but a bright yellow, almost glow-in-the-dark version. Once you accepted that you weren’t going to see anything “witchy” and thought of them more as the possessed souls of fallen soldiers, the effect worked.

I’m paying particular attention to the costumes because I want to highlight Lady Macbeth’s. She got all the good stuff, and it was so worth it:

I was asked on Twitter how they made use of the set. I wish the jeep had moved, but it did not. The lights worked, as we see with the witches. People climbed all over it. This did give us opportunities for a cool shot like this during the dagger speech:

I still can’t figure out if there’s something special going on there. The angle of his real arm doesn’t match the angle of the shadow. That’s one of those “If I went back to see it again I’d pay closer attention” moments.

They did a great job with lighting and smoke. This is Macbeth going to visit the witches. Later, the stage will be full of the ghosts of kings. And yes, unfortunately, that monitor was right in our way the whole time. That’s my biggest complaint about the show. In recent years they’ve leaned heavily into accessibility, which is great (a year or two ago, they had sign language interpreters, which was really cool). But that’s a horrible spot, and you’re literally saying, “We’re going to lower the quality of the experience for the majority of the audience who don’t need this feature.”

Yes, but how was the show?

Enough pictures; let’s talk about acting. Over the years, it’s become my role to be the Shakespeare explainer guy. Whoever I’m with, whether it’s my family, coworkers, or friends, typically doesn’t know the story’s intricacies. So I’m called upon to, and I’m going to say this like this for a reason, keep it interesting. Anybody can read the synopsis in the program, and I could laundry list what’s about to happen. What I try to do instead, therefore, is to find the “watch for this” moments that they can hang on. They’re going to lose track of who’s who, and they’re going to misunderstand most of the lines. So if I can find some moments of human experience that (a) they won’t miss and (b) they’re sure to understand, then they have something to work with.

What I said this year was, “Watch Macduff. Here’s the thing with Macduff. Macbeth’s technically got no beef with him, he’s not Duncan’s family and he’s not in line for the throne. But he doesn’t go to Macbeth’s coronation, and Macbeth takes that personally. So there’s going to be a scene where Macduff’s wife and children are murdered. I don’t know how they’re going to play it here, but it’s a bad scene, it’s legit horror if they want to go that way. And then there’s this poor messenger that has to tell Macduff what’s happened, and Macduff loses it. Done right, it’s heart-wrenching. He’s so excited to get news from his family that the messenger at first tells him everything’s fine, but then has to break it to him, and the way he just keeps asking, all of them? all? can tear your heart out. So Malcolm convinces Macduff to join his army, and ultimately he’s the one to be the hero, get his revenge and kill Macbeth to end they play.”

They – more specifically, Macduff – did not disappoint. The actual murder did, That scene was played out almost like an interpretive dance, and I found it too safe. Make it obvious; make it bloody. The wife’s pregnant, and I can’t remember if that’s always how it is played. But if you show the murder of a pregnant woman, you’ll get the audience to pay attention.

But Macduff just crushed it. The Shakespearean actor playing Macduff is immediately gone, and the man whose family has been murdered (because he wasn’t there to protect them!) is before us. When I described the scene as I did, he gave me exactly what I hoped it would be. You felt what he was feeling. His revenge would mean something.

Points also to Lady Macbeth, who knocked it out of the park in all of her scenes. During her sleepwalking scene, she let out this long ghostly wail that quite frankly made me jump and ask, “Where the hell did that come from?” It made her seem less than human. My only disappointment is that in the next scene, where there’s a scream offstage, they used a recording. Why? You just delivered a beauty on stage, do it again.

I also want to shout out a minor thing I saw because sometimes the little things catch your attention. One of the murderers lets Fleance go. He clearly picks him up, carries him out of the fight, gives him back his flashlight, and makes what I saw as a “Go! And, *shush!*” gesture. I thought ok, that’s different. But … there’s no room for it to go any place. I still wanted to point it out because I did see it! Somebody made that choice and should know that it was noticed!

How was our Macbeth? Here’s how I decided to put it. With Macduff, I saw a man whose family had been killed. With Lady Macbeth, I saw a woman driven insane. With Macbeth, I saw an actor playing Macbeth. Does that make sense? It’s not necessarily bad. He’s got a stage presence. His delivery is excellent. But I never really felt his story. I’ll give you an example. In the production that Teller (of Penn and Teller) did for the Folger years ago, we get to the scene where we learn that Macduff was from his mother’s womb untimely ripped and, just for a second, that revelation knocks Macbeth to his knees like this whole final act had just been battering down upon him and this was the final blow that almost but didn’t break him. I still remember that. Here, though? Not even a pause. Just rolled right into the next line. yawn.

I think I’ll leave it at that. I’ve been watching these productions for 20 years now, and when I try to remember them, only certain parts will be memorable from each. This Macduff will. Lady Macbeth’s wail. Not too much else.

What’s In A Name?

One of the problems with moving your company to Zoom is that you rapidly lose track of your coworkers’ lives. Wait, they got married? Who’s having a baby? I haven’t heard from so and so in weeks, apparently they left the company!

Such was the case when a new coworker was introduced (via Slack) whose last name was McBeth. “Oh my,” I thought, “I simply must introduce myself.” But how? I won’t bump into her in the halls. We’ll have no meetings together. Is it weird to send her a Slack message making Shakespeare references? It’s not like she’ll ever walk by my desk and see that it’s littered with Shakespeare memorabilia.

Turns out I didn’t have to. We have a company meeting every other week, and this week they broke up into smaller chats (“breakout rooms”) to get more social, and sure enough McBeth was in mine. After she’d introduced herself along with the others in the room I had to ask. “So do you get many Shakespeare references?” I ask.

Shhh! Don’t say the M word!

She smiles, rolls her eyes and says, “You have no idea. It’s not spelled the same, so every time I have to read my name out, like over the phone with a credit card, or oh god, at a cash register or something when they see it, they always say Oh, Macbeth, like in Shakespeare!’

“My god think of all the people you’ve killed by saying the name!” I tell her. “As you might have noticed, I have a certain affinity for Shakespeare.”

“Oh, they told me about you,” she replied.

Apparently my reputation precedes me 🙂

How About A Young Adult Lady Macbeth Musical?

That’s a stream of words I never thought I’d type. But sure enough, word is that Channing “Magic Mike” Tatum and Scooter “Taylor Swift Hates Me” Braun are teaming up with Amazon for just such a project.

 “the story is said to center on a teenage girl who grapples with her own morality as she contends with the dreadful consequences of her ambition.”

Of course, if nobody had specifically written the Macbeth connection that could just as easily be Mean Girls.

I have no idea if it’ll be any good, or even ever see the light of day. I’d expect about as much of such a project as I do for any other teenage retelling of Shakespeare inspired stories. 10 Things really set the bar too high.

https://www.broadway.com/buzz/199739/channing-tatum-more-join-forces-for-ya-lady-macbeth-musical-for-amazon/

Guest Post : Shakespeare’s Travels

Scotland – the famous setting for Macbeth

Should you ever decide to embark on a tour of the locations of Shakespeare’s plays you’d find yourself with a long itinerary. The bard’s quill pen roamed the world, from Egypt and Syria to Scotland – this blog has even provided a handy map. Some places, such as England and Italy, were, of course, frequently visited by his imagination. Others, such as Austria (Measure for Measure) and Cyprus (Othello) he only visited once.

Shakespeare shaped these foreign lands to suit his stories. Greece (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Timon of Athens, The Two Noble Kinsmen, etc.), Wales (Cymbeline, Richard II, Henry IV P1) and Turkey (The Comedy of Errors, Troilus & Cressida, etc.) were made the settings for comedy, tragedy, romance, and history. The world truly was his stage to dress – in fact, most of his plays are set abroad, the Globe Theatre, therefore, becoming an actual microcosm of our globe.

Some locations are famously linked with his plays. Who, after all, would not know that Hamlet is set in Denmark? Other links are, perhaps, a little more obscure. Lebanon featuring in Pericles, for example, or the former Yugoslavia (specifically, the area known as Illyria) in Twelfth Night.

Dubrovnik, once the centre of the Republic of Ragusa in the ancient region of Illyria

Are visitors to Spain’s Basque Country aware that they’re following in the footsteps of the characters in Love’s Labour’s Lost? The location of the French court in All’s Well That Ends Well is a little unclear, but it isn’t hard to imagine Helena and Bertram amidst the grand buildings of Carcassonne. I’m also a fan of the vague Mediterranean setting of The Tempest, which allows me to imagine Prospero roaming Malta, or Menorca, or perhaps Sardinia.

The Great Pyramid of Giza, famous even in Shakespeare’s day

How did Shakespeare know about these far-flung places? As the No Sweat Shakespeare blog once mentioned, even travel between Stratford-Upon-Avon and London was no mean feat. Shakespeare, therefore, didn’t have direct experience of these locations – it was 40 years after Shakespeare’s death when The Grand Tour made foreign travel popular amongst the English elite. Instead he took inspiration from historical texts and other stories (including Italian novellas) – Egypt, for example, has always been well-known to the western world and descriptions of its ancient sites would not have been hard to come by.

The world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open” – the world isn’t currently our oyster to open, but with Shakespeare’s stages on shores near and distant, perhaps we can, for now, take a little peek and plan for the day when we follow the footsteps of his far-flung characters.

Olly loves to travel and has visited over 80 countries and all 7 continents. He also likes to explore the world through the medium of literature and enjoys matching famous locations with the places he’s been to. Olly runs travel planning blog APlanToGo.com, on which you can download free, highly detailed itineraries for destinations across the globe.