Category: Macbeth

Macbeth is a masterpiece of Shakespearean tragedy that explores themes of ambition, power, and morality. The play follows the story of the eponymous character, a Scottish nobleman who becomes consumed by his own ambition and resorts to murder to gain and maintain power. Macbeth’s story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when unchecked ambition leads to the corruption of the soul. The play also explores the consequences of moral choices, as Macbeth’s actions have devastating consequences not just for himself, but for those around him. The play’s characters are some of the most iconic in all of literature, from the scheming Lady Macbeth to the tragic hero Macbeth himself. With its powerful storytelling, memorable language, and timeless themes, Macbeth remains a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the darker aspects of human nature.

Can’t Get Enough Macbeth?

Check out my book, My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth, now available on Amazon! Explore Macbeth at your own pace and on your own terms, and document your personal experience with the Scottish Play.

Browse the text of Macbeth entire play here.

Maybe Angelina Should Try More Shakespeare?

~ duane ~ Leave a comment

When I heard that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie have filed for divorce it wasn’t that interesting to me.

Then I heard the rumor that they’re divorcing because he’s having an affair with Marion “Lady Macbeth” Cotillard, and now we’ve got something to talk about!

In case you missed it, here’s our review of the 2015 Macbeth starring Cotillard and Michael Fassbender.

Although Pitt and Cotillard are apparently working together on a new project that hasn’t come out yet, who knows? Maybe he saw her in that and liked the whole Shakespeare vibe.  I can’t find any Shakespeare in Pitt’s biography, but I do see that Gwynneth Paltrow, who went on to win an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love, claims that after he broke up with her she was almost too distraught to audition for the role (item #10).

Perhaps Brad never knew that Ms. Jolie has some Shakespeare in her past as well?  No, I’m not talking about Cyborg 2 or Hackers, both classics in their own right.  Nor do I mean her epic Cleopatra project that was the star of the Sony email debacle a few years back.

I’m talking about Love is All There Is, a 1990’s Romeo and Juliet re-telling set in an Italian restaurant in the Bronx.  Angelina plays our Juliet.  It also happens to be available in full on YouTube.

Please share and enjoy:

(Trivia — looks like Paul Sorvino is in this, and then again in Romeo+Juliet just a couple of years later.  Apparently as a palate cleanser. :))

We Are The Music Makers, and We Are The Dreamers of Dreams

~ duane ~ 1 Comment

You’ve likely heard by now that Gene Wilder has passed away. He was 83.  As has become tradition here on the blog, we like to look back at those icons of stage and screen who made life better with the help of Shakespeare.

Mr. Wilder’s most famous role must surely be that of the original, the one and only Willy Wonka.  Here’s our good friend @Bardfilm’s video take on all the Shakespeare references in this masterpiece from our childhood:

Did you know that Wilder’s first performance in front of a paying audience was in a production of Romeo and Juliet when he was 15?  He played Balthasar.  (That’s ok, I didn’t know that either until I read his wikipedia page :))

But wait! There’s more.  Gene Wilder was actually born Jerome Silberman. Where and why did he get Gene Wilder?  “Jerry Silberman as Macbeth didn’t have the right ring to it,” he thought when he joined the Actor’s Studio, choosing Wilder from Thornton Wilder and Gene from Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel. He later said that he couldn’t imagine Gene Wilder playing Macbeth either :).  Our loss – I can’t find any record of him ever trying.

Though it has nothing to do with Shakespeare, I love the trivia that Gene Wilder basically rewrote the part that made him famous, Willy Wonka, including such specifics as the entrance where his cane sticks in the cobblestones and he does his little somersault entrance. He also entirely redesigned the costume.  So shines a good deed in a weary world…

Those who know a little more about Wilder’s personal story know that he never fully got over the death of his wife Gilda Radner from ovarian cancer.  At last they’re reunited.

Good night, sweet prince. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

How did Lady Macbeth die?

~ duane ~ 1 Comment
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth
John Singer Sargent [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

How does Lady Macbeth die? It’s easy to miss when and how Lady Macbeth dies because, like so many other major characters, she dies off stage, and a lesser character reports her death.

Lady Macbeth, a pivotal character in Shakespeare’s Macbeth, is a fascinating blend of ambition, manipulation, and eventual descent into madness. From the moment she learns of the prophecy foretelling Macbeth’s rise to the throne, she becomes the driving force behind his bloody path to power. Her unwavering determination and skillful manipulation push her husband towards regicide, yet her conscience unravels as guilt consumes her. Lady Macbeth’s haunting soliloquies and sleepwalking scenes vividly depict her mental and emotional breakdown. Through her character, Shakespeare explores the corrupting nature of unchecked ambition, revealing the devastating consequences it can inflict upon both the individual and those around them.

When does Lady Macbeth die?

In this case, the news comes in Act 5 Scene 5, when Macbeth hears a scream and sends Seyton to investigate. Seyton returns and famously says, “The queen, my lord, is dead.”

Macbeth does not ask how she died. Before the play ends, however, Malcolm gives more information about the circumstances in Act 5 Scene 8:

…Producing forth the cruel ministers
Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,
Who, as ’tis thought, by self and violent hands
Took off her life;

Malcolm here appears to be confirming a rumor that Lady Macbeth killed herself. It is well established in other scenes that she has been slowly losing her mind. Shakespeare’s audience would have accepted that demons possessed her at this point, and no additional detail would have been necessary.

Lady Macbeth’s unrelenting guilt, stemming from her involvement in Duncan’s murder and the subsequent bloodshed, becomes an overwhelming burden. Haunted by her conscience, she descends into madness as the weight of her actions takes a toll on her mental well-being, ultimately leading to her tragic decision to end her own life.

Conclusion

Although her demise occurs off-stage and is reported by a lesser character, the circumstances surrounding Lady Macbeth’s death leave a lasting impact.

Can’t Get Enough Macbeth?

Check out my book, My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth, now available on Amazon! Explore Macbeth at your own pace and on your own terms, and document your personal experience with the Scottish Play.

Could It Be, Hmmm, I Don’t Know … SEYTON!?!?!

~ duane ~ 13 Comments

(Does a “Church Lady” impression date me pretty badly?)

Bardfilm wanted some academic discussion on Twitter today, and knowing that it’s very hard to learn anything permanent on Twitter (try Googling for it later!) I’m summarizing in a blog post, but you can check to see if the #SeytonSatan hashtag is still active.

Question: In Macbeth, would “Seyton” be pronounced like “Satan”?  And, if so, would that have suggested some sort of desired audience reaction?  When Macbeth calls, “Seyton!” would the audience have been all, “He’s calling SATAN?! Dude’s evil!”   (My paraphrase.  Bardfilm’s original question had more “you betcha”).

There’s much that’s been said on the topic but little of academic note.

On the subject of sounding it out, I linked in @BenCrystal, an expert in original pronunciation (OP), who responded, “I’d say them the same in OP, something like [‘sei-tun] with a really soft /t/.” This then led to a discussion about when exactly the Scots burr came into the language (after the arrival of King James) and whether Macbeth would have been played that way.

But what of the whole Satan thing?  Do we think that Shakespeare intended to put Satan in the mind of his audience?

My personal position on this is perhaps too grounded – what happens next?  The audience hears Macbeth call, “Satan!” and then this regular old soldier shows up and starts taking orders.  So either you just get this brief scare where the audience is left thinking, “Oh, phew, for a minute there I thought Macbeth was actually calling you know who!” and then we go about our business.  Or we get something more like, “Who’s this guy?  Is that Satan in the form of one of Macbeth’s soldiers?  Oooo, I bet he’s going to do something just off-the-charts evil.”

I just don’t know enough about the time period to know if this was a thing that Shakespeare would even attempt.  Did you get to mention Satan on stage like that?  Would Shakespeare have suggested that Macbeth was so evil as to invoke the big man himself?  And, worse, order him around like a lackey?

Lots of discussion material here.  Show of hands, who’s done the Scottish play and has an opinion from experience?

Geeklet Story Time

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So tonight my wife’s at work and I’m putting the kids to bed. My older girls are in their rooms reading, and I’m laying (lying?) down in my 5yr old son’s bed with him.

“Daddy!” yells the 9yr old from her room, “There’s a Shakespeare quote in my book!”

“Which one?” I yell back.

“Life’s but a walking shadow…” she begins.

“…that struts and frets his hour upon the stage. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” I reply.  And, yes, I missed a few words in the middle.

“Yes, that one,” comes the reply.

“Macbeth.  That’s a good one.”

“Why is that a good one?” asks the 5yr old.

“Well, he’s sad because his wife died,” I say.

Somehow I end up telling the story of Macbeth. To my 5yr old.  As a bedtime story.  My 5yr old who is prone to bad dreams as it is.

I now present my very shortened, very censored, off-the-top-of-my-head version of Macbeth, suitable for 5yr olds:

Once upon a time there was a soldier in the army named Macbeth. One day when he was coming home from the war he ran into a witch who said, “Greetings, King of Scotland!”

“I’m not king of Scotland, you crazy witch!” said Macbeth.

“Not yet!” said the witch.  “But you will be.”

So Macbeth went home and told his wife this crazy story.  “You know what we should do?” said his wife.  “We should invite the king over, and then when he’s sleeping we should take his crown!  Then you could be king!”

“I don’t know about that,” said Macbeth, “I mean, he’s a good king, he’s never really done anything to us.”

“What sort of chicken are you?!” his wife yelled at him.  “The witch said you are going to be king.  How do you expect that to happen if you don’t take action?”

Macbeth agreed, and they invited the king over to dinner.  Sure enough, that might while he slept they came into his room and stole his crown, and then Macbeth proclaimed himself king of Scotland.

Well this was just plain silly, as everybody knew you don’t get to be king just by taking the crown.  But Macbeth locked himself up in a castle and wouldn’t listen to anyone who tried to talk sense into him.

Meanwhile, the king’s family went off and rallied support to get their crown back.  They brought in Macduff, a brave warrior, to face Macbeth in hand-to-hand combat.  Macbeth thought that he would easily win because the witches told him that he would be king.  But Macduff won the battle, and rather than keep the crown for himself he gave it back to the original king who was the rightful owner.

“What happened to Macbeth?” my audience of 1 asks.

“He lost the battle,” I say, stalling.

“How did he lose the battle?”

“They had a sword fight, and he lost. Macduff made him surrender.”

“So did Macbeth go to jail?” I love the 5yr old perspective.

“You know,” I tell him, “I’m not sure.  The story doesn’t really say what happens next.  But I think you’re right, I think that he probably went to jail.”

At this point, and I am totally not kidding, my 5yr old decides that he’s in a Shakespeare mood, and he wants to hear the one about the father who has to divide his kingdom up among his three daughters but he gets mad because one says she doesn’t love him most of all.  I’m flabbergasted at this – I may have told him Lear like, once, a year or more ago.

As a matter of fact, I have this story that I told my middle daughter back in 2007, but my son was only 18months old! I know I’ve told him the story, but right now I can’t find a link to it.

…continued in part 2, because this is a very long post. 🙂