Still – footnotes on „Macbeth“

I already wrote „To be or not to be“, and took extensive notes on „Nothing“ – but then I had a doctor’s appointment and finally got to read the introduction to my beautiful new edition of „Macbeth“ by the RSC which I purchased in Stratford. And was amazed …

If I hadn’t already known why I love the RSC I would have found out when I read this. Of course it is because “they” are basically doing what I am doing when they are getting these plays on the stage: REALLY READING them. For me it all started with the vague idea that, if I could just be patient and obstinate enough, I would finally understand Shakespeare JUST by reading his stuff – not by being fed opinions and received ideas about it. (Watching the plays being performed and getting this valuable input on the “human stuff” by diverse great actors from John Cleese to Christopher Eccleston is part of really reading because this is how these texts are meant to exist - and the “gold standard” of reading them.)

Jonathan Bates’ introduction was kind of a final proof that my “method” works – if I still needed one - because it basically contains everything that I had gathered about “Macbeth” just by reading it and never reading anything ABOUT the play. He begins with the question which I came to discern as the key question about “Macbeth” - and the main reason for countless contemporary “misreadings”: “WHAT IS TRAGEDY?” (Interesting that it was written on the occasion of the former “Macbeth” by the RSC with Antony Sher which I have in a TV version on DVD, and which – even though it is rather beautiful - I consider to be one of these blatant – and clearly intended! - misreadings.) Jonathan Bates basically writes the same I have written, just more “history based”. (I find it increasingly fascinating that there is this persistent awareness of tragedy. Even though the concept appears to be misused or forgotten it might still be part of our ideological DNA. And reading texts like “Macbeth” or “The Crucible” – which will doubtless resurface as a success in ten years, in twenty years … - might continue to preserve it. Of course THIS is the main function of canonizing: that we don’t forget, or forget so much more slowly!)

Tragedy I already dealt with extensively, even before Stratford. Then there are the “weird sisters” which I always found fascinating but have never written anything substantial about until my last post. For Bates, as for me, they only have a superficial connection with witches – which doesn’t even seem to have been contemporary but was mostly added later by Thomas Middleton. I still uphold the connection in one important respect: Especially in the beginning there are obvious references to what common witches were supposed to do – make mischief and hurt people. This is certainly an attractive feature I would like to see displayed on the stage, but it is not an important function for their fundamental role in the play. Bates rightly states that their basic function is to know the unknown and to predict the fate of people. He sees them as contemporary versions of the “Three Fates” from Greek mythology – which certainly originate from the same source as the Three Norns from Norse mythology which I referenced. And this is everything we strictly NEED to understand about the weird sisters. There is a lot of beautiful ephemeral context, of course, which can be used and played with at leisure.

One little thing I found very interesting, though. They expressly used the old spelling “weyard” (=wayward/marginal) instead of “weird” to eliminate the contemporary connotation of “weirdness”. Even though I like “weird” – and uphold weirdness as their most important aesthetical feature (see the first encounter between Macbeth/Banquo and the sisters!) – they were probably right to do this. “Weyard”, in the original sense, goes deeper than “weird” because it places these characters at the margin of society and the known world, linking them to the unknown. Which is an unknown that is supposed to actually exist as it has the power to influence the events in the known world. This is what links the weird sisters to witches on a deeper level – and to the not so unfounded, deep-rooted fears they inspired at the time. Or – in contemporary terms – to everything that influences our lives that we cannot comprehend and handle successfully. It is what makes these characters so attractive as an inexhaustible well of primeval fears and fantasies which can only be dried up by trying to pin them down and reduce them to ONE specific meaning. (As Thomas Middleton’s witches they become more than slightly ridiculous, and much less scary, whereas making them little girls links them to all kinds of contemporary fears, taboos, and nightmares.) And it is their most relevant feature, as regards content, because it is inherent to their fundamental role as “the spirits that know all mortal consequence” and places them at the centre of life’s fundamental “equivocation”: Their marginal existence – or borderline non-existence – is also the reason for their factual influence and power. Scary. Irresistible!

This sinister quality, in my opinion, is substantially increased by the “timelessness” I discussed in my last post. The realization that what they represent was always there – not just “at the time”, when people believed in witchcraft, but from the beginning of time. And always will be! (Right now, watching the 9^th series of “Doctor Who” which is rather big on nightmares, I am toying with a “space-version” …)

This was very interesting, but basically just some kind of spelling out of what I already associated with the weird sisters. Of course I can dream of seeing all this – their witch-like mischievousness and “anarchist” disregard for order and the common good as well as their aesthetical weirdness and “wayward” qualities - on the stage, but on an actual stage clear choices are in order. Trying to show too many things at once will just make the production confusing and weak. It might actually be the most efficient way to deal with them to eliminate their “fatal” influence and just avoid any specifications and clarifications as to their role and social status in the real word, as the RSC did. Doing the exact opposite – making them real people with some kind of actual impact on the events – can be an attractive choice if it is done cleverly, as in the “Shakespeare Retold” with James McAvoy as Macbeth: The binmen are very real but “marginal” at the same time. The kind of people we would miss instantly if they weren’t there but that nobody ever notices, that nobody ever heeds until they begin to utter their weird prophecies in a local accent I haven’t been able to manage without subtitles.

The most relevant input I got from reading the introduction was about the question I expressly avoided in my last post. When I wrote that I didn’t want to elaborate on my opinion that the political issue about good leadership and tyranny is not a crucial issue in “Macbeth” I knew that I was onto something important but something I couldn’t yet make out clearly. I didn’t yet know what questions to ask. Jonathan Bates’ remarks about the SPECIFIC political context of the play in the beginning of King James’ reign became kind of an eye-opener. One of the things that fascinate me about Shakespeare – and certainly one of the reasons why his plays remain attractive throughout the centuries – is his GENUINE interest in political issues and grasp of historical complexity. In my experience, it is part of this COMPLETENESS which makes the plays so satisfying: that I always get this feeling, like in real life, that there would be more if I could just be bothered to dig for it. It is basically what I tried to describe as a “fictional world” in some of my former posts. As I was just reading the “Revenger’s Tragedy” again, and other revenge plays, like the “Spanish Tragedy”, from the same volume, I came to experience the difference. The “Spanish Tragedy” and the “Revenger’s Tragedy” both are good plays in the sense that they are written beautifully – as I noticed when I finally got the hang of reading them - but I never got the feeling that there is a real world “behind” the stage from which these characters surface. And I always assumed that this phenomenon is due to the relative completeness of the political and historical background as well as to the complexity of the “human stuff”. It is just that, in case of the human stuff, I am myself in a position to judge because it is what I bring to the plays myself, or can gather by understanding what great actors are doing with these characters. As to the political issues it is usually just hunches and guesswork.

That Shakespeare’s presentation of the political situation often appears inaccurate, even false, to our understanding doesn’t mean that it was MEANT to be inaccurate. On the contrary, I always get this feeling that he was a lot more interested in the historical and political situation HE BASED HIS PLAYS ON than contemporary historians are able to imagine. The ready example that Shakespeare thought that Bohemia had a sea-coast implies nothing more than that he didn’t care about Bohemia. That, IN THIS CASE, Bohemia is just some far-away country that nobody knew, and which came in handy. Whereas Scotland is SCOTLAND – always was, and always will be! It always had a very SPECIFIC meaning where English politics were concerned. I take it that, AT FIRST, he was just looking for a Scottish subject matter to please King James, but I bet that he GOT as excited as Arthur Miller was about Salem when he hit on the story of Macbeth. That the historical facts don’t concur with what contemporary historians can tell us about the reign of Macbeth doesn’t mean that he didn’t take them seriously. They just told him a DIFFERENT STORY. I cannot prove this, of course, but Jonathan Bates’ remarks gave me the impression that Shakespeare intended the play as a very specific commentary on the contemporary relationship between England and Scotland. Most of it would have been obvious to his contemporaries so that there is not that much “spelled out” on the surface – like the “two-fold balls and treble scepters” of James’ heraldry, or the Scottish thanes becoming earls. And, of course, there is the overall situation of Malcolm running to the English King for back-up, and what this entails!

I always get thrilled when I hit upon such links but always disliked the “Scottish angle” to be shown on the stage at the same time, and now I know why. I acted on the assumption that the political situation the play referred to – and the way it was experienced by an audience at the time! – must have been fundamentally different from what “our” contemporary political context would be. I even remember deferring my reactions to the “anti-English” implications, just found it fascinating that the obvious conclusion that Macbeth’s overthrow is used by England to gain influence on Scotland is not somehow avoided or countermanded. But Shakespeare never does this, and it is probably just an outcome of his complete assessment of the situation that we are ALLOWED to get to this conclusion. Jonathan Bates’ description of the political context at the time convinced me that neither I – nor probably any contemporary historian – would ever be able to make an adequate reconstruction of the situation Shakespeare actually referred to because it is too specific - dependent on this specific political MOMENT in time. And, as such, no use to a 21^st century audience. Also something important about “timelessness”: the bits that are not timeless tend to get chucked out.

Understanding this, I can now explain why I find contemporary “translations” of the historical and political background on the stage so often ill-advised and misleading – even why they can become this kind of “dead short” that will kill a production. They often make fall the productions so much short of what Shakespeare actually intended that the potential of the play cannot unfold. It happened to “Macbeth” in the National Theatre’s production, even though they were onto something important about the historical context of the play: The state of unlawfulness that results from Macbeth usurping the throne by a criminal act doubtless is an important feature of the political situation the play refers to. But, on the level of action, it is just the outcome of things going wrong - not what makes them go wrong. To put it in the foreground like this changed the logic of the play and stopped it working. It mostly just became empty declamation and striking demonstration – rather like their much overrated “Hamlet” with Benedict Cumberbatch. Nothing really MOVED, in ANY direction.

And I can now explain why the reference to the Holocaust should be avoided where “The Merchant of Venice” is concerned. It is because Shakespeare became so much involved with Shylock as a character and the specific predicament of the Jew in a Christian society that the simplifying reference to the Holocaust will just jam this intricate machine he set up and stop it working. It is the inner complexity of characters, relationships, and situations that GENERATES ACTION on the stage. When something happens in “Shakespeare” we always know why. Likewise I am convinced that nothing relevant would HAPPEN if somebody tried to update the political context of “Macbeth” in the way Claudia speculated about – making it about tyranny and the failing of order – whereas this will always be an interesting option for other plays, as for “Richard II” where the argument about kingship is part of the core action. Basically for all the histories, and the Greek and Roman stuff political updating might appear to be a requirement. At least the National Theatre’s political update of “Julius Caesar” worked great. That in my favourite production of “Julius Caesar” by the RSC they did nothing of the sort - quite the contrary! - is matter for another post which I will probably never get to write … But it showed me again why, in my opinion, the RSC’s productions usually are so much better than the National Theatre’s. They never fall for these dangerous reductions and clarifications at the expense of the complexity and inner dynamics of the play. Which is basically what I understand by “really reading”.

In “Macbeth” the historical reference is either too specific or too vague – depending on our historical perspective – to yield anything substantial. What remains of the play actually is this TIMELESS TRAGEDY which is certainly the reason for “our” ongoing fascination with it. Accordingly, I have always been looking for this great update of the human stuff until I saw it in Stratford – or still am, as substantial parts of it were unsatisfactory, like the Macbeth/Lady Macbeth angle. There will be no end to “Macbeth” any time soon – and that’s great!