Birthday issue 2019: „The Tragedy of Macbeth“ – there IS a way of doing this!

This year I did something brilliant for Shakespeare’s birthday without having any idea how brilliant it would turn out. In fact, I had the greatest holidays of my life – even though it was only four days – accidentally implementing my very own Shakespeare festival. This happened because I realized that I would get completely free and empty four days over Easter, and that it would be a great idea to bring the celebrating forward. Which meant – besides no restrictions on alcohol 😊 – to watch all the Shakespeare DVDs that had ended up in the precariously growing pile on my sideboard. So I saw “Love’s Labour’s Lost” with Kenneth Branagh (a rather old film version of the play which is brilliant, and an ingenious blending of Shakespeare and 20^th century musical theatre) besides the old BBC TV version to figure out what the play is about, the RSC’s “Tempest” with Simon Russell Beale as Prospero (which I saw in the “Cinema” some time ago and recently bought on DVD, and which is just SO BEAUTIFUL! – and such a comprehensive and sophisticated production of the play), the “Shakespeare Live” birthday gala from 2014 (which completely surprised me as to what I had seen at the time and not SEEN!), and, finally, again, the RSC’s “Macbeth” (which is getting better and better AND BETTER every time I am watching it …)

I might be on the verge of getting completely insane, but doing it actually pushed my definition of happiness up another peg – in particular watching “Macbeth” again and finally realizing WHY it is my favourite play - and probably text - of all times. There definitely was another dimension of “Shakespeare” suddenly opening before my eyes, but, of course, a dimension that I ENVISIONED loving this play as I did and trying to know every word of it … and then THERE IT WAS: Somebody else owning the text in the way I always wanted to own it, and knew I could! There was EVERYTHING I ever found in it, and more - which finally led me to ask the RIGHT question, which got ANSWERED! Of course it wouldn’t have happened without everybody playing as great as they did – maybe what I came to admire most about the RSC’s recent productions is how much they succeed in getting EVERYBODY on the same page with this text. But, without doubt, it was Chris Eccleston who made me ask and delivered the answer. He did when I saw it the first time, I just haven’t been able to spell it out right. It is not just uncanny, there actually is no word for it: the way he UNDERSTOOD the text – and was able to process what he understood so that I could see it. I just thought all the time: That’s it! Even about little things like timing, and pauses, and stressing certain words … Yes! THAT’S IT! Why didn’t I get this before??? But of course I did, which made me able to understand the extent of what materialized as he played it. (And of course there is no way of doing this twenty times over, and more, in the same way! This is just not humanly possible, as much as we might wish it to be.)

So, THERE DEFINITELY IS A WAY OF DOING THIS! (And – even though I was never keen to decide the issue – I know now who is my favourite actor of all times. As I knew for some time, trying like mad to get everything of his work on DVD I was able to get – and, unlike when I did this with other actors, more or less everything was worth watching! I just didn’t WANT to decide. Now “Macbeth” finally resolved the issue. Of course it must be the person who figured out how to play this!)

So, I WAS RIGHT – of course! – already when I saw it in Stratford. But, as I am getting used to, I am extremely pleased as well to have been WRONG – about Lady Macbeth. In my opinion - after having seen this again - not just the theory about Lady Macbeth being an “extension” of Macbeth but also the feminist approach which I unfolded in my last post is misguided. (Which doesn’t mean that misunderstandings aren’t often more procreative than getting it right – and that the influence THIS misunderstanding had on such texts as “House of Cards” probably had greater impact than anybody getting it right at any time. And I am rather pleased as well that it doesn’t change what I have written about Cleopatra, so that this post - which I love! - didn’t become pointless.) For what I understood watching the RSC’s “Macbeth” I’ll need rather more patience than I feel I have right now, being in this mood. But it will definitely be worth finding it. It just isn’t the kind of answer you can pin down with a few words.

It is also rather difficult to know how to begin the reasoning because I don’t remember what came first. So, maybe, it doesn’t matter, and I’ll start with Lady Macbeth … At some point I realized that there IS in fact CONSISTENCY between who Lady Macbeth is in the beginning and what happens with her in the end, but that - instead! - with Macbeth THERE IS NOT! Basically, she just reacts like a HUMAN BEING would NORMALLY react to TRAGEDY. The thing about tragedy is that it is what human beings are NOT SUPPOSED to endure, and what makes them break - in this case because they cannot get rid of empathy just like that. (Most likely our talk about very personal things at this breakfast meeting – and things “we” usually never talk about, like empathy! – made me make some progress on this issue?) Most productions of “Macbeth” take care to show Lady Macbeth as somebody who understands and is capable of empathy, who is just trying really hard to get rid of it, being so resolved as to what she is about to do.  And, consequently, not as somebody who is completely ruthless and fearless – like Claire Underwood! – but somebody who is trying very hard and successfully to manage her fears. (Of course, Claire Underwood isn’t fearless at all – as she isn’t stupid! In particular, she is deadly scared of anybody ever finding out who she really is! Or what she has done - which is what most people are much more scared of, by the way, than of actually BEING a “bad person” …) So, basically, even though I still didn’t really like the way she played it, Niamh Cusack was a much better Lady Macbeth than Robin Wright would have been, showing her fear and weakness from the beginning. Because what we never really realize is that it is HUMAN – not just feminine – TO BE WEAK!

As I just stated, a tragic situation is not what a human being is made for. This is probably the basic definition of it, though, strictly speaking, only if “we” have brought it upon ourselves. In a way, this is great as it can carry human beings BEYOND what they - or anybody else - think they are able to endure or achieve. But this – even though it happens not just in fiction! – happens extremely seldom. And these exceptions are not really Shakespeare’s area. He was much better at – and more interested in – showing what USUALLY happens when somebody has done what “cannot be undone”. I think, Lady Macbeth reacts entirely normal to “tragedy”: realizing that “nought’s had, all’s spent when our desire is got without content” she already IS broken and is just keeping up appearances because she cannot let Macbeth down – whom she must know very well SHE has lured into doing this! Actually, the most tragic thing that probably happens is that – as they played it! – Macbeth gets into this mess more by thinking about HER than about himself – so, basically: by giving in to empathy! And he is the one who is genuinely shocked about what he has done – even though he is used to killing! – and who cannot deal with the murder of Duncan. The interesting thing is what happens AS A RESULT of this situation. And never before I saw this I understood how ENTIRELY CONSISTENT Shakespeare is there. Even exactly where it is about men and women.

One of the greatest moments of the whole production was for me the moment when Lady Macbeth realizes what is happening with Macbeth in their conversation after he has commissioned the murder of Banquo. It is the first time he rejects her – in this moment, I think, still because he feels for her and doesn’t WANT to implicate her, but also because he is getting impatient, only seeing his own objectives and losing touch. And this is what she realizes at this moment – and which becomes the reason for her to “crack” because, seeing that she cannot help him any longer, she loses the grip on life she still has, and - as she has already given up on her own dreams of greatness! - all reason for her to live on. From this moment, becoming insubstantial to what is happening, she begins to drift off, and it is just logical that we are losing sight of her until she resurfaces as wreckage.

From this moment on it is Macbeth ON HIS OWN – a step which he takes consciously, and which ultimately leads him on this “solitary journey into depravity” - a brilliant formula that Chris Eccleston found for it in the McLean interview which I quoted. And – thinking about it - I have always found that this is something that MEN do. As I – to my own dismay! – recently found out that I don’t understand men AT ALL I have no answer as to WHY. It just appears entirely logical, I suppose, from what I OBSERVE about men. And, of course, I have always been fascinated with this kind of “lonesome hero” – as, obviously, many people are. Which, I suppose, is okay UNLESS “we” are lured into thinking that somebody like Macbeth – or Donald Trump, or Anders Breyvik! – are great. And as I first realized seeing it in Stratford – and documented in my blog – Chris Eccleston got it absolutely right as to what Shakespeare wanted to convey: What happens with Macbeth might be fascinating, but there has to be a disturbing and ugly TRANSFORMATION. Especially because he makes us believe that, IN THE BEGINNING, Macbeth is not only a normal human being but somebody “we” would actually like and want to be our political leader. In this case it probably served him best to be entirely “natural” – or, more exactly, as he would like to be seen by others! When I am thinking about the McLean interview I find it interesting that Christopher Eccleston struck him as somebody who would be “good in a crisis”. So, basically, somebody “we” would trust and follow. Being so exact from the beginning, all the SMALL changes in Macbeth become effective and have repercussions on everything that is happening on the stage - as it would be in real life! And this is of course why Shakespeare, when played well, is so much like real life. So, I could finally SEE why “Macbeth” on the stage without a Macbeth who knows what he is doing doesn’t really happen, as it never did for me before I saw this. (Which is not automatically the case with any other Shakespeare play as the responsibility is usually more divided.) Reading the interview, I got the impression that Christopher Eccleston is somebody who likes to take responsibility. Seeing him on the stage, he appeared overbearing – which was probably the reason for me to, unconsciously, dub him arrogant. This was probably a misconception because he PLAYED Macbeth being arrogant. But, being the actor that he is, there might be a difficulty where the line is. And if there is one. Of course there is one – but here the commentary of Richard Armitage on “Hannibal” came to mind. The bit about how other people on the set reacted differently to him as Richard Armitage and as the “Red Dragon”. He said that their reactions helped him to play it, but, I suppose, he rather helped them a lot to help him! So, there is something that cannot be disentangled completely, and probably shouldn’t be. Seeing the DVD, Chris Eccleston just appeared as the “magnet” who gave the production and the people the perfect direction. But I remember that he appeared much “bigger” – and more threatening! – when I saw him on the stage.

So, now, the strangest thing that happened with “Macbeth” is that the question I kept asking about this character from the beginning – and which I kept pushing back as stupid! – turned out to have been the right question in the first place:

IS MACBETH INSANE?

Going back to the origins of the question, I remember the exact moment where I reconnected with “Macbeth”. Strangely enough, I “always” knew that it was my favourite play, but why??? I hadn’t even seen any great productions of it. One in German by Staatstheater Nürnberg (which had been satisfying - but obviously not as memorable as their strange and intense “Richard III” a few years before that - and which I don’t remember anything about apart from the leading actor being tall and good-looking, and the stage very red) and two very bad ones in English. (Even though one of them contained Sean Bean – whom I came to “upgrade” by a lot just recently! – it is a good thing that I don’t remember anything about them. Apart from the stupid issue of the severed head … Urrrgh!!!) And - even though I have done better than this after reconnecting with Shakespeare in 2014 - I was aware that, until Stratford, I had never actually SEEN anything of the text that was IN MY HEAD. So, the initial reconnecting didn’t happen on the stage but through another fictional text.

I mentioned this moment at least once in my blog, I am sure: when Richard Armitage said about playing Thorin Oakenshield in “The Hobbit” that he read “Macbeth” and was fascinated, not with the killing, but with the inevitability of what ensued. (I even REMEMBER that his own words were much more to the point, but I haven’t saved this quote anywhere 😢! I don’t think it was in the specials to “The Hobbit”?) I expressly put it to memory WITHOUT really understanding it because I anticipated that it would become relevant some day – which is NOW! I realize now what exactly the connection is, and that their journeys are, in fact, parallel journeys. Or can be read like this – where Thorin is concerned Tolkien leaves most of the fine points and connections to the IMAGINATION of the reader. Respectively, the actor who would one day in the not foreseeable future play this character for the screen and would be well advised to have A LOT of it. It was just great luck – and great casting! – that they picked somebody who knew how to come by it. If everything else fails there is still Shakespeare!

I have this feeling that the connection is not at all random, though, where Tolkien is concerned. Just looking at myself: I “had” Lear and Macbeth – the core of it – before I remember reading it, or seeing these plays. And I am not even English! (So, didn’t grow up with the stuff the way Tolkien must have.) Seeing “The Tempest” lately it was clear as day to me that THIS is where Tolkien’s world came from. Not that the myths and languages are less important, but the HUMAN STUFF that holds it all together and makes it available to readers of all ages and denominations mostly comes from Shakespeare. Presumably, most of OUR HUMAN STUFF - insofar as it ended up in fictional text throughout the centuries - comes from Shakespeare!

As I cared so much about the “Hobbit” films to turn out right I was a lot more scared of the MADNESS – remembering what they did in “The Lord of the Rings”! – than I would have been prepared to admit. And I have this feeling that something parallel was going on where Richard Armitage is concerned. I really hated it when Michael Fassbender, in the “Macbeth” film, paced his chamber like a wolf in a cage, and I hated Lady Macbeth madly running about the stage in Stratford. And I am rather sure that special actors with great taste and a much better grasp of the “human stuff” than I have myself, like Richard Armitage or Chris Eccleston, would have hated this too. As I anticipated, I wasn’t entirely happy with how this issue turned out in “The Hobbit” but, I think, Shakespeare basically rescued this part of the story from becoming pathetic and a total disaster.  

As I have learned from reading Shakespeare a lot, and as, of course, both Christopher Eccleston and Richard Armitage know, Shakespeare is the one who is getting this kind of issue absolutely right – and so “we” will get it right as well if we are able to follow where he leads. In fact, displaying madness in the way I just described is completely unnecessary and misleading where either Macbeth or Thorin is concerned. Strictly speaking, neither of them is “mad” in the sense of suffering from any kind of pathological disorder. (Thorin probably isn’t mad at all, he is JUST A DWARF – and as, I think, Richard Armitage hinted at in a “footnote”: there is no “dragon sickness” anywhere to be found in “The Hobbit”!!!) Nonetheless I was right not to drop the question because the “everyday” madness that might happen to anybody at some point in their lives is much more interesting. And the kind in question here appears to be closely related to humans with only one complete  X chromosome. (Ouch, I won’t begin to speculate about dwarf chromosomes now … Same difference, though!)

One of the questions I couldn’t let go about Macbeth had been if he actually is pathological in any sense, so: if there is something wrong with him FROM THE BEGINNING. For example, if his “ability” to see things other people cannot see is in any way relevant. I continually dodged the question as something Shakespeare clearly isn’t very interested in himself – so probably wouldn’t help me to understand the play better – but it kept popping up … And I realized that I had to somehow get past this question without “cheating”.

I remember from the specials to “The Hobbit” that Richard Armitage had been concerned about WHEN EXACTLY the madness is supposed to take hold of Thorin – which is crucial to find a foothold and a REASON for showing it NOT in the way I described as a pathological state that, basically, DOESN’T NEED ANY EXPLANATION. On what all this hinges, to make it believable and relevant, is the NATURE of the TRANSFORMATION. And - even though there isn’t really that much of a parallel development - both actors got it basically right, and basically did the same thing. People who are becoming “mad” – and this is the genuinely disturbing thing about it, I think – even might be totally okay as long as they are BY THEMSELVES. The change we have to see becomes effective in their changing relationships with other people. I am still fascinated how subtle and exact this change was, and with the way I noticed it, seeing the play in Stratford. Now, seeing it again on DVD, I could observe in detail how Macbeth’s relationships with other people are changing. And the bits that never made sense when I “read” the text in my head over and over – like: “I have almost lost the taste of fears” – suddenly fell into place. I still cannot believe how somebody can be AS EXACT about this kind of thing as Shakespeare actually is!

Richard Armitage didn’t have anything that nailed Thorin in this way, he rather nailed it himself by showing the INNER nature of this state of madness by Thorin’s changed behaviour towards other people. There is this almost pathetic vulnerability on the one hand and, on the other, this shocking lack of empathy. Both, I think, as it is in “Macbeth”, which explains his saying “She should have died hereafter …” and breaking down in the same scene. (Though nobody ever actually DOES break down in this scene – which is absolutely right because they are men, and men don’t do breaking down - I persist that it IS there nonetheless!) And in “The Hobbit” the pathological state of mind completely materializes in Thorin’s relationship with Bilbo where there is BOTH: the way he loves and trusts him unconditionally – which makes him vulnerable – and, at the same time, the inability to see him as a separate “human” being – which is why he actually would have killed him with his own hands. This moment is the lowest point of their relationship, as well as the most interesting. In fact, what I was so thrilled about in “The Hobbit” from the beginning that it became my favourite bit of the book.   

Now, this HAS to be the birthday issue this year – though it comes too late, even considering that Shakespeare was born ten days after his present birthday, April 23rd, due to calendar changes. (Claudia enlightened me about this!) It has to be because I actually came full circle with “Macbeth”, and arrived where I have started – finally UNDERSTANDING now, I think, why I never stopped doing this: READING SHAKESPEARE.

And it will be a much appreciated opportunity for letting this go for a while and finally getting other things done – not least because I am sure now that I will be back here before long!

„Everybody dies …“: about misogynist subtext in „Shakespeare“, among other things …

I bought this kitchen towel in the NT’s gift shop when I saw A&C which says: “Everybody dies …”, giving a list of violent deaths in Shakespeare’s tragedies. Quite an impressive count, I had always thought, but what purpose does all this frantic dying really serve? I confess that I never took it quite as seriously as I should have. Sometimes it even appears to take the sting out … Now, having acquired the final season of “House of Cards” on the day of the DVD release and binged it over the weekend, I got this epiphany about why timing is so important in “Shakespeare” when it comes to dying. Just imagine: Lady Macbeth not conveniently taking her own life when she is no longer needed but, having realized that Macbeth had fucked up, carrying on with an agenda of her own …

First of all - before I can unfold the issue I regrettably actually have with Shakespeare when it comes to women - I need to elaborate on why I think Shakespeare is so exceptional when it comes to the “human stuff”. And I am pleased that Mark Antony comes in here again – whom I neglected because I got assailed by “minor issues” ( - which is what our former Bundeskanzler Schröder thought about women’s and family issues (= “Gedöns”). But this was the golden age when politics still mattered to a degree and, therefore, women – courtesy of Claudia! - wouldn’t have been trusted with it …). And even before taking up Mark Antony I have to explain about “Rome”. That’s where I spent the last weeks – when I haven’t really been here. It is a TV series about the time of Julius Caesar and the ending of the Roman Republic which is absolutely fabulous and, I think, one of its kind when it comes to bringing to life a period of history AS IT ACTUALLY WAS. As people thought and “worked” at the time, and as to what the social structure really was like, and what their real motives were. And, at the same time, it is fraught with scandal, and violence, fucked-up families and relationships, imaginative sex and orgies, war, gore, and heroes … in a word: everything you can wish for in the kind of fantasy/action story that is currently the most successful kind of text. (Except dragons, of course … Well, I wonder: who needs “Game of Thrones” when they can have the “real thing”?!!! There really is nothing these Romans did NOT do, or try, or pull off - except fighting dragons, but I am sure this is only because there weren’t any. If there had been they certainly would have managed. In this context it didn’t even feel wrong – or appalling! – when Titus Pullo – who basically is a nice guy! - bites off his opponent’s tongue and reports that it tasted like chicken. Let alone the big butchery at the Forum …)

The actors are brilliant as well – all of them! - and, for all the major characters, British, of course, though it isn’t really a BBC series. But I suppose the brainpower mostly came from the BBC. And it was filmed in Italy, obviously, with some very adequate Italian actors, and the appropriately beautiful and Mediterranean landscape. I almost couldn’t believe Ciarán Hinds as Gaius Julius Caesar (must definitely look into him now …), and Simon Woods (whom I have never noticed before!?) as his successor Octavius was even better (and genuinely scary as to what they reaped when they sowed blood!). And I totally loved Lindsay Duncan as Servilia (mother of Brutus) (whom I always thought to be a phenomenal actress without actually having seen her play anything phenomenal until now ... maybe just because she scares me, like Gillian Anderson or Rosamund Pike) and Kevin McKidd as Centurion Lucius Vorenus (whom I saw and admired - as it appears, ages ago - in a mediocre series about Mary Stuart and then never again). I didn’t like Tobias Menzies as Brutus at first (whom I loved in “Outlander”, and basically every time I saw him) or David Bamber as Cicero, nor – now I am coming to the point! – James Purefoy as Mark Antony UNTIL I saw where they were headed with these characters. Then I could see that they were doing exactly the right thing. Especially James Purefoy who delivered an unbelievably nuanced and complex version of his character. And - even though they are fundamentally different people - in “Shakespeare” it’s exactly the same ISSUES that Mark Antony is made off. The Bard just didn’t have the advantage of a sixteen hour series to make it THAT explicit.

So I finally came to understand Antony’s predicament – which actually IS in Shakespeare’s play, though kind of “drowned” in the big issue of the exceptional love story. It is very cleverly written into the scene where, after having made it up with Octavius Caesar by marrying his sister, Antony is speaking with the soothsayer and has to admit to himself that there is no way he and Caesar will ever be able to work together as equals. I am inclined to believe that the version the series is telling of the events is accurate: that Antony and Octavius fought to the blood for supremacy in Rome and Antony lost – not least because he has always been the least “Roman” of the two, and the more complex character, being “burdened” with a temper and other ungovernable emotions, self-consciousness, a cruel and rather questionable sense of humour, and an insuppressible hunger for sex and the good things of life – and got “chucked out” of Rome to hopefully rot in Egypt, and ultimately disappear from the political landscape. In fact, IT IS NOT CLEOPATRA WHO IS TO BLAME for his “downfall”. Where Antony is concerned, she is just the symptom of the “disease” - as Centurion Vorenus calls it in one of these prophetic moments - or moments of tragic irony - which keep popping up throughout the series. (This was the second hint at misogynist subtext, by the way …) He is not able to name the disease, which I think is uncannily lucid as well – as I was already writing about blind spots. Now I think the disease can likewise be called “Rome” and consists of all these “minor” human issues - like love, sex, empathy, and human relationships in general (so, basically: “Gedöns”) - that get suppressed or destroyed when somebody turns out as perfectly Roman as Vorenus, or Octavius Caesar, and which - if you are not already a psychopath! - are bound to resurface some day and bring you down …

Great! I think I finally pulled it off, with the help of “Rome”: This is Mark Antony in a nutshell (and my answer to all the unfinished issues about him in our e-mail exchange!) And it is, of course, why I came to find Antony so fascinating  – after having been repelled by him at first, probably because I actually LIKE and admire (and partially emulate!) Roman stoicism. Even more interesting when I was going back to “Julius Caesar”: what Shakespeare wrote into this character at his “beginning” – basically: his coming of age story from (Caesar’s) puppy to politician -  and what became of him in the end.

The thing is, though, that, being so taken with Antony, Shakespeare wasn’t able to deal with Cleopatra’s complexity. At least this is the opinion I unconsciously – and conveniently! – subscribed to, and a version of which Claudia brought up in our recent “Shakespeare talk” on the occasion of our breakfast at the Victorian House regarding “Macbeth” ( - thanks for bringing this up, it was what made everything fall into place!!!): that Lady Macbeth is just an “extension” of Macbeth, basically a part of Macbeth himself that can be made visible in this way. I know this is a way critics look at fictional texts to reduce complexity and make them more completely available - and which certainly cannot be DISPROVED where Lady Macbeth is concerned. It is NOT, though, what “we” are actually DOING when we are reading. And especially when we are watching them on the stage these people are always living, breathing – and suffering! – beings to us who will have our empathy if the actors are doing well. Even with quite insignificant characters this is possible – and required! – in “Shakespeare”. I would even go so far as to say that Shakespeare is DARING us to read in this way – comparing his plays with those of other writers of the time. But this is, of course, my intuitive way of looking at it, and it would be sufficient for my argument to account for my personal experience with Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. As far as I am concerned, Lady Macbeth always felt much more like an actual human being than Macbeth. The great thing as well as the difficulty about this character is his being THE tragic paradigm in “Shakespeare”, the way he is just ONE with his predicament. I even felt that we’d LOSE a dimension of the character if he turned out too specific! So, whereas Macbeth remained some kind of “concept” for me (until Christopher Eccleston played him!), I had a few viable versions of Lady Macbeth in my head or on screen (like Keely Hawe’s version in the “Shakespeare Retold”).

(So, now this very long footnote becomes unavoidable because, the evening before I started writing this, I watched my recently acquired DVD of the RSCs “Macbeth” with Christopher Eccleston. As I am becoming used to, it was totally different from what I remembered about seeing it on the stage – this time partly even the set and the costumes??? – but, my God, it is so BEAUTIFUL! Basically, I was just looking at Chris Eccleston, and couldn’t believe what I was seeing! I remember that I enjoyed his playing, especially the way he was dealing with the text, but I was too preoccupied with coming to terms with the fact that I saw him “for real” (and didn’t!), and with figuring out what their version of the play and the people was and to compare it with my own, to enjoy it PROPERLY. But this production is so, so, SO GOOD!!! I always feel that the RSC knows where they are going with these plays, but never like this! Not that it is the most beautiful production they have done lately. “Julius Caesar” (which I watched recently when I had finished “Rome”) is more beautiful because it is so wonderfully consistent, and their “Antony & Cleopatra” is just so perfect where the acting is concerned, whereas “Macbeth” is much more gritty and dirty, and - as it is transferred into a contemporary setting - more painfully close to “our own” issues and experience. But the timing is SO perfect, and the little things they did with the Weird Sisters (my God, these little girls were amazing!), or the simple idea of the porter sitting there the whole time, making the count of the dead with chalk on the wall, or Banquo’s spirit NOT appearing in person at the banquet for once, at least initially …! There was no shortage of good ideas, and one of the best aesthetic experiences I ever had were Macbeth’s soliloquies and speeches, precisely BECAUSE they were so entirely NATURAL. He spoke them as if they were just ordinary spoken language, as if they were NOT SHAKESPEARE – and it would never have occurred to me that THIS is the ultimate way of doing it! I just never thought this might be possible, but it appears to be the most difficult way of doing it as well. And this might be precisely WHY Christopher Eccleston is so special that there actually is no actor quite like him, that he is able to do this: be completely ONE with his part of a Shakespeare text and a Shakespeare character – as he always is with ANY character he is impersonating, not PLAYING him anymore but actually BEING him. At least it feels so because it is just impossible to SEE the playing. I can understand that this might be an empty statement to most people, that they wouldn’t know what I mean – probably first of all Chris Eccleston himself because, I suppose, for him, it is the only way of doing this, so that he might not even understand why he is so special. (Pity, really …) But I am absolutely certain that I am right about this, just measuring the pleasure I felt watching it. And a little proud that I can see this, and experience it in this way, because this is where I was going all the time as to the relationship I WANT to have with text. (I certainly had it a few times already, but this time it actually is “Macbeth”!) Of course, this is now my favourite bit of acting in 2018, and I feel extremely gratified that it is finally him! - And, what I was really delighted with as well, and have to take up because I criticized them in my earlier posts: Niahm Cusack and Chris Eccleston worked admirably together, covering all the major issues of that relationship. There wasn’t much time for anything, but this was also the reason, I suppose, for the actors to make the most of what little there was. Only the sleepwalking scene was quite as pathetic as I remember it, and I still didn’t really like (or accept) Niahm Cusack’s rather old-fashioned version of Lady Macbeth, but it certainly worked. (And this might be an indication that it is I who is getting it wrong because I don’t want to accept the misogynist subtext ???) Otherwise (and with the exception of the very first scenes!) everything was unbelievable good, trenchant, and clever. Very likely the production was already quite “worn down” when we saw it in Stratford, to the point even of being substantially changed. The interesting thing is that the only actor who was better when I saw him last summer was Luke Newbury as Malcolm – whom I had down as the same kind of accomplished “Shakespeare actor” as Tunji Kasim was as Octavius Caesar.  Same difference! It appears that this kind of acting only gets better with time and practice.)

So, I seem to have lost my thread a bit and have to step back. I selected Mark Antony as an example for why Shakespeare is so amazing – and, in fact, unparalleled – where the human stuff is concerned. And - even though they made more of it in in “Rome” - I have no doubt that a lot of these ideas about who he was originally came from Shakespeare! It is this potentially infinite complexity of character and predicament that makes me come back to “Shakespeare” every time. And, basically, there is no difference here between the two sexes. I used to think that no contemporary prejudice could ever hurt this “vortex feature” which wouldn’t allow any limitations of thinking and feeling to get in the way of the predicament that has the biggest dramatic potential.  And I recently dealt with this taking up another “political correctness issue” in “The Merchant of Venice”. I don’t doubt that Shakespeare himself held the antisemite prejudices that are voiced in the play. The dramatic peak of the play, though, without doubt, is the scene where Shylock demands the execution of his bond. And - although even a contemporary judgement on Shylock will probably pronounce him guilty of inhuman cruelty - this scene loses all its dramatic impact if his call for justice and his suffering are not taken very seriously. So, it can be read and played AS WELL as a blatant accusation of Christian inhumanity WITHOUT changing or suppressing any relevant content. To be a great dramatic poet and make the utmost of this kind of human issues is the main rule under which Shakespeare worked.

And this assumption, I think, makes the potential of misogynist subtext to actually DAMAGE a play more interesting. Lady Macbeth’s storyline just being broken - without even an attempt to establish any consistency between what she has been in the beginning and what she becomes in the end - may still be explained, for example, by seeing her as an extension of Macbeth. Losing their usefulness as to taking the story any further can be seen as just cause for a “death sentence” in “Shakespeare” where, in fact, an economic use of stage time is imperative. And the option of Lady Macbeth taking the matter into her own hand probably just didn’t exist at the time, so it is at least not Shakespeare who is RESPONSIBLE for the misogynist subtext. But it appears that I cannot help trying to see a silver lining. I like to think that Claire Underwood wouldn’t have turned out as “great” without what Shakespeare began with Lady Macbeth. Having just watched the incredibly brilliant first episode of “House of Cards” (season 1) again, I realized for the first time TO WHAT EXTENT she actually is the moving force behind the inexorable rise of Frank Underwood. That – even though he appears to be more active! - it is in fact HER who “made” him (- at least as much as he made her! 😉). And, IN THE BEGINNING, Lady Macbeth is exactly the same. Her rise to “greatness” wouldn’t have been possible without Macbeth, but she is by far the keener and more determined agent. (I am not quite sure, though, if I would have liked Macbeth to have “TURNED OUT just to be the means to an end” (House of Cards, season 6!). In case of doubt, though, I prefer the worst case scenario …) But this is, of course, just what “history” made of Lady Macbeth, not what she was supposed to signify at the time, and we haven’t even STARTED on “Hamlet”!

What was so interesting about Cleopatra, though, is that we BOTH run out of excuses and explanations in her case. I even documented in my blog how I tried to find one, but, in the end, it did not hold. And the reason is probably that Cleopatra is not just a fictional character, like Lady Macbeth or Gertrude in “Hamlet”. She isn’t “everywoman” but, like Mark Antony, has been an eminent figure on the political stage of the time. So, from a contemporary point of view, we automatically began to substitute historical content that Shakespeare INTENTIONALLY left out. He quite obviously isn’t interested in Cleopatra as this political figure. And this - especially if compared to the crystal-clear and eminently dramatic account of the situation in “Rome” - quite obviously leads to a biased version of the historical events and people’s motives. Interestingly, as to historical truth, Shakespeare seems to take it more seriously than the writers of “Rome”. For example, I always waited for Fulvia to turn up in the series, or at least get mentioned, but she never did. According to Wikipedia, Shakespeare dealt with her role in the story quite faithfully. But as to Cleopatra’s MOTIVES AND INTENTIONS he got it totally wrong, DELIBERATELY, as I think. According to contemporary misogynist and theologically controlled subtext she has to be the “serpent” that seduces Antony, and her political role is restricted to this end. There always is this possibility to play it differently, as Josette Simon did in the RSC’s production – who “admits” to falling back on the historical Cleopatra in her interview! – but it is NOT in the text Shakespeare has written. So, basically, Sophie Okonedo got it right, even though we didn’t like it! And I think, in this case, Shakespeare might easily have got it right himself if he had been as interested in historical accuracy and complexity – and political dramatic potential! - as he was in other cases.

Going over this, I am extremely pleased with what I have written, first of all because of the descriptions of intertextual “activities”. I totally loved how “House of Cards” penetrated “Macbeth” already when I was watching it - and that I was able to find the “hook” to describe it - realizing at the same time how the series got everything out of “Macbeth” that it possibly could. And even though I am not much fonder of feminism than I was – or could ever be of something with an “ism” in it – I am eminently pleased with showing texts INTERACTING in this way. To lay the finger on how exactly certain text can damage other text and keep it from working and unfolding its full potential. Eminently pleased as well of having been so “right” about “House of Cards” – or rather so wrong in the end because I couldn’t see where Claire Underwood was going and thought that the sixth season would be redundant. Of course, because of the “accident” with Kevin Spacey, she couldn’t be SHOWN to ultimately destroy Frank Underwood, but I DO think that Doug Stamper turned out as a worthy substitute in the end! 😉 (Now I finally ordered this t-shirt …)