Lay on, Macduff

I can't quite make up my mind about Macduff. Admittedly, he is the hero here and he slew the tyrant, Macbeth, whose inhumanity grew the moment he crossed the line and murdered his king under his own house (despite a soliloquy where he weighed what he was doing, saw exactly what the act would entail and who it would make him and decided against it). And that was good and it was a long time coming and everyone rejoiced to see his bloody head severed from his body, brandished around like a trophy.

But Macduff. He fled his castle without his wife and his children. He left them to their fate. Was it thoughtlessness? Cowardice? When Lady Macduff rants against him and is hushed by Ross (I think it was Ross, if not Lennox - those men are colourless and seem, for the most part, interchangeable) I think she did have a point. And when the murderers came to slay them, oh how cruelly they did it. And for Macduff to cry to the heavens..."All my pretty ones? All of them?" seemed to be the height of hypocrisy. You knew Macbeth was mad. You saw how many he had killed. You returned to him a rude/saucy answer when he summoned you to court. Did you think you were above it? That you would escape?

I'm not justifying Macbeth, but here, you could already see he had gone mad and that his bloodlust just grew and grew. You couldn't argue or reason with him. About the only thing in the world he loved was his wife.

I read the play about five times and watched the movie. Well, the one directed by Paul Farrer, anyway, which I found wonderful. Here it seemed to suggest that Lady Macbeth controlled her husband through sex. He couldn't wait to jump on her when he returned from battle and she, well, she worked it and she worked it. No wonder when he recants and says he won't do it...the image she gives him is a child plucked from her nipple - I always thought it was slightly suggestive, but oh, does Helen Baxendale work it and work it. Here you could see a man smitten by his wife, willing to do anything to keep her love and admiration. And here, you could see a woman slightly contemptuous of a man she could sway so easily to get whatever she wanted.

I loved the weird sisters...the full extent of the evil doesn't really come through in the drips and drabs that leak out about them...you have to read the full play to see the extent of it all. And in the Paul Farrer production, one of them, the third, was actually young and beautiful...and you could see that she throbbed with desire for Macbeth - a virile young warrior...who could have lived peacefully on his estates on the largesse presented to him by the king. Oh, that he had not spurs to prick the sides of his intent.

So many phrases from the play were familiar - I had heard them quoted over and over all through my life and hadn't realised that they were from Macbeth.

I know this was Shakespeare's most fearsome and bloody play, and yet I enjoyed it thoroughly and didn't mind reading it over and over, running the words over in my mouth, tasting them on my tongue. Beauty.

I tried to make a list of the plays I had actually read and the plays I hadn't and damme if I couldn't remember more than 10 of them. History plays I'd wager, also some of the historical ones. But no matter. The year is yet young and I will keep at it, reading play after play until I'm sated, until I'm done.

I really think I should be reading them with a snifter of brandy or a glass of wine. Then I would appreciate the full extent (I recently discovered the meaning of a song I had listened to about 50 times before, because I listened to it drunk and it finally made sense, and the words came alive).

The Tempest

We are such things as dreams are made on; and our little life, is rounded with a sleep.

I decided to start with The Tempest, because according to Anne (Hathaway), that was the last play that she wrote. And although the book was purely fiction, it does give one pause. Some plays demonstrate a woman's sensitivity, no doubt, that is what she is trying to say.

Anyway, I read the play first. I had a battered old copy I bought at some secondhand book sale. I think it was Payless Books. Remember their book sales in Brickfields? Boy was that something.

Anyway, I had The Tempest on my bookshelf for years, always figuring I would get around to reading it when I did my year with Shakespeare. After all, The Tempest was not one of his heaviest plays right? There was a storm and magic and an airy sprite and a brutal savage who was mercifully enslaved (I'm sorry, I know by all the critics that I'm supposed to feel sorry for Caliban and view him through post-colonial lenses, but I don't. He tried to rape Miranda. No punishment, however brutal, is bad enough. I'm surprised Prospero didn't castrate him, which to my mind would have been fitting).

Ultimately it was a tale of revenge. But since Prospero is wise and third person omniscient-like, it is not revenge but justice and retribution. He forgives his usurping brother at the end, although his brother has expressed no remorse and has even plotted against the king (of Naples) meaning that he hasn't learned his lesson. But he does take back the dukedom. And cement his alliance with Alonzo (the King of Naples) by ensuring that his daughter Miranda meets and falls in love with Alonzo's son Ferdinand. Try to top that you childless Antonio!

In the introduction to my beat up old The Tempest, the guy who wrote the foreword said Shakespeare's plays shouldn't be read, they should be heard. The words that seem to make no sense upon the page, requiring constant reference to the footnotes, come alive when you see it performed. Ah, you think. So that's what he meant.

Anyway, I googled The Tempest and came across the 2010 production with Helen Mirren as Prospera. Yes, the main character was a woman who had been cheated out of her dukedom by her conniving brother. You know, some of the speeches seemed to make more sense with a woman saying it. And naturally, Mirren was brilliant.

But she was supported by a stellar cast. They were all good. The play came alive. And there were plenty of special effects which Shakespeare would probably have not approved of (well, I am not sure he would have approved of them changing his principle character to a woman) but it was well done. They substituted the pageant by the three goddesses - Ceres, Iris and Juno with a light show full of stars and magical symbols.

I loved some of the speeches. Especially the one quoted above about how ephemeral life is. But I guess I should have listened to Charles and read the play at least five times to absorb it before I attempted to write anything of it. There was a touch of Romeo and Juliet with Ferdinand and Miranda. Like Juliet she didn't want to seem so easily won. But it was charming that she proposed to him rather than vice versa. And that she offered to carry his sticks for him. And that despite being too easily won, he loved her anyway. It was a Romeo and Juliet with a happy ending. Well, why not? Weren't their fathers sworn enemies? Didn't Alonzo help Antonio usurp Prospero's throne?

But I get the feeling that part of the blame lay with Prospero. As Duke he should have been governing his citizens, rather than getting lost in books and leaving it all to his brother. What do you expect? Naturally his brother would usurp. So maybe the message was to do what you are supposed to do, what you are tasked to do, what you have a duty to do or you risk losing everything, your life included?

Maybe that's why at the end, Prospero destroys his staff and books. He is more than match for Antonio who has come out of this unscathed. Now, he would be vigilant. Now, he would rule as a Duke was meant to rule. I suppose all those years alone on that island with Miranda commanding the spirits of the air and controlling the savage that was Caliban taught him about policy and governance. To rule with a none-too-gentle hand and to be aware of motives, of what is going on in the minds of those around you.

He released Ariel and was sad to see him go. This was played up in the movie - it was more convincing for a woman to display such attachment to the airy sprite. After all, Ariel did her bidding to a T.

Am not sure if I will watch it again. Perhaps. But I do want to move on to other plays. I have just learned that there are 37 plays in total. And I intend to read all of them.