It gives me great pleasure to introduce you to my first guest blogger, Ian Alexander-Sinclair. His post expands on a recent post, How To Be One-Up.
I can trace my own fascination with Macbeth back fifty eight years to 29th March, 1958, to be precise, when, in the words of the historian of my prep school, “one of the senior boys selected four scenes from the last act of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, chose his own cast ( he himself playing Macbeth), rehearsed and staged his production in the Playroom against a background of music chosen from Wagner’s Gotterdammerung”. I was that immodest, precocious boy, but I regret that this short performance was the high point of my thespian career. A combination of modesty and embarrassment prevents me from repeating any further extracts from the school magazine. After fifty eight years I can only guess that what attracted me then, was what still does so now- that heady mixture of ambition, manipulation by a determined female ( not that I would have understood that at age eleven, it generally comes later and is known as marriage, as Macbeth found out), treason, regicide, serial murder of men, women and children, guilt, paranoia, madness, suicide and violence, accompanied by witchcraft, oblique and malign prophecies as accurate and misleading as those of the Delphic oracle herself, ghosts and apparitions, all washed down by copious rivers of blood- it all adds up to a splendid evening’s entertainment. Audiences have gone for it for centuries.
It is considered in some theatrical circles that it brings bad luck to mention this play by name inside the theatre, so it is referred to, sotto voce, as “the Scottish Play”, for example. The late Sir Donald Sinden said the opposite was really the case. It was not referred to backstage as the mere mention of its name might cause whatever was the current play to collapse, throwing the cast out of work, to be replaced by a sure fire audience pleaser, such as Macbeth. It simply pulled in the punters, as I told you.
It is easy to judge its popularity by the number of lines which have found their way into the language- even if frequently misquoted- far too numerous to mention in a short review. But consider a few:-
1. When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning or in rain? (1.1)
2. Fair is foul, and foul is fair,
Hover through the fog and filthy air (1.1)
3. If it were done when ‘tis done, then ‘twere well
It were done quickly. (1.7)
4. Is this a dagger which I see before me,
The handle toward my hand? (2.1)
5. Out, damn spot, out I say (5.1)
6. The devil damn the black, thou cream faced loon!
Where gott’st thou that goose look? (5.3)
This one not so well known but, it goes without saying, I particularly enjoyed it in 1958.
7. To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing. ( 5.5 )
That, I think, sums it up rather well. And lastly-
8. Lay on Macduff,
And damned be him that first cries “Hold, enough !” (5.10)
No need to go on, but I am sure you prefer Shakespeare to me. The play is short, apparently just over half the length of Hamlet, and dominated by Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and those witches. Maybe Shakespeare thought the audience could only take so much blood.
I forgot to mention one small humorous passage, humour being conspicuous by its absence in the play. The porter, in response to Macduff’s enquiry ( 2.3) as to what three things drink provokes, replies:
“ nose-painting, sleep and urine.
Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes
The desire but it takes away the performance”
And so on.
Needless to say, the study of this passage was not encouraged in prep schools in the 1950s. It certainly meant nothing to me. Can anyone explain the nose-painting?
The real Macbeth was King of Scotland from 1040 to 1057, so coincided with Edward the Confessor, and was probably neither much better nor worse than other kings of the time. His evil reputation was bestowed on him by later chroniclers, including Holinshed, upon whom Shakespeare relied heavily for several plays. Like the playwright’s arch villain King Richard III, buried with honour- much to the fury of the Polly Toynbees of this world- in Leicester cathedral last year
, Macbeth has been lumbered with a far worse reputation than he may have deserved ( we have, after all, read Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time). Shakespeare, bowing to the prevailing wind, knew that James VI of Scotland, I of England, was generally considered to be a direct descendant of Banquo, a descent subsequently proved incorrect. Are all playwrights politicians?
An excellent read, mercifully short, long on the dark side, short on humour, brilliantly written.
Ian Alexander-Sinclair