Shakespeare makes life better.
A simple question. There might be a simple answer:
Macbeth kills Duncan. Malcolm is the presumed next king, but Malcolm flees. Macbeth is proclaimed king. But! Macbeth had no way of knowing that Malcolm would split the scene, so what exactly did Macbeth think was going to happen when he killed Duncan? It’s not like he was next in line. Was he figuring on killing Malcolm as well?
Anybody remember The Cosby Show? While listening to my Macbeth novel on audiobook I was reminded of this scene, where Theo and his friend “Cockroach” decide to skip reading Macbeth, and just get the audio out of the library:
When that fails them (they can’t understand a word) and there are no performances in the area to go see, they fall back on the Cliff Notes (ahem, “Cleland Notes”) and it becomes a moralizing story about not taking the easy way out on your homework.
Claire, the mom, is just ridiculously annoying as she wanders about the house quoting Macbeth from memory, knowing that the kids won’t understand it. It’s like they wrote episodes of this sort solely so that the adults come throw some lines in there. When Theo claims that he managed to squeak by on the test, she then tells him she’s going to give him *another* test of her own devising? Sorry, but I find that awful.
For a better episode don’t miss the guest appearance by Christopher Plummer, in their Julius Caesar episode (he does not appear toward the end, and more in the second section):
I’m trying to decide if I did stuff like that in my living room, in front of my kids, whether they would find it awesome, or ridiculously embarrassing.
(* Did Christopher Plummer really say, “I have seen original manuscripts by William Shakespeare”??? )
I don’t really have a theory for this question, but as I listen to “Enter Three Witches” on audiobook, the idea crossed my mind. Do you think that Lady Macbeth was, once upon a time, a nice person? Who then turned into what we see in the play? Or do you think that what we see is the way she’s always been?
In another book I’d started and never finished, they go with the plot that she was a perfectly nice and normal woman who was forced to live at the nasty, gloomy castle Inverness by King Duncan, and this directly led to the miscarriage of her child. In that case, the whole story plays out more like revenge against Duncan.
The same is true for Macbeth himself, I suppose, since we often speak of them as the perfect couple. Is Macbeth just a man like any other, with his own fair share of ambition, who gets pushed over the edge by the wyrd sisters? Or was it always eating away at him, something that would have come to pass whether the witches had anything to do with it or not?
What do you think the Macbeths’ life was like 10 years before the play?
It’s that time of year again when those of us who don’t play dress-up for a living get to break out the costumes and wander the streets as our favorite Zombie Shakespeare. We’ve spoken of Shakespeare Halloween Costumes in years past (see here, here and here), and I even finally pulled the trigger and made my own Halloween costume last year, which I like to think was a success even if most of the people at the party didn’t get it. 🙂
As we wandered the aisles of the costume shoppe, always on the lookout for something I could spin Shakespearean, I had all sorts of ideas. Great Caesar’s Ghost is always a relatively easy option. Personally I still want to go as Bacon one of these years, complete with name tag that says “Hello My Name is Francis” and carrying around a book “The Complete Works Of Me”. But to properly do that my wife has to agree to be Eggs (the costumes come as a set), and she ain’t have that. I spotted a knight costume and thought I could maybe pull off a Richard III with apropriate use of hump. Pirate Family was high up on the list for a bit, and I already had visions of carrying around little home made Rosencrantz and Guildenstern dolls, carrying a letter between them that reads “To England”.
Alas, I was outvoted – we’re vampires this year. Fair enough I suppose, I got the vote last year.
So now my dilemma – how do I make vampire Shakespeare? Looking for ideas. Something that doesn’t just say generic undead character (I already did zombie Yorick), but actually ties in the vampire/blood theme in some way. I’ve already considered seeing if my wife will put blood spots on her hands and go as Vampire Lady Macbeth. 🙂
Last Will. & Testament by First Folio Pictures (that’s the exact spelling, with that period in the middle like that) is coming soon to On Demand and iTunes download. Roland Emmerich and Derek Jacobi are also attached to this one, so I’m guessing from the materials that it’s some sort of documentary that they shot while filming that other movie – you know, the entirely fictional one.
I don’t know that I’ve got anything to add on the subject. We’ve been over it all before. Maybe this is some sort of “Anonymous : Behind The Scenes” special that focuses more on the supposed actual research that backs their theories.
The whole thing reminds me of the recent political debate, where the rule appears to be The last person not to be called a liar, must have been telling the truth.