Macbeth is a masterpiece of Shakespearean tragedy that explores themes of ambition, power, and morality. The play follows the story of the eponymous character, a Scottish nobleman who becomes consumed by his own ambition and resorts to murder to gain and maintain power. Macbeth’s story is a cautionary tale of what can happen when unchecked ambition leads to the corruption of the soul. The play also explores the consequences of moral choices, as Macbeth’s actions have devastating consequences not just for himself, but for those around him. The play’s characters are some of the most iconic in all of literature, from the scheming Lady Macbeth to the tragic hero Macbeth himself. With its powerful storytelling, memorable language, and timeless themes, Macbeth remains a must-read for anyone interested in understanding the darker aspects of human nature.
Can’t Get Enough Macbeth?
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There’s a long-standing debate about what it means to produce your own interpretation of Shakespeare, and what the limits should be. How closely do you have to track the original plot? How many characters do you need to keep? Stuff like that. Tell me that the Lion King has elements of Hamlet and I’ll agree with you. Tell me that it’s a modern adaptation of Hamlet and we’ve got an argument on our hands. An evil uncle and redemption for a murdered father isn’t all you need to call yourself Hamlet.
Then again, I’m bored with every Macbeth interpretation between about a “powerful” husband and wife where all we do is swap out the environment. Media moguls, restaurant owners, samurai warriors, mafia. But can we break it down more? Do we have any interpretations of Macbeth as a woman? What about as a child? If we take the standard “theme” of Macbeth to be ambition, heaven knows that there are plenty of ambitious teenagers out there roaming high school hallways and plotting takeovers of everything from the cheerleading squad to student government.
What if Macbeth were a 13-year-old child star trying to make it big and Lady Macbeth her pushy stage mum? Throw in a séance and a geriatric make-up artist with a vision and, snap, crackle and pop, we’ve transported Macbeth to a television studio in 2006.
And so we have Mackenzie, a project by Australian playwright Yve Blake. I’m intrigued by the changes here – the gender flip and the age shift most notably, but also Lady Macbeth as stage mom? Brilliant. Every Macbeth I can think of has them as a married (or close enough) couple. But what about the power a mother wields over her daughter, no matter how ambitious the daughter? And where does that daughter’s ambition come from, was it ever really hers? Or is it just planted there from behind the scenes by Mom whispering in her ear?
Sadly this fascinating new idea is limited to being a stage play in Sydney, Australia, so my chances of ever seeing it are pretty small indeed! But I wanted to shout it out here because I love the idea and wish I could see more.
I’ve seen multiple links about this upcoming Lady Macbeth game from the Royal Shakespeare Company, and I think I may have even posted about it in the past. But it seems closer now to reality, so I wanted to dig in deeper and see if there are some hints about how we’ll be able to play it. (Spoiler alert – alas, not yet.)
Lili has now been shown at Cannes and the Venice Film Festival, which I still don’t fully understand because isn’t it a videogame, not a film? Or is it really going to turn out to be a film that’s got just enough interactive elements that they’re pitching it as a game?
In Lili, one must enter a hacker’s den with a USB stick in hand, don headphones, and follow the poetic instructions of the Hecate collective — Macbeth’s three witches, reimagined here as hackers.
Ok, I’m with you so far. Are you this Lili character? She never actually interacts with the witches, so probably not.
Lili begins as an initiation, where the player is asked to take a vow and accept the hacker persona, giving you agency within a moral grey zone. One assumes control of the game’s surveillance technology to the fullest, as you have access to Lili’s personal documents like her marriage certificate, photos, and passport, and can tune into one of the three different CCTV cameras placed in her house as well as her phone and computer screens.
Ok, so we’re not Lili, we’re spying on Lili, which is cool from a game perspective. But I’m not sure who that makes us, and how it maps to Macbeth.
At one point, you are prompted by the Hecate witches to shut off Lili’s access to a YouTube makeup tutorial, just like the Iranian government can do it at any time. You can then control Lili’s VPN connection and, with that, the flow of information.
Again, interesting. Reminds me a little of the David Tennant / Patrick Stewart version of Hamlet, where they kept showing us angles through security cameras and really playing up the sense of paranoia. Here we’re taking that even further, it’s not just what Big Brother knows, it’s what power they have over things like your access to information.
But will we ever get to play this game? <starts skimming…>
The creators behind Lili are hoping to keep the momentum going to raise funds for the full version of the game,
Aw, man! So basically it’s still just a demo to be shopped around the festivals, and probably will be for some time. What a shame. The ideas sound fascinating, even if they’re not as directly related to Macbeth‘s text as one might hope. It does appear to be a VR game, regardless, so even if it does get made you’re presumably going to need an Oculus or something similar.
Still, we can hope! I’ve been doing the Shakespeare Geek thing for 25 years now and I’ve written about a whole lot of Shakespeare video games – some big, some small. Some made it out the door, some never did. Who knows where this one will end up.
Ok, this is the kind of story that makes me want to blog again. The actual RSC – you know, the Royal Shakespeare Company – is getting behind a Shakespeare videogame project based on Macbeth.
There have been a lot of Shakespeare video games strewn throughout our history: point-and-click adventures, space shooters, and massive online role-playing games. Sadly, I’m unsure I can point to any that still exist. I always have a notebook of ideas that, should I someday win the lottery and have infinite time and resources at my disposal, I will absolutely bring into reality.
That doesn’t mean we can’t keep hoping, though.
Set in contemporary Iran, the game features Cannes Best Actress winner Zar Amir as Lady Macbeth. This marks the RSC’s first venture into video gaming, with the game co-produced by Zar’s Paris-based Alambic Production.
Lili is a screen life thriller that allows players to access Lady Macbeth’s personal devices, blending live-action cinema with interactive gameplay. The game immerses players in a stylised, neo-noir vision of modern Iran, where surveillance and authoritarianism are prevalent. Players will make choices that influence Lady Macbeth’s destiny, with Macbeth’s witches reimagined as hackers.
Well, I hate the “blending live-action cinema with interactive gameplay” idea. That reminds me of many failed attempts to integrate laser disc and similar technologies where basically all you got was a jumpy “Cut scene … menu of choices … cut scene …. menu of choices…” and under the covers it’s little more than a “choose your own adventure” book.
But, we’ll reserve judgment. What I love (and I think my daughter will love too) is, “make choices that influence Lady Macbeth’s destiny.” In my old age I’ve become a fan of Lady Macbeth, and see all kinds of interesting interpretations of the play from her perspective. When did she have the baby, was it long ago or recently? As a married couple, are they still trying, or have they given up (or possibly been told it can’t happen)? What was her relationship with her father? So much backstory to fill for her.
Setting it in Iran brings all kinds of new gender issues to the story. Lady Macbeth’s whole thing is “I can’t do that because I’m not a man.”
I’m excited for a new videogame to try, though I have to admit it looks like a fancy interactive theatre experiment. We’ll have to see how it looks when it’s finished!
I suppose the official title of this production is “The Tragedy of Macbeth”, directed by Joel Coen and starring Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand in the title roles, but that’s too much to fit in a title. You all no doubt know which production I’m referring to. Though it came out in 2021, I’ve finally sat down to watch the entire thing.
If you are a student of the art of film-making, you’re probably going to love this. It’s one of those final products that is all about the director’s vision, regardless of what actors he had to work with or what source material they spoke. Every scene is clearly driven by, “Ok, I want it to look like this.”
For my part, I hate that. Shakespeare, to me, is all about the character. Why are the characters speaking to each other the way that they do? What’s their backstory, their motivation? Why are they making the choices that they make? I can get that on a bare stage with no costumes. I don’t need special effects.
Seriously, who was their architect? What if they did have kids? That’s so dangerous.
Worse, I think that the visual backflips in this version are disjointed and distracting. Like when Macbeth and Banquo have first encountered the witches (more on this in a moment) and get to the line “Whither are they vanished? Into thin air…” but they are still right there. Or when the murderers set Macduff’s castle fully ablaze in a matter of seconds, just so we can get the image of people falling into the flames. Don’t get me started on the MC Escher-esque castle that the Macbeths live in. It’s like they borrowed some scenery from David Bowie’s Labyrinth.
Starring Kathryn Hunter as The Witches
Let’s talk about the witch(es) for a moment because clearly, she/they are the best part of the production. I would see a one-person show of just this performance. Kathryn Hunter alone plays the witches. Is she playing one, then, or three? Or one body housing three spirits? Yes, I guess, to all the things. If she didn’t play it so well, I’d be taking serious issue with the inconsistency in the presentation. Sometimes, she’s just one person speaking in three (or more?) voices. Other times, she splits into three. Or, she’s one body casting three reflections or shadows. She’s also a bit of a contortionist, which only adds to the otherworldliness of the whole performance. When I first started watching this at home on my laptop, my son walked by and said, “What the hell is that? That’s terrifying.”
I’d watch a one-person show of that because the other actors have no choice but to break the illusion. Why does Macbeth refer to “them” in the plural when there’s just one person there? Something like that leaps off the screen and pulls me out of the moment. It’s a minor thing, I suppose. It just feels disjointed, as I mentioned above. It is as if the director is saying, “Yes, I know what the script says, but I know what I want the visual to be, even if they don’t match!”
Bring It Home, Denzel
Even if the director didn’t care much about how the actors played their parts, they still had to find something to work with. Though I admit I wasn’t hanging on every word, I liked parts of Washington’s performance, such as Macbeth. His explanation of killing Duncan’s guards can be summed up as “Sometimes I get into this weird mood where I randomly kill people, I can’t explain it,” and it is the implied, “Would you like to be next?” that cranks up the tension. Everybody probably wonders precisely what happened, but they know they’d better not question it too deeply.
Toward the end, I also enjoyed the way he played his assumed immortality to a point. Everything’s falling apart around him; most of the witches’ prophecies have come true, yet he’s still almost laughing at it all, believing himself to be invincible. His speech to Young Siward is a cross between a serial killer and a Marvel supervillain. Unfortunately, this is ruined by a ridiculous fight scene, but I’ll take what I can get.
See It Or Skip It?
I’ll end how I started. If you’re a fan of the art of filmmaking, this is a great example. You can pause at any point and break down why the director wanted that scene to look like it does. It’s disorienting 100% of the time. There are claustrophobic shots, there are shots looking straight down. There’s nothing extra in any of the scenes, it often feels like bare stage. For me, though, I think that takes away from the Shakespeare. Shakespeare didn’t make any of those decisions, Joel Coen did. Which is fine if your plan is to go see the Coen version of Macbeth. But I’m more about the actors, I wanted to see more of Denzel Washington’s Macbeth. I got some. I liked some. I just wish it was more about the words and the actors and not the visuals.
I’m thrilled to announce an exciting giveaway contest for our latest release, My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth. This edition offers a unique experience, allowing you to engage deeply with the text while adding your own personal annotations.
How to Enter:
It’s simple! To participate, all you need to do is leave a comment answering one intriguing question:
Which Shakespeare play should I write about next?
I chose Macbeth as the first volume because my daughter inspired the entire project by coming out of her first college Shakespeare class and asking, “Can I get my own copy of Macbeth? I don’t care which edition, I just want one of my own that I can write in because I have thoughts.” Thus the idea was born for an edition of Shakespeare that strips away hundreds of years of other people telling you what to think, replacing it with plenty of room for you to discover Shakespeare in your own way and at your own pace.
But what should we do next? Hamlet? Romeo and Juliet? Twelfth Night, Much Ado? You tell me!
Two Winners Will Receive Free Copies of My Own Personal Shakespeare: Macbeth
I have two copies of my book to giveaway. (Amazon’s actually very good about “author copies,” so if this contest goes well, I’ll probably do it again soon!). All you need to do is answer the question in the comments and a few other necessary rules:
Submit your entry by the deadline: Friday, June 28, 2024
Provide a valid email address so I can contact the winner.
Be willing to provide me with a shipping address where I can send the book, of course.
Shipment to the continental US only. Sorry, international audience. Shipping costs take all the fun out of it.
Look Inside!
The whole point of our new series is about making it your own. There’s plenty of whitespace on every page, and blank note pages between all the acts. Check it out!
Enter Now for Your Chance to Win
Who doesn’t love free books? Free Shakespeare books, even better! We’ve taken the first step on what’s hopefully going to be a long and fruitful journey. Now you can help us decide the next step! Enter today!
