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First Annual Eggs Mayonnaise Honorary Theater Thread
- Thread starter Donovan
- Start date
Macbeth is one of my favorite Shakespearean dramas/tragedies; Lady Macbeth is one of the greatest literary bitches of all time, in my opinion.
Lady Macbeth:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
Of direst cruelty!
In 1979, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench starred in the stage production. Wish I'd have been able to see it. There are video links available, but they don't play. Photo below - Judi Dench was quite attractive.
Lady Macbeth:
The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan
Under my battlements. Come, you spirits
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe topful
Of direst cruelty!
In 1979, Ian McKellen and Judi Dench starred in the stage production. Wish I'd have been able to see it. There are video links available, but they don't play. Photo below - Judi Dench was quite attractive.
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
I should sit down and read some Shakespeare this weekend...I don't sit down and read as often as I used to UNLESS IT INVOLVES STARING AT AN LCD SCREEN
curiousa2z
Be patient till the last.
cakewalk, why do you think she was a bitch?
I find her character to be very complex. A magnificent bitch is just one part of her persona. She loves her husband deeply. Her ambition for him to become King exceeds his own. She manipulates Macbeth into killing Duncan by constantly challenging his manhood and his commitment to her. She convinces herself that she is only helping Macbeth to get what he wants. Of course, Macbeth's kinghood is exactly what she wants for herself as well. She is, in fact, selfish and cut-throat.
Some of the Lady's pleas to the spirits to give her the strength to murder Duncan herself (she is unsure if Macbeth has the courage, and boy does she let him know it) are my favorite passages. They reflect just how ambitious and ruthless a bitch the Lady can be. At the same time, they demonstrate that she has a conscience and is not able to carry out the act of murder for gain without the aid of supernatural forces.
In the end, of course, she was remorseful and couldn't live with driving her husband to murder and the effect that it had on both of them. She could never wash her hands clean of the blood. So she ultimately kills herself. A magnificent murderous bitch, who deeply loved her husband, and had a conscience in the end. That's my take on it, anyway. There are probably different interpretations of Lady Macbeth's character by anyone who reads the tragedy. She is layered, for sure.
Donovan
beer, I want beer
A lot of stage productions portray her as the villain of the piece while her husband is an ineffectual cuckold almost, doing her bidding to disastrous ends. Some classic Shakespearean studies list her as an example of Shakespeare's ambivalence toward female characters in general. I think one of my professors tried to make that case.
I don't necessarily agree, I've always thought Shakespeare's female characters were richly made and whole, right down to failings, dark sides and baser instincts, a concept sometimes lost on modern writers and audiences.
But then, you were asking cakewalk lol. I'll just be over here in the corner.
I don't necessarily agree, I've always thought Shakespeare's female characters were richly made and whole, right down to failings, dark sides and baser instincts, a concept sometimes lost on modern writers and audiences.
But then, you were asking cakewalk lol. I'll just be over here in the corner.
What do you think, Dono and Curious? Do you agree that she was an incredibly strong driving force and the more powerful of the couple, despite her battles with her conscience? Or, do you think she was so deeply in love and determined to help her husband achieve his ambitions that she would do anything for him (essentially, making her weak)? I think the former, primarily.
curiousa2z
Be patient till the last.
wish I could sit down with Will over a cup of wine and get him to tell me what he was thinking when he wrote that part!
This is my favourite of his plays and I can't even count how many versions I've seen, and yet a director can have such a different take, and an actress can have such a different way of delivering key lines, that it's still hard to decide. I think that's why her character is sought out by so many actresses to play...what and who was Lady Macbeth, really???! I never get tired trying to figure that out. And of course, he may always have intended her to be both strong and weak... a mix of conflicting emotions and changing opinions, just like the rest of us.
Maybe that's why we're still talking about her 400 years later, eh?
This is my favourite of his plays and I can't even count how many versions I've seen, and yet a director can have such a different take, and an actress can have such a different way of delivering key lines, that it's still hard to decide. I think that's why her character is sought out by so many actresses to play...what and who was Lady Macbeth, really???! I never get tired trying to figure that out. And of course, he may always have intended her to be both strong and weak... a mix of conflicting emotions and changing opinions, just like the rest of us.
Maybe that's why we're still talking about her 400 years later, eh?
Donovan
beer, I want beer
I have to reread and refresh my memory of the details because it's been quite a while. But I think Lady MacBeth embodies what a lot of Shakespeare's characters had, the fatal flaw of pride and ambition. Shakespeare tended to set those characters up for the biggest falls. In the time Shakespeare lived in, a woman's true power in royal court was often as the guiding force behind her husband. In my opinion, Shakespeare wanted her to be perceived as the weaker character, not because of what you cited in the deep and determined love, but in the ambition you cite as her strong point. Like Hamlet's mother, she suffered remorse too late to save herself, or too late for redemption. Further, her regret over killing Duncan only comes AFTER the fact, while MacBeth questions it beforehand. He's not weak in this sense, as he has a moral seed she lacks but is weak and cannot stand with the courage of his misgivings.
My degrees are all business related, so literature isn't anything I got to study formally beyond high school. My experience is limited to reading and going to theater for pleasure and my interpretations are novice; just one gal's view. I don't have the academic and in-depth analytical abilities of other posters here, from whom I am learning.
One of the first plays I ever read was Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". Willie Loman's character touched me. I had uncles and teachers and friends' fathers who shared some of his characteristics. Desperate pride (in himself and his son) and a need to front. I wanted his dreams to become his reality so badly, yet it wasn't meant to be. That's how I read it anyway. Still makes me sad.
This is a good clip from a BBC production from 1996 with Warren Mitchell as Willie. I was lucky enough to watch it while in England with a colleague who was quite a literature buff. Worth viewing the whole thing, if you've got the time and inclination.
I'd be interested in hearing anybody else's interpretation of Willie and Biff, and if anyone has been lucky enough to see a stage production.
One of the first plays I ever read was Arthur Miller's "Death of a Salesman". Willie Loman's character touched me. I had uncles and teachers and friends' fathers who shared some of his characteristics. Desperate pride (in himself and his son) and a need to front. I wanted his dreams to become his reality so badly, yet it wasn't meant to be. That's how I read it anyway. Still makes me sad.
This is a good clip from a BBC production from 1996 with Warren Mitchell as Willie. I was lucky enough to watch it while in England with a colleague who was quite a literature buff. Worth viewing the whole thing, if you've got the time and inclination.
I'd be interested in hearing anybody else's interpretation of Willie and Biff, and if anyone has been lucky enough to see a stage production.
curiousa2z
Be patient till the last.
sorry, just getting a red x.
p.s.
It was late and I forgot to add this last finicky point about describing Lady Macbeth as a "bitch" (a term I personallywould not use): to me, that particular word would be better suited to describe one [or both!] of King Lear's daughters...
p.s.
It was late and I forgot to add this last finicky point about describing Lady Macbeth as a "bitch" (a term I personallywould not use): to me, that particular word would be better suited to describe one [or both!] of King Lear's daughters...
DEATH OF A SALESMAN LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJ8DXvVJY4
Having some trouble with images.
P.s. I'll have to read King Lear again soon. I like this thread and reading different interpretations of characters.
Donovan
beer, I want beer
King Lear's daughters definitely qualify as bitches especially after daddy gave over the keys, but here's a thought: how big a bitch was the third daughter in the very beginning when he was asking for adulation? Consider that Lear probably didn't become a foolish egomaniac overnight, and any of his daughterswould be well aware of his idiosyncracies, especially his longtime "favorite". Likewise, the scheming nature of the eldest two daughters would have been long apparent and is even mentioned. So the wise course for a loving daughter faced with a demented parent is to mollify him and ensure that you are in a position to protect him when he needs it. So what if you tell him you love him more that flies love shit? Who does it hurt? But instead, she has to make some sort of point and take a stand, for the sake of her own pride. There's that fatal flaw we were talking about. Her one petulant moment of refusing to soothe a doddering but powerful man's ruffled feathers set the entire tragic chain of events in motion...