Secret, black & midnight hags

[ellenkushner]

I can't believe Delia got me to go see Macbeth again!  I hate that play.

She said this time it would be different: that no one would die, and the witches would give Macbeth milk & cookies.*

She lied.

I hate those people. Everyone in it is horrible, and there's no redemption - No narrative tension, either, once we've gotten the killing of Duncan (oops! spoiler) out of the way.  However, John Douglas Thompson was magnificent - he went just as spectacularly nuts as Lady M. in his way, and went from a kind of dorky nice guy to an evil monster with hardly a stop for gas . . . and Annika Boras made the best and most interesting Lady M. I think I've seen.

Can we stop, now?

(No, wait, I guess we can't:  Sleep No More is next week!  There had better be milk and cookies.)

*P.S.  Actually, she didn't say that.  It was I, on my way to the subway, ever hopeful.

Comments

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Cookies would have been nice. But not Pesachdic.

[(Anonymous)]

I love the idea that maybe this time it would be different. I don't know why I never thought of that.... I love Macbeth, but maybe because it's over pretty quickly, and everything is so direct, and the language is so beautiful. I'd far rather see The Tempest or As You Like It or.... But, I'd take Macbeth over Hamlet or Troilus or Othello or even Richard 3. --David Lenander

[gem225.livejournal.com]

Oh, I loved John Douglas Thompson when he was with the ART! I wish that I could see him in Macbeth, but 'tis not to be. *sigh* I'm so glad to hear that he's still acting!

I hope that you enjoy Sleep No More much more than I did (not at all). Maybe they've improved it? I will hope that for you. :-)

[calimac.livejournal.com]

What I love Macbeth for is the atmosphere: the supernatural mist and fog and sense of impending doom hanging over everything. You don't need redemption in a horror story of this kind, and you don't need narrative surprise when the fascination is in watching the inevitable work itself out: tension enough in that, methinks. It's my favorite of the tragedies; likewise, the shortest. (But I love Hamlet too.)

[abostick59.livejournal.com]

As a palate cleanser (a unicorn chaser?) I commend to you Season 2 of Slings and Arrows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slings_and_Arrows).

[little-carrot.livejournal.com]

+1

[ladymondegreen.livejournal.com]

Slings and Arrows is a terrific brain cleaner in general.

The fact that I was in/helped author a parody of Macbeth having to do with the fast food industry when I was 11 allowed me get through three different English classes featuring this classic play with better humor than I might otherwise have managed.

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Now that's the Scottish Play I wish I could see all the way through. The memory of it colors every production I see. Partly because it really suits with my reading of the play, which focuses heavily on the clothing images and the notion of Macbeth being too small for his (stolen) britches. Of course, you know what my favorite scene is, don't you?

[jennifergale.livejournal.com]

I would like Macbeth a lot more if milk and cookies were involved.

And I'm with you...I need somebody to cheer for.

[pandemonium-213.livejournal.com]

Can we stop, now?

Ha! No, apparently you will not stop. I commend Ms. Sherman's nefarious plan to whisk you off to Sleep No More, and I fear there will be no milk and cookies awaiting you there. A darkness that is as much a performer as the actors/actresses/dancers, trees moving through the mists, rooms filled with the fascinating and the bizarre, yes, those await you, but milk and cookies? No.

On March 19, a Saturday when I originally planned to have a certain author who was visiting the Harvard Bookstore sign a certain novel she had written, a certain novel that might just be called Thomas the Rhymer, I had a change of plans. Instead, I hopped on the Acela to NYC and met my friend to take in a matinee of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert and a late-night performance of Sleep No More. Here's my not quite lucid, nattering account of the latter (http://pandemonium-213.livejournal.com/200553.html).

Sleep No More, an eerie lovechild of Macbeth and Hitchcock, felt like an immersion into a Kubrickian nightmare. How's that for a cultural mash-up? I loved it, and would see. . . no, make that experience it again in a heartbeat.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

What bothers me about Macbeth is that his stance on prophecy does not make sense. If it's accurate, you shouldn't have to commit mayhem (especially mayhem you were not previously planning) to bring it about -- just go about your business and you'll be king someday.

Whereas if it is not accurate, then why are you so sure your murders will have the desired result? I guess there could be such a thing as a contingent prophecy -- if you do this then this will happen -- but that's not what they said!

Similarly, why he thinks he can avert the unpleasant (for him) bits of the prophecy with more murder when the pleasant bits have all been so thoroughly confirmed is beyond me. It's one thing to be unprincipled, but must he be so fuzzy minded about it?

Or at least, if he's wrestling with the free will versus destiny problem, I wish he would wrestle aloud.

There's also the bit where since I don't believe in prophecy or destiny, the whole premise is hard for me to take seriously. I prefer Lear, where all the tragedy is inherent in the personalities (and the political system).

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Well, he's not really very good at thinking, is he? Whenever he does, he gets all muddled and circular and ends up announcing that he shouldn't think any more, he should just DO. Which is also a mistake. He doesn't have a stance on prophecy. He's also not good at making plans. He just reacts to things, and then reacts some more. He's a very simple organism, really. Lady M. is much more complex.

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

This is true. Which makes one wonder why he *wants* to be king. Doesn't it mostly involve making plans?

[deliasherman.livejournal.com]

Big! Shiny! Crown! Golden opinions, golden round. He is not without ambition--but he doesn't really know what ambition leads to. It's not that he's stupid--he just doesn't have the data. He sees Duncan leading troops ("I can do that!") and handing out honors ("I can do that!") and throwing bashes ("I can do that! Or at least, my wife can.") He (or, more likely, Lady M.) can run an estate and a few villages. A kingdom can't be all that different. Can it?

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. :)

You seem to be able to get into his head very effectively. Is there a Macbeth retelling in your future?

Milk and cookies

[nancy werlin (from livejournal.com)]

If you don't love Sleep No More, I will send you compensatory milk and cookies myself!

Re: Milk and cookies

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Nancy - we are definitely going on your recommendation - and that of a few others! (Even if we *do* love it, want cookies w/you!

[swimtech.livejournal.com]

Well, according to the NYT review of Sleep No More, the production includes a functioning bar that serves gin gimlets to the audience. Is that an acceptable substitute?

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

Life just got even better!

[csecooney.livejournal.com]

Dang. This made me laugh out loud.

[regicidaldwarf.livejournal.com]

I feel the same way about Hamlet, honestly. Every time I watch it I'm all "Maybe it'll be different this time!" and then it never is.

[ellen-kushner.livejournal.com]

...and that's a GOOD thing - as far as I'm concerned: I love the fact that all the other plays (let's not leave out OTHELLO! and even R&J!) make you feel that way,engage you with the characters and their choices even though you know in advance what they'll be! Wtih the Scottish Play, once they've killed Duncan it's all over and you - and they- live with the ghastly consequences of their actions for scene after scene after scene....

[oleander9999.livejournal.com]

I will admit the blasphemous opinion of feeling that way about Lear! Yes, I know, there is some sort of redemption and the poetry is glorious and it's all about the catharsis, blah, blah, but I hate every single character except the Fool and everyone's miserable through the whole thing and UGH. And the third season of Slings and Arrows is my favorite, so go figure!

[oleander9999.livejournal.com]

And I hate all that Malvolio stuff in Twelfth Night, too!

For Macbeth, MY rX is Elaine Stritch reading Thurber's The Macbeth Murder Mystery on an old LP (Decca?)

[ron-drummond.livejournal.com]

Meanwhile, for Will's 447th birthday tomorrow, you can go out to your favorite independent bookstore and treat yourself to a copy of what I am starting to seriously think simply must be one of the greatest posthumous birthday gifts our man from Stratford ever received, Arthur Phillips' hilariously profound new novel The Tragedy of Arthur, being the tale of a lost Shakespeare play restored at last to the canon, or then again maybe not, but Phillips has the unmitigated hutzpah to actually include in his novel the text of the entire full-length, five-act play, and by goddess it's actually amazingly good, yea even passable as a solid, late early Shakespeare history play, to wit, The Most Excellent and Tragical Historie of Arthur, King of Britain (based on Holinshed, of course), published in quarto in 1597. Even the incomparable Michael Dirda gives it a wittily wholehearted endorsement. I'm about half way through the novel and can't stop laughing -- Phillips manages to say just about everything that needs to be said about our collective Shakespeare obsession; his hilarious 20-page riff on the Oxfordian heresy is alone worth the price of entry. Don't hesitate!

[thismustbetheplace-rjs.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I have a soft spot for MacBeth, as it forms the basis for Ngaio Marsh's "Light Thickens," one of my favorite mystery novels.