macbeth. william shakespeare.

(this play is in complication so that is where there is no book cover.)

since next weekend i will be seeing the play "sleep no more" in nyc, i decided i should probably read the shakespeare play that it is based on, so i can know what is going on.  i should add "sleep no more" has no dialogue and the audience wears masks (yes if you saw that "law and order" episode, it's like that, well minus the rape) do that was part of the reason as well.

before i go on i have to admit what a horrible drama student i was.  the drama teacher at delano high school was obsessed with shakespeare and that was all he ever directed.  due to thid, i was in a production of "macbeth", as a chorus member.  it was for a festival at chapman, which i did just to go on a field trip.  and though i was in it, all i remember was the witches' "double double" and lady macbeth's (played by my friend kaley) "out damn spot" and "unsex me now" lines.  and even though i sat through a handful of practice and performances, i had no idea what the play was about until i read it.  and even than i needed sparknotes.com to help me understand it completely.

i consider myself an intelligent person but shakespeare is so beyond me!  i would read a couple of acts then consult sparknotes.com to make sure i understood what was going on.  most of the time i did but i did miss that whole forest moving prediction and then it's actual happening.

but back to the play, it was really dark.  so much death!  and lady macbeth!  talk about malicious!!! though in the end she did commit suicide due to the guilt so she wasn't a complete sociopath, demonstrating she was capable of remorse. but she was quite frightening at the beginning with her murder plots and talk of dashing the brains of a suckling infant.  that part was manically cruel, who has thoughts like that?!?!  even her talk of killing duncan herself was insane.  and she did have the best lines "unsex me now" a demand to lose her femininity so she can destroy life.  though since shakespearen time, women have proven that they are just as capable of murder as men.

i also enjoyed the plot twist at the end when macduff revealed that he was not born but take from the womb early.  interesting! what a surprise! and then macduff presented macbeth's head at the end.  there was a lot of gory scenes in this and then add in the witches and banquo's ghost roaming around, though i haven't read anything else, it's pretty dark for shakespeare right?  and seriously what a bad move on macbeth's end for killing the chamberlains, it was really odd when he announced that.

oh and way to go shakespeare for his grand tradition of perverted scenes, so random to have the porter talking about whiskey dick.  but i guess something to keep the mood light.

and of course so many great lines that influenced others:

"by the prickling of my thumb,

something wicked this way come":  ray bradbury

"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.":  faulkner

"weird sisters.":  j.k. rowlings

"methought i heard a voice cry 'sleep no more! macbeth does murther sleep.'":  the play i am going to see.

so excited for the play and glad i will have a better understanding of it.  oh and i will make sure not to say "macbeth" in the theater as warned by friend ferlay.  i will use "the scottish play" to avoid dying or having an accident.