Ethan Hawke on Macbeth Shakespeare Uncovered


Ethan Hawke on Macbeth

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'When you think of violent murders,

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'brutal crimes and nightmarish horrors,

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'you might think of a big city, you might think of Manhattan.'

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Or, if you're like me, you might think a little bit past that,

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to about a 400-year-old play named Macbeth.

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This is the story of one man who will kill his way

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to win the Scottish throne.

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'Macbeth is a play that you're not even supposed to say the name of it'

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because even the name of it is supposed to conjure witches

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and the dregs of the universe.

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This tale of mass murder is among the darkest

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and strangest of all Shakespeare's plays.

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The play may be 400 years old,

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but anybody paying attention can recognise everybody in it.

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They recognise the evil in the heart of man.

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It's probably never drawn a more beautiful portrait

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of a broken, greedy heart than the bloody heart of Macbeth.

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Maybe foolishly, it's a part I've always wanted to play.

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I feel like if you're going to play one of these parts,

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you have to seek out some truth about it.

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'When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth,

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'he explored the darker side of the human psyche.

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'Macbeth will become a traitor, a butcher, a serial killer

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'and yet, what's so powerful

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'is that Shakespeare hasn't written a play about a monster,

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'he has written a play about a man.

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'Macbeth explores our capacity for violence and evil.

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'For an actor, that can be scary.'

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I never wanted to play it.

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When I was younger, I was petrified of the play,

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because, to be honest, I thought I might go crazy if I did it.

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But now, for some reason, I'm not as scared of it as I was.

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I'm not saying that I'm braver,

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it's just I realise that there is that aspect to life

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and it isn't worthwhile to pretend it's not there.

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'Playing this part would mean asking myself some tough questions,

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'so the essential thing for me

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'would be to work out how to prepare for it.'

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I think, and this is something that nobody really wants to say,

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but the best way I can ever prepare for a part

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is to surround myself with really smart people.

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'I'd seek advice and wisdom from historians, scholars, directors,

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'who have their own knowledge and experience.'

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The other thing I would do, to begin work on this,

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is watch as many as I could find.

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'You can watch Polanski's Macbeth, Orson Welles's Macbeth'

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and of course the trick is then you have to forget all that

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and live it and make it real for yourself.

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-It isn't often one gets the chance to do these plays.

-This is great.

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I've done this one and through my long career,

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I've played it on both sides of the Atlantic.

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I've done a textbook on it.

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I don't know what I haven't done about this play,

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except do it as well as I'd like to.

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It's a great feeling to be dealing with material

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which is better than yourself,

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that you know that you can never live up to.

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It's weird to see such ego and such humility at the same time.

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What a bizarre guy Orson Welles is!

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'However you play Macbeth, this is the story.'

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So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

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'Macbeth starts out as a warrior, rewarded by the king for bravery.'

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The king hath heavily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success.

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We are sent to bring thee from our royal master thanks...

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'Then three witches, or weird sisters, as Shakespeare calls them,

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'prophesy that he himself will be king.'

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All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.

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'Macbeth and his wife decide to make it happen.

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'He murders the king himself and then all other possible rivals.

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'There is so much violent gore in the play,

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'but it's the supernatural element, these witches or weird sisters

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'that trigger Macbeth's dark descent into murder.

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'Their prophecies will fire his ambition.'

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When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

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When the hurly-burly's done. When the battle's lost and won.

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That will be ere the set of sun.

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-Where the place?

-Upon the heath.

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There to meet with Macbeth.

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The funny thing about the witches is it's just the most

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genius piece of writing.

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The language is so evocative and strange.

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The role the witches play is mysterious.

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Do they cause the events that follow, or just predict them?

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'I think that's why Shakespeare has Macbeth meet them

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'in a strange no man's land.

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'But never far away from the real world.

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'This play all takes place in a kind of shadowland.'

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Right now we are in Central Park, and Central Park to me

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is a great example of kind of a border.

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A transitional place.

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It almost feels like you're in the country here,

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but just a stone's throw away is the taxis and the madness of Manhattan.

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It's kind of an invisible scrim that happens.

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You enter from one world to another.

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Sometimes the park is scary, sometimes the park is inviting.

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I think these witches are trying to conjure that up.

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They're conjuring up the scrim and they're making it dark.

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Macbeth will murder to satisfy his ambition,

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but the evil inspiration comes from the witches.

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They tell him he will be king so the current king must die.

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That fatal decision is the pivot of the drama of Macbeth.

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When shall we three meet again...?

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At the Globe in London,

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a replica of the theatre Shakespeare actually worked in,

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they are running the opening scene.

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-Where the place?

-Upon the heath.

-There to meet with Macbeth.

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-Fair is foul.

-ALL: And foul is fair.

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Hover through the fog and filthy air.

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Most of this scene here you don't speak.

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So if you do turn back...

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'Now, Macbeth and his close comrade, Banquo,

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'encounter the witches for the first time.'

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So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

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How far is't call'd to Forres...?

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'The witches deliver their prophecy.

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'Macbeth's reaction will drive the action for the rest of the play.

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'But had he always desired the crown?

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'Or have the witches planted that idea?'

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All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis!

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All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!

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All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

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It's like reading a horoscope, which I never do.

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And the horoscope is saying this is going to happen to you.

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And however sensible you might be,

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and however much you might not believe in horoscopes,

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this thing has been planted in your head.

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And we are quite susceptible to that, I think.

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'What's so unsettling about this play is that the one characteristic

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'that undoes Macbeth is simply ambition.'

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What's scary about it is what lives inside each one of us.

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Yeah, not all of us want to be king,

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but there's a ton of actors out there that would lie, cheat,

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kill their mother for an Oscar, an Olivier Award, whatever it is.

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We have these ambitions, and we want to set ourselves apart

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so much that we are willing to forego all kindness and all

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the best parts of ourselves in the name of achieving the goal.

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'As we've seen, the trigger for Macbeth comes from witches.

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'Today, everyone's going to react to that differently.

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'But I'd like to know

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what Shakespeare's audience would have made of witches.'

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This is an age, in one sense, of witchcraft.

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Everyday lives are injected

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with the spiritual war between the devil and God.

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The historian Justin Champion is an expert in the 17th-century world.

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For the early modern audience, witches are everywhere.

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They would have read about it, they would have sung about it,

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discussed it with their neighbours in the alehouses.

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She may not have been caught or she may have been executed,

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but you would know about a witch.

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So the magic and the witchcraft

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and the ghosts in Shakespeare are not sort of frilly extras

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making it all a little bit more exotic.

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These are very powerful languages that the audience would have

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connected with almost straight away.

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In Shakespeare's time,

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writing about witchcraft had major political implications.

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Witches were taken seriously by almost everyone,

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even by the king himself.

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In 1597, King James I had written a book on demonology,

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correcting and reworking some passages.

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He did so because he was convinced that witches

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could bring down the divinely ordained monarchy.

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So this play about killing a king was clearly a dangerous idea.

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The great anxiety that dominates

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16th and 17th-century political history is that the devil,

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normally through the agency of the Pope and the Antichrist,

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is going to somehow topple Protestant government in England.

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So this is again a very, very sensitive play.

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Shakespeare is dealing with affairs of state

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in a delicate way that, if he gets it wrong,

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he could be regarded as being seditious and treasonous himself.

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'The play questions where precisely dark forces come from.

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'Why does Macbeth commit horrific acts?

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'Is it really because of witches,

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'or is the darkness and evil already there in the man?

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'Even scholars aren't sure.'

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The real question that they raise, of course,

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is to what extent they plant or only see

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the evil that's in him.

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That's the question that the play really asks about the supernatural.

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Does the supernatural CAUSE anything in the play

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or does it simply forecast what is already going to happen?

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This is really a play about the danger of interpretation,

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about the human desire to interpret, to find certainty, to find meaning.

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Part of the cunning of Macbeth lies in the difficulty that

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everyone has in determining what it is that these creatures are doing

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and how much responsibility they have for what you see unfolding.

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In other words, is the driving force supernatural and external,

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or the human character of Macbeth?

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'The first question I would have is who is he in the beginning?'

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How noble is he when it starts?

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You know, the strongest choice would be that he's a very noble person

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but then the witches come on and he just unravels.

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That might be it, but it doesn't sound true to me.

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'Exactly what turns Macbeth from a merely ambitious warrior

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'into a conspiratorial murderer

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'seems to me a tricky question to answer.

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'Shakespeare's wonderfully ambiguous and it's up to the actor to decide.

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'So, to make up my mind,

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'I thought it would help to know who Shakespeare based him on.

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'Who was the real Macbeth? Because there was a real Macbeth.'

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Macbeth is known to have lived in Scotland

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in Perthshire nearly 1,000 years ago.

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No-one knows for sure exactly where,

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but Dunsinane is the most likely spot.

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Let's see, what's this thing?

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'I've heard that name so often

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'but I've never actually seen an image of it.

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'The historian Justin Champion has gone there.'

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Ethan, I'm in Scotland and as you'll know from the play, behind me here

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is Dunsinane Hill, somewhere that's connected very much with Macbeth.

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Macbeth, of course, was a real figure

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and very closely associated with this area,

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so if I turn and let you have a look, over there is Dunsinane Hill.

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It's exactly like I pictured it.

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I'm right at the top of Dunsinane Hill now,

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which is a pretty dramatic sort of panorama

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and this is the site of a fortress.

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We know from archaeological records that it wasn't a castle.

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They didn't have a castle 1,000 years ago,

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but the top of this would have been fortified.

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This would have been an absolutely almost impregnable defensive point.

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From the top here, we can see right over to the North Sea.

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We can look that way to Birnam Wood,

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so it's an incredibly brilliant natural place to fortify.

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It's the perfect place to see some witches, that's for sure.

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Even the moon out in the daytime, it's kind of creepy.

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So that's the place where Macbeth probably lived.

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But what about the actual man, Macbeth,

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and the reigning King Duncan that he kills in the play?

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In Shakespeare's account of Duncan's death,

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Macbeth is very much the tyrant.

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The deceitful host who murders his godly king in his sleep.

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In fact, we know that Macbeth defeated Duncan on the battlefield.

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It's more than likely that, in that particular episode,

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Duncan was the aggressor.

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So he was invading Macbeth's kingdom and Macbeth did as all good kings

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of their own land would do - defend his own rights and privileges.

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So in one sense, Duncan's death was just a casualty of war.

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Macbeth does not display the sort of deceit and traitorous treason

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that Shakespeare delivers to us in the play.

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The question I wonder about is how much of a historian was Shakespeare?

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Did he just kind of know a few names and make this stuff up,

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or did he study it and deliberately do it?

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Is this what he kind of thought happened,

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did somebody tell him a story about how Macbeth was actually a bad guy

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and so he just ran with it? That, I'd be curious to know.

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It's true Shakespeare had a reputation for adapting

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and embroidering historical facts,

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but here it seems the historical facts

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had already been adapted and embroidered.

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So why?

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I think we have to blame the historians.

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We need to think about how history is always written by the victors

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and Macbeth lost. He was executed.

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Malcolm took over the reign of Scotland.

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Almost straight away, as the loser, Macbeth is invented as a tyrant.

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That's the material that Shakespeare has to work with.

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Ruling kings were determined to show their claim to the throne

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was better than that of any rivals.

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The historians were expected to help.

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We have historians who deliberately set out to invent tradition.

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Many of the accounts of Scottish history are recognisably,

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even to contemporaries, based on fictions and fake documents.

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But as long as they work, as long as they suit the powers that be,

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they are regarded as as credible as any other history that you might encounter.

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Scottish history may not reflect the real Macbeth, but it does show

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the brutal cut-throat world that kings lived in - and their queens.

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'I also need to understand Macbeth's soulmate, Lady Macbeth,

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'who is as notorious as her husband.'

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She is his partner in crime, so how an actor might play Macbeth

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will depend a lot on who he thinks she is

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and on the influence she wields.

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She first enters reading a letter from Macbeth where

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he can't contain his excitement about the witches' prophecy.

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"When I burned in desire to question them further,

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"they made themselves air..."

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The crucial question is, is he prepared to act on it alone

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or will his wife have to force him

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to do what has to be done to succeed?

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And shalt be what thou art promised.

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'The nature of Lady Macbeth's role in their crimes

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'has sparked a fierce debate.'

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So this is the evil vampire, Judith Anderson.

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They called her Judith Vampire!

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'I'm meeting with a performance historian to talk about

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'the variety of different Lady Macbeths.'

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Ellen Terry here, in a famous Pre-Raphaelite painting.

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Some of the really successful Lady Macbeths

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that the public has loved have been incredibly powerful and assertive

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and have really bullied their husbands into action.

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One of the most popular in the 19th century, Charlotte Cushman,

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was a woman who was famous for towering over her Macbeths.

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In fact, I do have a picture of that.

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She's quite powerful and you can imagine her playing this role...

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She tells you to go kill somebody, you're going to kill them.

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-You're going to do it.

-Or she's going to kill you!

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Edwin Booth, who played Macbeth to her,

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apparently complained that he felt like saying,

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"Why don't you just kill him yourself? You're a great deal bigger than I am!"

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But she was a colourful woman. She lived openly as a lesbian,

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which was not entirely typical at that time.

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She played the role tough. People were scared of her,

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but people were also impressed by her,

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because she knew what she wanted, she knew how to get there,

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she knew how to get her husband there.

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Apparently, an alternative approach was Sarah Bernhardt's.

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She played up the inherent sexuality in the play.

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Sarah Bernhardt was seen very much as a sex symbol,

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and she really played that in Lady Macbeth to the hilt,

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to the point where some people found it distasteful.

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They thought, "No, this woman's evil, don't make her so appealing.

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"Don't make us feel so allured by her."

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And theirs was a very lusty relationship,

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which I think is in the text.

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I think that works really well.

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Ironically, it's one of the happiest marriages

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that we see in a Shakespeare play.

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I know, that's so true.

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It's the only really happily married couple we get.

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We get people falling in love and breaking up a lot,

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but rarely a portrait of a steady couple.

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But whether you play her bullying or seductive,

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this idea of a manipulative woman

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pushing her man to excess has become iconic.

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You might remember in the 1990s

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there was an article written about Hillary Clinton

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titled The Lady Macbeth Of Little Rock,

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and there's been a long tradition...

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-People saw her as Lady Macbeth a lot.

-Absolutely.

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As always manipulating him and bullying him.

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People want to be able to use her to explain away

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what they see as the failings or the drive

0:22:110:22:14

or the mistakes made by a powerful man.

0:22:140:22:17

There's a way that she can become an excuse

0:22:170:22:20

for a man that you want to forgive, I think.

0:22:200:22:22

Men particularly like the idea of, "I wouldn't have done anything wrong

0:22:220:22:26

-"if it wasn't for that Eve."

-Absolutely.

0:22:260:22:28

'As we've seen, however Lady Macbeth is cast,

0:22:280:22:31

'the one big question that has to be answered is

0:22:310:22:34

'does she make him a killer?

0:22:340:22:36

'Who wields the power in this relationship?'

0:22:360:22:41

How now. What news?

0:22:410:22:42

He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?

0:22:420:22:45

-Hath he ask'd for me?

-Know you not he has?

0:22:450:22:48

Just to see that change...

0:22:480:22:50

Back at the Globe in London,

0:22:500:22:52

they are working on the scene in which this question is most central.

0:22:520:22:56

Who is in control?

0:22:560:22:58

-I think you've got to come right back at him, physically.

-Yep, yep.

0:22:580:23:00

After the witches' prophecy,

0:23:000:23:02

the couple had plotted to kill the king themselves.

0:23:020:23:05

But then Macbeth has a complete change of heart

0:23:050:23:09

and rejects the plan.

0:23:090:23:10

His wife is furious.

0:23:100:23:12

She knows him to be an ambitious man and she's more, in a way,

0:23:140:23:20

more realistic about what it will take to achieve what they both want

0:23:200:23:27

and that's really what Shakespeare's written here.

0:23:270:23:30

He's written this couple

0:23:300:23:32

that both want the same thing at a certain point.

0:23:320:23:34

We will proceed no further in this business.

0:23:360:23:39

He hath honour'd me of late, and I have bought

0:23:390:23:41

golden opinions from all sorts of people

0:23:410:23:43

that would be worn now in their newest gloss,

0:23:430:23:45

not cast aside so soon.

0:23:450:23:47

Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself?

0:23:470:23:50

Hath it slept since?

0:23:500:23:53

And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

0:23:530:23:58

at what it did so freely?

0:23:580:24:00

Art thou afeard

0:24:000:24:02

to be the same in thine own act and valour

0:24:020:24:05

as thou art in desire?

0:24:050:24:08

We see her identify strongly with his ambition

0:24:090:24:13

and her fear that he might fail to realise it,

0:24:130:24:17

and therefore what is she going to have to do

0:24:170:24:20

in order to make him the king that he would like to become?

0:24:200:24:24

Lady Macbeth raised the question of what a man is

0:24:240:24:29

and is a man someone who dares to take what he is promised,

0:24:290:24:35

who dares to challenge authority, who dares to kill the king?

0:24:350:24:41

I dare do all that may become a man, who dares do more is none.

0:24:410:24:44

What beast was't, then,

0:24:440:24:46

that made you break this enterprise to me?

0:24:460:24:49

When you durst do it,

0:24:490:24:52

THEN you were a man.

0:24:520:24:55

And, to be more than what you were,

0:24:550:24:57

you would be so much more the man.

0:24:570:25:01

He's really poised at that moment of possibility.

0:25:020:25:07

He might go forward with it, he might not go forward with it,

0:25:080:25:12

and yet it's the sense that if he doesn't do it

0:25:120:25:15

he will be shamed in the eyes of his wife forever.

0:25:150:25:19

-If we should fail?

-We fail.

0:25:210:25:25

But screw your courage to the sticking-place

0:25:270:25:32

and we'll not fail.

0:25:320:25:34

Well, it certainly feels that she's dominant.

0:25:390:25:42

That she sets the power in the relationship in the beginning

0:25:420:25:45

and that in many ways...

0:25:450:25:47

..you can feel her manipulating him.

0:25:490:25:51

But I think he's a person who wants to be manipulated.

0:25:540:25:56

And mean, it's easy to say that she talks him into it,

0:25:560:25:59

but it's also he's not such a hard sell.

0:25:590:26:01

'Fired up by his wife, Macbeth is on the brink of doing the deed.

0:26:060:26:10

'His thoughts are racing. He's hallucinating.

0:26:100:26:13

'He's about to give us one of the most famous speeches in the play -

0:26:130:26:18

'the dagger scene.

0:26:180:26:19

'So how would I play that?'

0:26:220:26:24

Is this a dagger that I see before me?

0:26:250:26:27

I see thee still, I see thee STILL.

0:26:270:26:29

HE LAUGHS

0:26:290:26:31

'One of my good friends, actor Richard Easton,

0:26:310:26:35

'has played Macbeth and is going to help.'

0:26:350:26:37

All right, so I'll read this and you teach me about it as we do it.

0:26:390:26:45

-Just help me with it.

-Impertinent.

0:26:450:26:47

Is this a dagger which I see before me?

0:26:490:26:52

The handle toward my hand?

0:26:520:26:53

-Come, let me clutch thee...

-I think that's an advance.

0:26:530:26:56

You know, is this a dagger that I see before me?

0:26:560:26:59

The handle toward my hand.

0:26:590:27:01

-That means it's being offered for you to use.

-Right.

0:27:010:27:05

It's not just a thing floating in the air.

0:27:050:27:08

'I think that one of the things that somebody needs to do

0:27:080:27:10

'if you really are going to play any of these roles

0:27:100:27:13

'is not only break down all the language,'

0:27:130:27:16

not only need to understand how it was meant to be played,

0:27:160:27:20

you need to really understand all the rules

0:27:200:27:22

that Shakespeare was setting up before you can break them.

0:27:220:27:25

'Part of the challenge is always just understanding the words.'

0:27:260:27:30

What does that mean? "Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain."

0:27:300:27:33

-Because the heat-oppressed brain...

-Because my brain's so hot.

0:27:330:27:36

I'm sweating, and feverish, right, right, right.

0:27:360:27:39

It's not fancy poetical, it's actually...

0:27:390:27:42

It's actually his head's hot. Yeah, right, OK. I get it, OK.

0:27:420:27:45

"And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood." Is that right? Gouts?

0:27:450:27:50

-"Which was not... Which was not so before. Hectates..."

-Hecates.

0:27:500:27:54

Hecate's. "Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murther." What's murther?

0:27:540:27:58

-Murder.

-Oh, OK.

0:27:580:27:59

Will you read it for me?

0:28:010:28:02

There's always a certain magic that happens

0:28:020:28:05

when you start to say the lines out loud that you can't anticipate.

0:28:050:28:09

It feels like a spell.

0:28:120:28:13

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

0:28:150:28:19

the handle toward my hand?

0:28:190:28:22

Come, let me clutch thee.

0:28:220:28:24

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

0:28:240:28:29

Art thou not, fatal vision,

0:28:290:28:31

sensible to feeling as to sight?

0:28:310:28:34

Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation,

0:28:340:28:39

proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?

0:28:390:28:41

I see thee yet...

0:28:430:28:44

I go, and it is done -

0:28:460:28:50

the bell invites me.

0:28:500:28:53

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell

0:28:530:28:56

that summons thee to heaven

0:28:560:28:59

or to hell.

0:28:590:29:02

See, what I find amazing is whenever I first start reading these

0:29:020:29:06

it does seem...

0:29:060:29:07

It seems so hard to reach.

0:29:090:29:10

You know, when you first start studying him -

0:29:100:29:13

I don't know what martiallist means,

0:29:130:29:15

or I don't know what murther means and it cuts me off from it,

0:29:150:29:18

but then listening to you do it, it's so obvious.

0:29:180:29:21

When you know what you're playing, it's so clear.

0:29:210:29:24

-Yes, but also I have played it.

-I know you have.

0:29:240:29:27

So when you have played it, even when you've rehearsed it,

0:29:270:29:30

you'll know that this is the beginning of act two.

0:29:300:29:32

You know, there are three more acts to go, so it can be...

0:29:340:29:39

He hasn't done it yet. He hasn't been there yet.

0:29:410:29:45

'Up until this point in the play, Macbeth is still an innocent man.

0:29:480:29:53

'He's thought about killing, but he hasn't done it.

0:29:530:29:57

'The next time we see him, he's a murderer

0:29:570:30:00

'emerging bloody-handed from the scene of the crime.'

0:30:000:30:03

I have done the deed.

0:30:070:30:08

-Didst thou not hear a noise?

-I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

0:30:110:30:14

-Did not you speak?

-When?

-Now.

-As I descended?

-Aye.

-Hark.

0:30:140:30:18

-Who lies in the second chamber?

-Donalbain.

0:30:180:30:21

This is a sorry sight.

0:30:230:30:24

'Shock and numbness and denial'

0:30:290:30:32

are the first stages of human response after a massive trauma.

0:30:320:30:37

Gwen Adshead has spent years

0:30:400:30:41

working with people who have committed murder,

0:30:410:30:44

listening first-hand to their experiences.

0:30:440:30:47

The fascinating thing about this

0:30:490:30:51

is that Shakespeare demonstrates this in the language.

0:30:510:30:56

If you look at the language of Macbeth,

0:30:560:30:58

the language falls apart into these staccato half-sentences

0:30:580:31:03

and Shakespeare is really showing us through the language,

0:31:030:31:06

in exactly the way that it happens in real life,

0:31:060:31:08

because people's language does fall apart

0:31:080:31:11

when they're agitated or distressed.

0:31:110:31:13

Go get some water

0:31:140:31:16

and wash this filthy witness from your hand.

0:31:160:31:18

Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

0:31:210:31:23

They must lie there!

0:31:230:31:25

Go, carry them, and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.

0:31:250:31:31

I'll go no more.

0:31:310:31:33

I am afraid to think what I have done, look on't again I dare not.

0:31:330:31:38

In his panic, Macbeth has emerged

0:31:380:31:41

clutching the incriminating murder weapons and is frozen.

0:31:410:31:44

Lady Macbeth steps in, returning them to the scene of the crime -

0:31:440:31:48

and now they're both covered in blood.

0:31:480:31:51

You can never go back, and that, I think, for me,

0:31:540:31:57

rings very true in terms of working therapeutically

0:31:570:32:00

with people who have killed, is the absolute finality of this act,

0:32:000:32:05

the fact that you've changed the universe

0:32:050:32:07

and you can't ever go back to how it was before.

0:32:070:32:12

And that is so profound.

0:32:120:32:14

This scene is not just a watershed for the character Macbeth.

0:32:210:32:25

Shakespeare was writing in the wake of a devastating political crisis

0:32:250:32:29

in British history -

0:32:290:32:31

the Gunpowder Plot.

0:32:310:32:33

Roman Catholics had planted barrels of gunpowder

0:32:340:32:38

right under the House Of Commons.

0:32:380:32:41

They had planned to blow up the ministers and King James himself.

0:32:410:32:46

The parallel with Macbeth was obvious

0:32:470:32:50

and, for Shakespeare, risky.

0:32:500:32:53

Any audience watching Macbeth in the early 17th century

0:32:550:32:58

would have had that in the back of their minds, absolutely,

0:32:580:33:02

so the threat of rebellion, the threat of treason, sedition,

0:33:020:33:06

is the great, sort of, white noise of politics at this time,

0:33:060:33:09

so we need to think about an audience incredibly sensitised

0:33:090:33:13

to anything to do with rebellion, treason, deceit, conspiracy,

0:33:130:33:17

and that's what this play is about - it's about a canker

0:33:170:33:20

right at the heart of government and the threat of murdering a king.

0:33:200:33:24

And the consequences if you were caught were terrifying.

0:33:270:33:32

Killing kings has catastrophic consequences

0:33:340:33:37

for those who are discovered trying to do so,

0:33:370:33:39

so the consequences of brutal, brutal torture

0:33:390:33:43

and then death, execution and dismemberment

0:33:430:33:46

would have been in the audience's mind straightaway,

0:33:460:33:50

so all of that blood is not only likely to have been Duncan's blood,

0:33:500:33:54

but, potentially, the blood of Macbeth as well if he is discovered.

0:33:540:33:59

So that fear of discovery for an audience is absolutely key, I think.

0:33:590:34:03

The act of killing changes everything.

0:34:050:34:09

Something Macbeth must now face.

0:34:090:34:11

The problem for Macbeth, I always think,

0:34:150:34:19

is that he gets caught up in this idea

0:34:190:34:21

of whether to do it or not to do it

0:34:210:34:23

and feels like once he does it, it'll be done.

0:34:230:34:27

But of course it's not done.

0:34:270:34:29

It's actually just beginning,

0:34:290:34:31

and I think that's what hits him after the murder's over.

0:34:310:34:35

He realises he's entered some new part of his life,

0:34:350:34:39

that he can never return to the old one,

0:34:390:34:42

and he has no idea what's coming now.

0:34:420:34:45

Movement and dance are not what we immediately think of

0:35:010:35:05

with Shakespeare.

0:35:050:35:06

We think about words, but here in New York,

0:35:060:35:09

they are rehearsing a version of Macbeth

0:35:090:35:12

that relies on dance, movement and mime.

0:35:120:35:15

'I want to see how these performers

0:35:220:35:25

'portray the huge change that Macbeth has to undergo

0:35:250:35:28

'without the help of language.'

0:35:280:35:30

Yeah, amazing. Unbelievable job.

0:35:460:35:50

I will challenge myself, if I ever get to play...

0:35:510:35:53

-Do the Scottish play, to get buck naked...

-THEY LAUGH

0:35:530:35:57

..because I think that there's something so scary and...

0:35:570:36:00

I mean, if you're really trying to clean yourself, it's really great.

0:36:000:36:04

You know, that was the most moving thing

0:36:040:36:07

I found about watching you guys play it out,

0:36:070:36:10

was there's certain things that you can express non-verbally

0:36:100:36:14

that get lost when you put too much language in it.

0:36:140:36:18

It would be an amazing thing

0:36:180:36:20

if you were actually going to act Shakespeare's text,

0:36:200:36:23

-to make yourself do what you guys are doing.

-Take the words away.

0:36:230:36:27

Yeah, take the words away, because you'd find moments.

0:36:270:36:31

You guys have these moments that are more powerful

0:36:350:36:38

than I've ever seen the play acted out in words,

0:36:380:36:42

because you're forced to look and be with each other.

0:36:420:36:45

It's more innate, I think.

0:36:470:36:49

I think physicality is something that people can all relate to.

0:36:490:36:53

I think there's something that can be taken

0:36:570:36:59

from watching this interpretation.

0:36:590:37:02

Macbeth had done the deed, but he and his wife were in this together.

0:37:020:37:07

I think love is the focal point of this choice that they've made.

0:37:140:37:19

Without it, they would never be able to go down this path so far.

0:37:190:37:22

He does it for her, in a way,

0:37:220:37:24

but not because he's manipulated by her,

0:37:240:37:28

but because he wants to make her happy

0:37:280:37:30

and she wants something great for him.

0:37:300:37:32

The Macbeths do something together

0:37:340:37:37

that it seems neither of them would ever do alone.

0:37:370:37:40

Shakespeare's tapped into something that psychologists recognise.

0:37:410:37:45

I think homicide often does involve creating a type of fantasy world

0:37:480:37:53

and it may be easier to do that sometimes with another person.

0:37:530:37:57

The process of justifying to yourself becomes crucial,

0:37:580:38:02

and that's where the other person comes in.

0:38:020:38:05

I think a key phrase that people can sometimes use on each other,

0:38:070:38:10

"This is the courageous thing to do,"

0:38:100:38:12

and, in fact, Lady Macbeth says this, you know.

0:38:120:38:15

"Nail your courage to the sticking-point and we will not fail."

0:38:150:38:19

The couple had been united in their joint plot,

0:38:240:38:27

but now, after the murder,

0:38:270:38:29

they start to respond differently to what they've done.

0:38:290:38:32

Even though Macbeth has become king, he doesn't feel secure.

0:38:330:38:38

Without confiding in his wife,

0:38:380:38:41

he orders the murder of his friend, but potential rival, Banquo.

0:38:410:38:45

In a show of normality, Macbeth hosts a royal banquet

0:38:460:38:51

and pretends to expect the murdered man to appear.

0:38:510:38:55

Both sides are even.

0:38:550:38:57

But Banquo's place at the table is filled...

0:38:570:39:01

..by his ghost.

0:39:020:39:04

What is't that moves your highness?

0:39:040:39:06

Which of you have done this?

0:39:090:39:11

What, my good lord?

0:39:110:39:13

-Thou canst not say I did it!

-Gentlemen, rise...

0:39:130:39:16

Macbeth is the only one who sees the ghost,

0:39:160:39:19

so the power of the scene hinges

0:39:190:39:22

on how real the actor makes his illusion.

0:39:220:39:25

Anthony Sher found his own key to playing the scene.

0:39:250:39:29

As part of my research for playing the part,

0:39:300:39:33

I met two real-life murderers.

0:39:330:39:37

And, although they were very different men,

0:39:370:39:40

they both answered the same way to one of my questions, which was,

0:39:400:39:46

"Do you ever dream of your victims?"

0:39:460:39:50

And both, phrasing it differently, answered,

0:39:500:39:53

"Only when I'm awake."

0:39:530:39:55

And I thought, well, this is perfect,

0:39:580:40:01

because I now know how to play Banquo's ghost.

0:40:010:40:04

See there!

0:40:050:40:07

Behold! Look!

0:40:070:40:11

Lo!

0:40:110:40:12

While Macbeth is horrified to see Banquo's ghost,

0:40:180:40:21

Lady Macbeth is desperately trying to cover for him.

0:40:210:40:25

What? Quite unmann'd in folly?

0:40:250:40:29

She sees he's in danger of revealing a terrible secret,

0:40:290:40:33

even though she knows nothing about Banquo's death.

0:40:330:40:37

He's going berserk cos he's seeing Banquo's ghost and she's going,

0:40:370:40:41

"What are you doing? Behave yourself, don't let it show!"

0:40:410:40:44

Why do you make such faces?

0:40:440:40:48

When all's done, you look but on a stool.

0:40:480:40:52

She still doesn't know why he's going quite so mad.

0:40:520:40:55

Because he hasn't told her what's going on.

0:40:560:40:59

Avaunt! And quit my sight!

0:40:590:41:01

Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless. Thy blood is cold.

0:41:010:41:05

Thou hast no speculation in those eyes!

0:41:050:41:08

Think of this, good peers, but as a thing of custom for 'tis no other.

0:41:080:41:12

Ultimately, all she can do is chase the horrified guests away.

0:41:120:41:17

At once, good night.

0:41:170:41:18

Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once.

0:41:180:41:22

Publicly, the scene has been dangerous for the Macbeths.

0:41:230:41:26

But privately, it's a very intimate moment.

0:41:260:41:29

Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.

0:41:290:41:34

At the end of the banquet, she says,

0:41:340:41:36

"You lack the season of all natures, sleep."

0:41:360:41:39

As though saying, "Look, darling, we've had a terrible dinner.

0:41:390:41:44

"You probably just need a good sleep."

0:41:440:41:46

HE LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY

0:41:460:41:49

'What you need is a good night's sleep.'

0:41:500:41:52

All you need is a cup of tea, you know?

0:41:520:41:55

And we just, we just both spontaneously burst

0:41:550:41:59

into rather hysterical, maniacal, not very comfortable giggles.

0:41:590:42:04

Come, we'll to sleep.

0:42:040:42:08

THEY LAUGH HYSTERICALLY

0:42:080:42:10

They've had the dinner party from hell. It's been a complete disaster.

0:42:130:42:18

And they just sit there laughing like a couple might who, you know,

0:42:180:42:24

the only thing left to do is to laugh.

0:42:240:42:27

SHE WHIMPERS

0:42:340:42:37

It's a desperate moment.

0:42:400:42:42

Lady Macbeth has struggled to stop her husband

0:42:420:42:45

from revealing a terrible secret.

0:42:450:42:47

And the experience seems to divide them.

0:42:480:42:52

The couple drifts further apart.

0:42:540:42:56

Macbeth goes off alone to the witches for solace,

0:42:560:42:59

but this just provokes him into the frenzied killing

0:42:590:43:03

of even more potential rivals.

0:43:030:43:05

He's becoming a solitary tyrant.

0:43:050:43:08

'The Macbeths are never seen on the stage together again.'

0:43:080:43:12

The only good thing that ever happened in the play

0:43:200:43:24

was Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's love for each other,

0:43:240:43:27

which somehow just slowly peters out.

0:43:270:43:31

It's an interesting, sad element of the play

0:43:310:43:35

that there isn't the big "I hate you," scene,

0:43:350:43:38

"You've betrayed me," scene, "I don't love you anymore," scene.

0:43:380:43:43

They just kind of fade out and dial down

0:43:430:43:47

and go to their separate corners.

0:43:470:43:50

There's something kind of truthful about that to me.

0:43:500:43:53

People who have a big secret, they start to not want to see each other,

0:43:530:43:59

because when they see the other one, they're looking at their own shame.

0:43:590:44:03

The couple are no longer connected.

0:44:070:44:11

However, what we don't expect, is that, now alone,

0:44:110:44:14

Lady Macbeth will completely break down.

0:44:140:44:18

In one of the most famous scenes of the play,

0:44:190:44:22

we see Lady Macbeth driven to sleepwalking,

0:44:220:44:25

obsessively acting out her part in the original crime.

0:44:250:44:29

Her terrified maid has brought a doctor

0:44:300:44:33

to observe this wild behaviour.

0:44:330:44:35

Look, how she rubs her hands.

0:44:350:44:38

Yet here's a spot.

0:44:390:44:41

Out, damned spot!

0:44:430:44:46

Out, I say!

0:44:460:44:48

One, two.

0:44:480:44:50

Why, then, 'tis time to do it.

0:44:520:44:55

Hell is murky.

0:44:550:44:59

The sleepwalking scene is one of the most

0:45:000:45:04

horrifying scenes in literature, I think.

0:45:040:45:08

It's a deeply distressing portrait of a broken woman.

0:45:100:45:14

Lady Macbeth at the beginning of the play seems steely,

0:45:140:45:19

calculating, cool...

0:45:190:45:22

..able to handle anything.

0:45:230:45:25

And in the course of the play, you watch her unravel.

0:45:250:45:30

She has been the strong one, and then,

0:45:320:45:35

you don't expect her to have any kind of a breakdown

0:45:350:45:39

or a moment in which what she's been keeping in

0:45:390:45:42

comes out again at night and with visions and so forth.

0:45:420:45:45

Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.

0:45:470:45:56

Do you mark that?

0:45:570:45:59

What? Will these hands ne'er be clean?

0:46:000:46:05

SHE WHIMPERS

0:46:050:46:07

While Lady Macbeth is finally overwhelmed by her emotions

0:46:130:46:17

and loses her mind,

0:46:170:46:19

Macbeth seems to do the opposite.

0:46:190:46:21

He seems to suppress all feeling and somehow just ploughs on.

0:46:220:46:26

There's a very hurt but numb side in him now.

0:46:280:46:34

"I'm covered in so much blood, it's not worth washing it off.

0:46:350:46:42

"I just might as well carry on."

0:46:420:46:44

He has no option but to continue along this murderous path,

0:46:440:46:51

and it becomes, erm...

0:46:510:46:53

..something he has to do.

0:46:540:46:56

He has to plough his way on, having gained the throne.

0:46:560:47:00

She loses her grip on him, and he becomes...

0:47:010:47:04

it's almost, she's let loose this creature

0:47:040:47:06

who then she looks at and thinks, "What have I let loose?

0:47:060:47:11

He's more of a murderer, he's more of a maniac than she ever envisaged.

0:47:110:47:15

He's gone past the point when they could enjoy their power.

0:47:150:47:19

He's just not ever going to be content.

0:47:200:47:22

'It's at this point,

0:47:260:47:29

'when he's almost blindly hacking away at his enemies,

0:47:290:47:32

'when he seems almost numb to all feeling,

0:47:320:47:34

'that Shakespeare gives Macbeth a speech

0:47:340:47:38

'of extraordinary beauty and utter isolation.

0:47:380:47:41

'How does an actor prepare for that?

0:47:430:47:45

'I'm going to see a copy of the earliest printed edition of Macbeth,

0:47:460:47:50

'known as the First Folio.'

0:47:500:47:51

I have never seen a First Folio,

0:47:540:47:56

and I've always wanted to, and so,

0:47:560:47:58

it's kind of like diving back into time.

0:47:580:48:01

There's such a romanticism to the idea

0:48:010:48:05

of Shakespeare staying up all night, you know,

0:48:050:48:09

Romeo and Juliet pouring out of his soul,

0:48:090:48:12

Macbeth pouring out of his soul,

0:48:120:48:14

and you somehow want to touch that lightning.

0:48:140:48:19

'What's extraordinary is that the play Macbeth

0:48:210:48:24

'was not printed until 1623, seven years after its author's death.

0:48:240:48:29

'If it wasn't for his fellow actors publishing it,

0:48:300:48:33

'this play could have been lost forever.'

0:48:330:48:35

Here we go.

0:48:370:48:39

The book is in the Morgan Library in New York.

0:48:420:48:45

It's over 400 years old and probably worth millions.

0:48:450:48:49

But for many of us, it's priceless.

0:48:500:48:53

Curator John Bidwell has retrieved it from the vault.

0:49:000:49:03

Ah, my favourite speech. Let's find it.

0:49:360:49:38

Awfully near the end there but here we are already into Hamlet.

0:49:380:49:42

God, can you imagine?

0:49:420:49:43

Imagine a body of work like this?

0:49:450:49:47

You turn one page, Macbeth finishes and then Hamlet begins.

0:49:470:49:52

It kind of suits the end of the Scottish Play -

0:49:540:49:59

there's a slight burn on the final page of Macbeth.

0:49:590:50:04

Somebody was upset. This cigarette fell as Macbeth fell.

0:50:040:50:09

Only one page? How does that happen in the book?

0:50:100:50:14

Hmm.

0:50:140:50:15

'The speech I'm looking for

0:50:170:50:19

'comes just after Macbeth has heard his wife is dead.

0:50:190:50:23

'She's committed suicide, and yet he seems unable to respond.'

0:50:230:50:28

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

0:50:300:50:32

creeps in this petty pace from day to day.

0:50:320:50:35

To the last syllable of recorded time.

0:50:350:50:38

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.

0:50:380:50:45

Out, out brief candle.

0:50:450:50:47

Life's but a walking shadow,

0:50:470:50:50

a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage

0:50:500:50:56

and then is heard no more.

0:50:560:50:57

It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

0:50:570:51:01

signifying nothing.

0:51:010:51:03

You've heard of words to live by. Those are words to die by.

0:51:060:51:11

His vision of life at that point is so nihilistic

0:51:130:51:18

that even the loss of the woman whom he clearly had loved

0:51:180:51:23

so much no longer means anything to him, because he can no longer feel.

0:51:230:51:27

He can no longer feel.

0:51:270:51:29

And I think that's... At the end of the day,

0:51:290:51:32

that is Shakespeare's deepest insight

0:51:320:51:35

about what it is to be able to commit murder, without remorse.

0:51:350:51:43

And that is that you lose the capacity to feel.

0:51:430:51:47

'Macbeth seems almost empty of emotion and yet, as the climax

0:51:550:52:01

'of the play approaches, he will surely know fear.

0:52:010:52:05

'And now he's learned

0:52:070:52:08

'that the witches' promises of safety were just dangerous riddles.

0:52:080:52:11

'And other forces have assembled to confront him in battle.

0:52:140:52:18

'He will have to face his enemies.'

0:52:180:52:21

That's where Macbeth is at that point.

0:52:230:52:25

He has nothing left to live for so why not bring it all with him?

0:52:250:52:30

Ring the alarm bell! Blow wind!

0:52:310:52:36

It truly is a portrait of an animal trapped in a corner

0:52:390:52:43

that's going to die.

0:52:430:52:46

That is still fighting in an instinctive but weary way.

0:52:460:52:52

It's still trying to defend itself, but it knows that it's lost.

0:52:520:52:58

HE GROANS AND GASPS

0:52:580:53:03

At last, Macbeth's brutal regime is over, but what really created it?

0:53:060:53:12

Can we finally answer that question?

0:53:120:53:16

Was it the witches that corrupted Macbeth? Or his own ambition?

0:53:160:53:20

The fantastic idea of Macbeth is that there are things out there.

0:53:240:53:28

There really are.

0:53:280:53:29

There are monsters, disgusting and disturbing.

0:53:290:53:32

But they are also in here.

0:53:320:53:34

It is like the horror movie in which the character being chased

0:53:370:53:42

locks the door, double locks it, triple locks it,

0:53:420:53:45

retreats to the bedroom, locks that, and then discovers

0:53:450:53:47

that whatever it is that he's most afraid of is already inside.

0:53:470:53:53

'After travelling with Macbeth on this darkest of journeys,

0:53:570:54:01

'what do we feel about it?'

0:54:010:54:03

I do feel sorry for Macbeth, although sorry is too minor a feeling.

0:54:050:54:10

I feel empathy for him, deep distress for him.

0:54:100:54:16

I don't want him not to be captured, but there is a sense in which

0:54:160:54:21

he still has a claim upon my human feelings.

0:54:210:54:23

It is a tragedy because there were so many points

0:54:250:54:28

at which he might have pulled back. And he doesn't.

0:54:280:54:32

And he ends up destroying the things that were most valuable.

0:54:320:54:36

Shakespeare's great gift as a writer

0:54:440:54:47

is that he never holds people at arm's length.

0:54:470:54:51

He never says look at this person, isn't he disgraceful,

0:54:510:54:56

or isn't he ridiculous?

0:54:560:54:58

Shakespeare always says it's me, it's you, it's us. He always does that.

0:54:580:55:06

It is his great gift.

0:55:060:55:08

This powerful sense of our shared humanity is in the text of the play.

0:55:100:55:15

'And it would just have to be the core

0:55:150:55:18

'of what I would draw on to play the part.

0:55:180:55:20

'To my mind, the greatest challenge in playing Macbeth

0:55:210:55:25

'is not that dissimilar to a movie like Raging Bull.'

0:55:250:55:28

What he's doing is so horrible, but why should the audience care?

0:55:280:55:34

You can't do that by trying to be likeable, or something.

0:55:340:55:36

You have to do it by being a human being.

0:55:360:55:39

While you may not forgive them, or anything,

0:55:390:55:41

you would at least have empathy for their humanity and the crisis

0:55:410:55:44

they have gotten themselves into, and relate to it on some level.

0:55:440:55:48

And that, that's the big magic trick, I think.

0:55:480:55:52

'It's at the end of the play, when all the horrors are done,

0:56:070:56:11

'that Shakespeare turns to offer

0:56:110:56:13

'some compassionate words for the survivors.

0:56:130:56:17

'And they can still be a comfort to us today.'

0:56:170:56:20

They were our neighbours, our friends, our husbands, wives,

0:56:240:56:29

brothers, sisters, children and parents.

0:56:290:56:31

'The mayor of New York, at the 10th anniversary

0:56:310:56:35

'of the World Trade Center bombing, what's he going to say?'

0:56:350:56:39

How do words do it? What does he turn to? He's a smart guy.

0:56:390:56:44

He turns to Shakespeare.

0:56:440:56:46

At the end of Macbeth, Shakespeare says, try not to grieve with

0:56:490:56:53

the same intensity that you loved, for then it would be unbearable.

0:56:530:56:59

Let us recall the words of Shakespeare.

0:56:590:57:02

"Let us not measure our sorrow by their worth.

0:57:020:57:06

"For then it will have no end."

0:57:060:57:08

When they lose a loved one, when words fail,

0:57:130:57:17

Shakespeare provides us with the insight that we need

0:57:170:57:22

to understand so many parts of our lives.

0:57:220:57:26

Somebody said once, current events stay exactly the same.

0:57:290:57:32

'There's always wars and there's always people desperate.'

0:57:320:57:37

If you really want to change any of all that, then you need

0:57:370:57:41

to change it in your heart, and that's where poetry comes.

0:57:410:57:44

That's where Shakespeare's most valuable.

0:57:440:57:48

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