I took Shakespeare this year for english, since the middle school theatre kid in me absolutely
could not resist. We watched three plays over the span of the course, but out of
all of them, Macbeth stuck out to me.
It was the only tragedy we watched,
and I haven't stopped thinking about it since then. When we analyzed the play, we
watched the 2014 production by The Globe, and the 2010 film. Something about seeing
it played out on a stage, minimal effects and sets, like shakespeare intended, made
the whole thing so much better.
I do think I have to mention that the casting
was AMAZING!! Joseph Millson as Macbeth and Samantha Spiro as Lady Macbeth was such a treat,
especially since we had just watched the Taming of the Shrew, with Spiro and Katherine.
Despite being labeled as a tragedy, there was a lot of comedic parts, such as
Macbeth gracefully leaping over a dead body as it was rolled into a trapdoor, or when it was revealed
that the one not born of a woman who was fated to kill Macbeth was revealed to have been a
caesarean section birth, as he was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped".
By the end of the play, Macbeth, assisted by Lady Macbeth, has committed several atrocities, all serving
to preserve his role as king for as long as possible. His morals are questionable yes, but him and his wife
look good doing it.
Of course, he and Lady Macbeth probably never intended to
feel forever haunted, sometimes literally, by the ghosts of their past, to the point of insanity.
In the moment between the death of Lady Macbeth and Macbeth's own death, he very obviously loses his desire
to live. While being a tragedy, something about the innate human-ness of it all resonates. All in all,
Macbeth is my favorite of Shakespeare's works that I've seen thus far.
