Word: macbeth
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Vocally he is best when he has a short, forceful phrase to deliver. After murdering Duncan, he is told by Lady Macbeth to return to smear the grooms with blood; he strikes to the heart when he cries "I'll go no more!" and, shortly after, "Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!" And on witnessing the Weird Sisters' parade of apparitions, he makes the most of that horrible, anguished shout, "But no more sights...
Siobhan McKenna's Lady Macbeth is a most impressive and consistent performance. For her first entrance she makes a long, grand sweep, with lengthy red tresses flowing down her green gown. Before she has uttered a syllable, we know that this is a woman to be reckoned with, a woman of enormous inner strength. She is able to go on to make it clear that she does not covet the crown just for her own sake but wants her husband to be king at any costs because she is so much in love with him. She introduces a novel twist...
...error in question is a matter of just two words, but two important and crucial ones. Lady Macbeth is trying to overcome Macbeth's reluctance and to bolster his courage to murder Duncan. He protests, "If we should fail--," and she retorts with "We fail"--two words with at least three possible interpretations (each with more than one inflection): (1) "We fail?"; (2) "We fail!"; and (3) "We fail." Mrs. Siddons, history's most celebrated portrayer of the role, finally settled on the third; and Miss McKenna does the same. But this is the most inadmissiable solution. Lady Macbeth must...
Miss McKenna handles Lady Macbeth's tricky deportment at the banquet excellently. When the guests have gone, she has a few words with Macbeth, and then leaves for bed. She climbs up a long flight of stairs and moves, oh so slowly and wearily, along the second story. We see then that the strain of the banquet has been too much for her, that she is beginning to crack, that she is no longer in full command. We sense that something dire will befall her; and indeed this is the last time we shall see her in a conscious state...
...doing the scene. But Miss McKenna's way is valid and convincing too (though she should not have to be told that "Out, damned spot!" requires four syllables, not three). Her critics should remember that one can do very violent things in one's sleep; and that Lady Macbeth's mind has disintegrated and is tormented by a jagged and disordered patchwork of horrible thoughts, echoes, and memories. (Because Lady Macbeth is in an abnormal state, Shakespeare here followed his usual practice of clothing abnormality in prose--even though it meant making her the only one of his great tragic...