Word: macbeths
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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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...
...makes one further appearance, in defiance of tradition. When Seyton informs Macbeth of her suicide, Quintero, acquiescing to Robards' request, lets Macbeth exit and re-enter with his dead wife in his arms before delivering his "She should have died hereafter" soliloquy...
...supporting roles in Macbeth are notoriously less fully rounded on paper than those in the other great Shakespearean tragedies, and thus require special efforts for appreciable individualization. In a good many cases the present cast is up to the task...
Henderson Forsythe is an adequate Banquo, though a little colorless for a man who is supposed to be Macbeth's honorable rival. As Macduff, Roy Poole has a slight vocal problem; but he has a noble manner, and rises to great heights in the moving scene in which he is informed of the slaughter of his family. Duncan is a weak old king, but not so weak as Pat Malone makes him. Barry Macollum is a deeply affecting Physician. William Myers' Lennox needs to smooth out his jerkv delivery...