Word: macduff
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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There are cinematic scene shifts, striking tableaux and, too late to help, affecting moments for Macduff and the wife and son whom he unknowingly abandons to their murder. At the end, Macbeth and Macduff duel in silhouette, then tumble behind a row of soldiers, so there is momentary doubt about who felled whom. But surely almost everyone knows the plot: such pseudo surprise is no substitute for the deeper astonishment of fresh insight into two of the great archetypes in world drama...
...been an axiom for soldiers. "All warfare is based on deception," said Sun Tzu, the great 4th century B.C. Chinese strategist whose prize pupil turned out to be Mao Tse-tung. The Greeks understood that principle when they set sail from Troy, leaving behind only a large wooden horse. Macduff knew it when he disguised his soldiers with branches from Birnam Wood as they marched against Macbeth. In World War II, the Allies created a phantom First U.S. Army Group, outfitted with rubber tanks and canvas landing barges (courtesy of the Shepperton movie studios). Its swirl of fake radio messages...
...Macbeth's castle to spend the fateful night, young Donalbain screams and falls to the ground with a dagger in his side--just kidding, of course. Banquo's ghost strolls in and pours himself a nice, long draught (rather bloody, actually) at Macbeth's banquet. The messenger warning Lady Macduff of impending doom tries to seduce her after her moody adolescent son has told her to find a new husband. You can't trust anyone around here...
Bill McCann, as Macduff, starts weakly--see if his "Horror, horror, horror!" doesn't make you giggle--but gives a fine sympathetic portrait of this confused man. He is both savior and fool, diehard and blowhard, and when informed of the murder of his wife and children must "feel like a man." But he can't in public, so he just stands there, horrified, perplexed by this mad order which forces one to substitute country for family and torn by the guilt of leaving home. For once, words fail him, and the effect is illuminating...