Joystory: Macbeth

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Macbeth

Lady Macbeth receives letter relating Macbeth's encounter with the three weird sisters.

I watched the Royal Shakespeare Company Production of Macbeth from the 1979 TV production yesterday. This Trever Nunn production starring Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth is on DVD and I had it checked out of the library as part of my NaNo prep along with much other Shakespeare related materials.

To see what Macbeth and Shakespeare has to do with my NaNo prep come back for tomorrow's Friday Foray in Fiction post (which is often not posted until the wee hours of Saturday) where I'l go into more detail. To get an idea, if you're impatient, see my story Of Cats and Claws and Curiosities the first story I wrote in the story world I call FOS aka Fruits of the Spirit.

I don't have a lot to say about the play at this time as I'm still processing. I will say that I'm glad this happened to be my first encounter with the play acted out. I've read the play many times--had many sections of it practically memorized at the time I wrote the last couple scenes of that story and later some of the scenes in Rag Doll Babies. But I'd never seen it performed. Which is sad considering that I live ten miles or so from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Why am I glad Trever Nunn's production was the first one? Because it was minimalist in terms of costume and scenery. All the focus was on Shakespeare's words and the drama was in the telling of the story by the actors.

(Later Update: I just re-read a post I wrote a year and a half ago in which I stated that I had seen more than one production of Macbeth. And I don't know which one of my selves to believe. I lean toward this one though as I had just spent hours on YouTube looking at clips from several different Macbeth films and I saw nothing that struck me as familiar. I believe I may have been remembering having had several different Macbeth DVDs checked out of the library back in late 2006 and early 2007 in the months before our libraries closed but so many of those went back unwatched as I raced the clock to finish books. That combined with my vivid imagination that makes movies in my mind of every play and story I read could account for my imagining that I had seen one of the films. I'm very confused. And embarrassed to have caught myself in what looks like confabulation.)

Watch one or two of these to see what I mean if you have a few minutes. I didn't stick all of them in here expecting anyone to have the time to watch them all, in fact it might be best to find the DVD and watch the whole thing. I put these here more for my benefit as a way to 'file' them for later reference.

The next Macbeth I'm probably going to watch is the BBC & Time/Life production, starring Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotire, which I have checked out of the library also.