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'When you think of violent murders,
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'brutal crimes and nightmarish horrors,
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'you might think of a big city, you might think of Manhattan.'
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Or, if you're like me, you might think a little bit past that,
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to about a 400-year-old play named Macbeth.
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This is the story of one man who will kill his way
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to win the Scottish throne.
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'Macbeth is a play that you're not even supposed to say the name of it'
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because even the name of it is supposed to conjure witches
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and the dregs of the universe.
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This tale of mass murder is among the darkest
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and strangest of all Shakespeare's plays.
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The play may be 400 years old,
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but anybody paying attention can recognise everybody in it.
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They recognise the evil in the heart of man.
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It's probably never drawn a more beautiful portrait
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of a broken, greedy heart than the bloody heart of Macbeth.
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Maybe foolishly, it's a part I've always wanted to play.
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I feel like if you're going to play one of these parts,
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you have to seek out some truth about it.
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'When Shakespeare wrote Macbeth,
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'he explored the darker side of the human psyche.
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'Macbeth will become a traitor, a butcher, a serial killer
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'and yet, what's so powerful
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'is that Shakespeare hasn't written a play about a monster,
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'he has written a play about a man.
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'Macbeth explores our capacity for violence and evil.
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'For an actor, that can be scary.'
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I never wanted to play it.
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When I was younger, I was petrified of the play,
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because, to be honest, I thought I might go crazy if I did it.
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But now, for some reason, I'm not as scared of it as I was.
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I'm not saying that I'm braver,
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it's just I realise that there is that aspect to life
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and it isn't worthwhile to pretend it's not there.
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'Playing this part would mean asking myself some tough questions,
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'so the essential thing for me
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'would be to work out how to prepare for it.'
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I think, and this is something that nobody really wants to say,
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but the best way I can ever prepare for a part
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is to surround myself with really smart people.
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'I'd seek advice and wisdom from historians, scholars, directors,
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'who have their own knowledge and experience.'
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The other thing I would do, to begin work on this,
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is watch as many as I could find.
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'You can watch Polanski's Macbeth, Orson Welles's Macbeth'
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and of course the trick is then you have to forget all that
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and live it and make it real for yourself.
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- It isn't often one gets the chance to do these plays.
- This is great.
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I've done this one and through my long career,
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I've played it on both sides of the Atlantic.
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I've done a textbook on it.
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I don't know what I haven't done about this play,
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except do it as well as I'd like to.
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It's a great feeling to be dealing with material
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which is better than yourself,
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that you know that you can never live up to.
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It's weird to see such ego and such humility at the same time.
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What a bizarre guy Orson Welles is!
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'However you play Macbeth, this is the story.'
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So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
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'Macbeth starts out as a warrior, rewarded by the king for bravery.'
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The king hath heavily received, Macbeth, the news of thy success.
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We are sent to bring thee from our royal master thanks...
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'Then three witches, or weird sisters, as Shakespeare calls them,
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'prophesy that he himself will be king.'
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All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.
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'Macbeth and his wife decide to make it happen.
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'He murders the king himself and then all other possible rivals.
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'There is so much violent gore in the play,
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'but it's the supernatural element, these witches or weird sisters
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'that trigger Macbeth's dark descent into murder.
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'Their prophecies will fire his ambition.'
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When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?
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When the hurly-burly's done. When the battle's lost and won.
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That will be ere the set of sun.
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- Where the place?
- Upon the heath.
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There to meet with Macbeth.
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The funny thing about the witches is it's just the most
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genius piece of writing.
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The language is so evocative and strange.
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The role the witches play is mysterious.
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Do they cause the events that follow, or just predict them?
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'I think that's why Shakespeare has Macbeth meet them
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'in a strange no man's land.
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'But never far away from the real world.
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'This play all takes place in a kind of shadowland.'
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Right now we are in Central Park, and Central Park to me
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is a great example of kind of a border.
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A transitional place.
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It almost feels like you're in the country here,
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but just a stone's throw away is the taxis and the madness of Manhattan.
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It's kind of an invisible scrim that happens.
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You enter from one world to another.
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Sometimes the park is scary, sometimes the park is inviting.
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I think these witches are trying to conjure that up.
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They're conjuring up the scrim and they're making it dark.
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Macbeth will murder to satisfy his ambition,
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but the evil inspiration comes from the witches.
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They tell him he will be king so the current king must die.
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That fatal decision is the pivot of the drama of Macbeth.
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When shall we three meet again...?
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At the Globe in London,
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a replica of the theatre Shakespeare actually worked in,
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they are running the opening scene.
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- Where the place?
- Upon the heath.
- There to meet with Macbeth.
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- Fair is foul.
- ALL: And foul is fair.
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Hover through the fog and filthy air.
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Most of this scene here you don't speak.
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So if you do turn back...
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'Now, Macbeth and his close comrade, Banquo,
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'encounter the witches for the first time.'
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So foul and fair a day I have not seen.
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How far is't call'd to Forres...?
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'The witches deliver their prophecy.
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'Macbeth's reaction will drive the action for the rest of the play.
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'But had he always desired the crown?
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'Or have the witches planted that idea?'
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All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
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All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee, thane of Cawdor!
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All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!
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It's like reading a horoscope, which I never do.
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And the horoscope is saying this is going to happen to you.
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And however sensible you might be,
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and however much you might not believe in horoscopes,
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this thing has been planted in your head.
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And we are quite susceptible to that, I think.
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'What's so unsettling about this play is that the one characteristic
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'that undoes Macbeth is simply ambition.'
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What's scary about it is what lives inside each one of us.
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Yeah, not all of us want to be king,
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but there's a ton of actors out there that would lie, cheat,
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kill their mother for an Oscar, an Olivier Award, whatever it is.
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We have these ambitions, and we want to set ourselves apart
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so much that we are willing to forego all kindness and all
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the best parts of ourselves in the name of achieving the goal.
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'As we've seen, the trigger for Macbeth comes from witches.
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'Today, everyone's going to react to that differently.
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'But I'd like to know
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what Shakespeare's audience would have made of witches.'
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This is an age, in one sense, of witchcraft.
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Everyday lives are injected
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with the spiritual war between the devil and God.
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The historian Justin Champion is an expert in the 17th-century world.
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For the early modern audience, witches are everywhere.
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They would have read about it, they would have sung about it,
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discussed it with their neighbours in the alehouses.
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She may not have been caught or she may have been executed,
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but you would know about a witch.
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So the magic and the witchcraft
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and the ghosts in Shakespeare are not sort of frilly extras
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making it all a little bit more exotic.
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These are very powerful languages that the audience would have
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connected with almost straight away.
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In Shakespeare's time,
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writing about witchcraft had major political implications.
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Witches were taken seriously by almost everyone,
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even by the king himself.
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In 1597, King James I had written a book on demonology,
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correcting and reworking some passages.
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He did so because he was convinced that witches
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could bring down the divinely ordained monarchy.
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So this play about killing a king was clearly a dangerous idea.
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The great anxiety that dominates
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16th and 17th-century political history is that the devil,
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normally through the agency of the Pope and the Antichrist,
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is going to somehow topple Protestant government in England.
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So this is again a very, very sensitive play.
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Shakespeare is dealing with affairs of state
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in a delicate way that, if he gets it wrong,
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he could be regarded as being seditious and treasonous himself.
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'The play questions where precisely dark forces come from.
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'Why does Macbeth commit horrific acts?
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'Is it really because of witches,
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'or is the darkness and evil already there in the man?
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'Even scholars aren't sure.'
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The real question that they raise, of course,
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is to what extent they plant or only see
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the evil that's in him.
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That's the question that the play really asks about the supernatural.
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Does the supernatural CAUSE anything in the play
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or does it simply forecast what is already going to happen?
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This is really a play about the danger of interpretation,
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about the human desire to interpret, to find certainty, to find meaning.
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Part of the cunning of Macbeth lies in the difficulty that
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everyone has in determining what it is that these creatures are doing
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and how much responsibility they have for what you see unfolding.
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In other words, is the driving force supernatural and external,
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or the human character of Macbeth?
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'The first question I would have is who is he in the beginning?'
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How noble is he when it starts?
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You know, the strongest choice would be that he's a very noble person
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but then the witches come on and he just unravels.
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That might be it, but it doesn't sound true to me.
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'Exactly what turns Macbeth from a merely ambitious warrior
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'into a conspiratorial murderer
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'seems to me a tricky question to answer.
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'Shakespeare's wonderfully ambiguous and it's up to the actor to decide.
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'So, to make up my mind,
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'I thought it would help to know who Shakespeare based him on.
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'Who was the real Macbeth? Because there was a real Macbeth.'
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Macbeth is known to have lived in Scotland
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in Perthshire nearly 1,000 years ago.
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No-one knows for sure exactly where,
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but Dunsinane is the most likely spot.
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Let's see, what's this thing?
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'I've heard that name so often
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'but I've never actually seen an image of it.
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'The historian Justin Champion has gone there.'
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Ethan, I'm in Scotland and as you'll know from the play, behind me here
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is Dunsinane Hill, somewhere that's connected very much with Macbeth.
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Macbeth, of course, was a real figure
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and very closely associated with this area,
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so if I turn and let you have a look, over there is Dunsinane Hill.
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It's exactly like I pictured it.
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I'm right at the top of Dunsinane Hill now,
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which is a pretty dramatic sort of panorama
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and this is the site of a fortress.
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We know from archaeological records that it wasn't a castle.
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They didn't have a castle 1,000 years ago,
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but the top of this would have been fortified.
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This would have been an absolutely almost impregnable defensive point.
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From the top here, we can see right over to the North Sea.
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We can look that way to Birnam Wood,
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so it's an incredibly brilliant natural place to fortify.
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It's the perfect place to see some witches, that's for sure.
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Even the moon out in the daytime, it's kind of creepy.
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So that's the place where Macbeth probably lived.
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But what about the actual man, Macbeth,
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and the reigning King Duncan that he kills in the play?
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In Shakespeare's account of Duncan's death,
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Macbeth is very much the tyrant.
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The deceitful host who murders his godly king in his sleep.
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In fact, we know that Macbeth defeated Duncan on the battlefield.
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It's more than likely that, in that particular episode,
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Duncan was the aggressor.
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So he was invading Macbeth's kingdom and Macbeth did as all good kings
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of their own land would do - defend his own rights and privileges.
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So in one sense, Duncan's death was just a casualty of war.
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Macbeth does not display the sort of deceit and traitorous treason
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that Shakespeare delivers to us in the play.
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The question I wonder about is how much of a historian was Shakespeare?
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Did he just kind of know a few names and make this stuff up,
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or did he study it and deliberately do it?
245
00:17:06,160 --> 00:17:08,080
Is this what he kind of thought happened,
246
00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:11,040
did somebody tell him a story about how Macbeth was actually a bad guy
247
00:17:11,040 --> 00:17:15,720
and so he just ran with it? That, I'd be curious to know.
248
00:17:19,800 --> 00:17:23,080
It's true Shakespeare had a reputation for adapting
249
00:17:23,080 --> 00:17:25,480
and embroidering historical facts,
250
00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:28,520
but here it seems the historical facts
251
00:17:28,520 --> 00:17:30,920
had already been adapted and embroidered.
252
00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:32,320
So why?
253
00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:36,600
I think we have to blame the historians.
254
00:17:36,600 --> 00:17:41,480
We need to think about how history is always written by the victors
255
00:17:41,480 --> 00:17:44,760
and Macbeth lost. He was executed.
256
00:17:44,760 --> 00:17:48,160
Malcolm took over the reign of Scotland.
257
00:17:48,160 --> 00:17:53,640
Almost straight away, as the loser, Macbeth is invented as a tyrant.
258
00:17:53,640 --> 00:17:56,840
That's the material that Shakespeare has to work with.
259
00:17:58,360 --> 00:18:01,680
Ruling kings were determined to show their claim to the throne
260
00:18:01,680 --> 00:18:04,360
was better than that of any rivals.
261
00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:08,360
The historians were expected to help.
262
00:18:08,360 --> 00:18:13,000
We have historians who deliberately set out to invent tradition.
263
00:18:13,000 --> 00:18:16,800
Many of the accounts of Scottish history are recognisably,
264
00:18:16,800 --> 00:18:21,600
even to contemporaries, based on fictions and fake documents.
265
00:18:21,600 --> 00:18:25,520
But as long as they work, as long as they suit the powers that be,
266
00:18:25,520 --> 00:18:29,520
they are regarded as as credible as any other history that you might encounter.
267
00:18:33,040 --> 00:18:37,160
Scottish history may not reflect the real Macbeth, but it does show
268
00:18:37,160 --> 00:18:43,120
the brutal cut-throat world that kings lived in - and their queens.
269
00:18:45,040 --> 00:18:48,000
'I also need to understand Macbeth's soulmate, Lady Macbeth,
270
00:18:48,000 --> 00:18:52,560
'who is as notorious as her husband.'
271
00:18:52,560 --> 00:18:56,600
She is his partner in crime, so how an actor might play Macbeth
272
00:18:56,600 --> 00:18:59,280
will depend a lot on who he thinks she is
273
00:18:59,280 --> 00:19:01,880
and on the influence she wields.
274
00:19:08,600 --> 00:19:12,680
She first enters reading a letter from Macbeth where
275
00:19:12,680 --> 00:19:16,920
he can't contain his excitement about the witches' prophecy.
276
00:19:16,920 --> 00:19:19,640
"When I burned in desire to question them further,
277
00:19:19,640 --> 00:19:23,440
"they made themselves air..."
278
00:19:23,440 --> 00:19:27,240
The crucial question is, is he prepared to act on it alone
279
00:19:27,240 --> 00:19:29,640
or will his wife have to force him
280
00:19:29,640 --> 00:19:33,600
to do what has to be done to succeed?
281
00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:43,480
And shalt be what thou art promised.
282
00:19:46,080 --> 00:19:49,960
'The nature of Lady Macbeth's role in their crimes
283
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:53,120
'has sparked a fierce debate.'
284
00:19:53,120 --> 00:19:56,480
So this is the evil vampire, Judith Anderson.
285
00:19:56,480 --> 00:19:59,160
They called her Judith Vampire!
286
00:19:59,160 --> 00:20:03,320
'I'm meeting with a performance historian to talk about
287
00:20:03,320 --> 00:20:06,520
'the variety of different Lady Macbeths.'
288
00:20:06,520 --> 00:20:09,040
Ellen Terry here, in a famous Pre-Raphaelite painting.
289
00:20:09,040 --> 00:20:12,160
Some of the really successful Lady Macbeths
290
00:20:12,160 --> 00:20:15,240
that the public has loved have been incredibly powerful and assertive
291
00:20:15,240 --> 00:20:17,640
and have really bullied their husbands into action.
292
00:20:17,640 --> 00:20:20,920
One of the most popular in the 19th century, Charlotte Cushman,
293
00:20:20,920 --> 00:20:23,680
was a woman who was famous for towering over her Macbeths.
294
00:20:23,680 --> 00:20:26,760
In fact, I do have a picture of that.
295
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:30,880
She's quite powerful and you can imagine her playing this role...
296
00:20:30,880 --> 00:20:33,520
She tells you to go kill somebody, you're going to kill them.
297
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:36,160
- You're going to do it.
- Or she's going to kill you!
298
00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:38,720
Edwin Booth, who played Macbeth to her,
299
00:20:38,720 --> 00:20:41,320
apparently complained that he felt like saying,
300
00:20:41,320 --> 00:20:45,000
"Why don't you just kill him yourself? You're a great deal bigger than I am!"
301
00:20:45,000 --> 00:20:47,960
But she was a colourful woman. She lived openly as a lesbian,
302
00:20:47,960 --> 00:20:50,240
which was not entirely typical at that time.
303
00:20:50,240 --> 00:20:52,840
She played the role tough. People were scared of her,
304
00:20:52,840 --> 00:20:54,800
but people were also impressed by her,
305
00:20:54,800 --> 00:20:57,480
because she knew what she wanted, she knew how to get there,
306
00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,000
she knew how to get her husband there.
307
00:21:00,000 --> 00:21:04,800
Apparently, an alternative approach was Sarah Bernhardt's.
308
00:21:04,800 --> 00:21:07,720
She played up the inherent sexuality in the play.
309
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:12,960
Sarah Bernhardt was seen very much as a sex symbol,
310
00:21:12,960 --> 00:21:15,480
and she really played that in Lady Macbeth to the hilt,
311
00:21:15,480 --> 00:21:17,920
to the point where some people found it distasteful.
312
00:21:17,920 --> 00:21:21,040
They thought, "No, this woman's evil, don't make her so appealing.
313
00:21:21,040 --> 00:21:22,800
"Don't make us feel so allured by her."
314
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:25,440
And theirs was a very lusty relationship,
315
00:21:25,440 --> 00:21:28,040
which I think is in the text.
316
00:21:28,040 --> 00:21:29,960
I think that works really well.
317
00:21:29,960 --> 00:21:32,480
Ironically, it's one of the happiest marriages
318
00:21:32,480 --> 00:21:34,320
that we see in a Shakespeare play.
319
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:35,480
I know, that's so true.
320
00:21:35,480 --> 00:21:38,080
It's the only really happily married couple we get.
321
00:21:38,080 --> 00:21:40,320
We get people falling in love and breaking up a lot,
322
00:21:40,320 --> 00:21:43,960
but rarely a portrait of a steady couple.
323
00:21:43,960 --> 00:21:47,280
But whether you play her bullying or seductive,
324
00:21:47,280 --> 00:21:49,520
this idea of a manipulative woman
325
00:21:49,520 --> 00:21:52,400
pushing her man to excess has become iconic.
326
00:21:53,480 --> 00:21:55,080
You might remember in the 1990s
327
00:21:55,080 --> 00:21:57,720
there was an article written about Hillary Clinton
328
00:21:57,720 --> 00:21:59,920
titled The Lady Macbeth Of Little Rock,
329
00:21:59,920 --> 00:22:02,120
and there's been a long tradition...
330
00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:04,440
- People saw her as Lady Macbeth a lot.
- Absolutely.
331
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:08,200
As always manipulating him and bullying him.
332
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:11,440
People want to be able to use her to explain away
333
00:22:11,440 --> 00:22:14,880
what they see as the failings or the drive
334
00:22:14,880 --> 00:22:17,560
or the mistakes made by a powerful man.
335
00:22:17,560 --> 00:22:20,520
There's a way that she can become an excuse
336
00:22:20,520 --> 00:22:22,920
for a man that you want to forgive, I think.
337
00:22:22,920 --> 00:22:26,360
Men particularly like the idea of, "I wouldn't have done anything wrong
338
00:22:26,360 --> 00:22:28,440
- "if it wasn't for that Eve."
- Absolutely.
339
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:31,840
'As we've seen, however Lady Macbeth is cast,
340
00:22:31,840 --> 00:22:34,960
'the one big question that has to be answered is
341
00:22:34,960 --> 00:22:36,760
'does she make him a killer?
342
00:22:36,760 --> 00:22:41,160
'Who wields the power in this relationship?'
343
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:42,800
How now. What news?
344
00:22:42,800 --> 00:22:45,560
He has almost supp'd. Why have you left the chamber?
345
00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:48,240
- Hath he ask'd for me?
- Know you not he has?
346
00:22:48,240 --> 00:22:50,680
Just to see that change...
347
00:22:50,680 --> 00:22:52,520
Back at the Globe in London,
348
00:22:52,520 --> 00:22:56,880
they are working on the scene in which this question is most central.
349
00:22:56,880 --> 00:22:58,040
Who is in control?
350
00:22:58,040 --> 00:23:00,920
- I think you've got to come right back at him, physically.
- Yep, yep.
351
00:23:00,920 --> 00:23:02,760
After the witches' prophecy,
352
00:23:02,760 --> 00:23:05,960
the couple had plotted to kill the king themselves.
353
00:23:05,960 --> 00:23:09,240
But then Macbeth has a complete change of heart
354
00:23:09,240 --> 00:23:10,920
and rejects the plan.
355
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:12,800
His wife is furious.
356
00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:20,600
She knows him to be an ambitious man and she's more, in a way,
357
00:23:20,600 --> 00:23:27,840
more realistic about what it will take to achieve what they both want
358
00:23:27,840 --> 00:23:30,480
and that's really what Shakespeare's written here.
359
00:23:30,480 --> 00:23:32,240
He's written this couple
360
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,680
that both want the same thing at a certain point.
361
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,200
We will proceed no further in this business.
362
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:41,960
He hath honour'd me of late, and I have bought
363
00:23:41,960 --> 00:23:43,880
golden opinions from all sorts of people
364
00:23:43,880 --> 00:23:45,960
that would be worn now in their newest gloss,
365
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:47,440
not cast aside so soon.
366
00:23:47,440 --> 00:23:50,760
Was the hope drunk wherein you dress'd yourself?
367
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:53,240
Hath it slept since?
368
00:23:53,240 --> 00:23:58,120
And wakes it now, to look so green and pale
369
00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:00,960
at what it did so freely?
370
00:24:00,960 --> 00:24:02,760
Art thou afeard
371
00:24:02,760 --> 00:24:05,920
to be the same in thine own act and valour
372
00:24:05,920 --> 00:24:08,560
as thou art in desire?
373
00:24:09,600 --> 00:24:13,960
We see her identify strongly with his ambition
374
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:17,640
and her fear that he might fail to realise it,
375
00:24:17,640 --> 00:24:20,640
and therefore what is she going to have to do
376
00:24:20,640 --> 00:24:24,280
in order to make him the king that he would like to become?
377
00:24:24,280 --> 00:24:29,040
Lady Macbeth raised the question of what a man is
378
00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:35,720
and is a man someone who dares to take what he is promised,
379
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:41,480
who dares to challenge authority, who dares to kill the king?
380
00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,920
I dare do all that may become a man, who dares do more is none.
381
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:46,800
What beast was't, then,
382
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:49,920
that made you break this enterprise to me?
383
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,800
When you durst do it,
384
00:24:52,800 --> 00:24:55,760
THEN you were a man.
385
00:24:55,760 --> 00:24:57,960
And, to be more than what you were,
386
00:24:57,960 --> 00:25:01,360
you would be so much more the man.
387
00:25:02,400 --> 00:25:07,600
He's really poised at that moment of possibility.
388
00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:12,040
He might go forward with it, he might not go forward with it,
389
00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:15,200
and yet it's the sense that if he doesn't do it
390
00:25:15,200 --> 00:25:19,360
he will be shamed in the eyes of his wife forever.
391
00:25:21,480 --> 00:25:25,120
- If we should fail?
- We fail.
392
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:32,320
But screw your courage to the sticking-place
393
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:34,720
and we'll not fail.
394
00:25:39,720 --> 00:25:42,120
Well, it certainly feels that she's dominant.
395
00:25:42,120 --> 00:25:45,280
That she sets the power in the relationship in the beginning
396
00:25:45,280 --> 00:25:47,600
and that in many ways...
397
00:25:49,600 --> 00:25:51,960
..you can feel her manipulating him.
398
00:25:54,040 --> 00:25:56,920
But I think he's a person who wants to be manipulated.
399
00:25:56,920 --> 00:25:59,160
And mean, it's easy to say that she talks him into it,
400
00:25:59,160 --> 00:26:01,880
but it's also he's not such a hard sell.
401
00:26:06,240 --> 00:26:10,400
'Fired up by his wife, Macbeth is on the brink of doing the deed.
402
00:26:10,400 --> 00:26:13,400
'His thoughts are racing. He's hallucinating.
403
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:18,320
'He's about to give us one of the most famous speeches in the play -
404
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:19,720
'the dagger scene.
405
00:26:22,440 --> 00:26:24,520
'So how would I play that?'
406
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:27,840
Is this a dagger that I see before me?
407
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:29,920
I see thee still, I see thee STILL.
408
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:31,640
HE LAUGHS
409
00:26:31,640 --> 00:26:35,000
'One of my good friends, actor Richard Easton,
410
00:26:35,000 --> 00:26:37,960
'has played Macbeth and is going to help.'
411
00:26:39,440 --> 00:26:45,520
All right, so I'll read this and you teach me about it as we do it.
412
00:26:45,520 --> 00:26:47,880
- Just help me with it.
- Impertinent.
413
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,120
Is this a dagger which I see before me?
414
00:26:52,120 --> 00:26:53,920
The handle toward my hand?
415
00:26:53,920 --> 00:26:56,360
- Come, let me clutch thee...
- I think that's an advance.
416
00:26:56,360 --> 00:26:59,320
You know, is this a dagger that I see before me?
417
00:26:59,320 --> 00:27:01,560
The handle toward my hand.
418
00:27:01,560 --> 00:27:05,240
- That means it's being offered for you to use.
- Right.
419
00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,280
It's not just a thing floating in the air.
420
00:27:08,280 --> 00:27:10,880
'I think that one of the things that somebody needs to do
421
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:13,680
'if you really are going to play any of these roles
422
00:27:13,680 --> 00:27:16,160
'is not only break down all the language,'
423
00:27:16,160 --> 00:27:20,080
not only need to understand how it was meant to be played,
424
00:27:20,080 --> 00:27:22,400
you need to really understand all the rules
425
00:27:22,400 --> 00:27:25,280
that Shakespeare was setting up before you can break them.
426
00:27:26,840 --> 00:27:30,400
'Part of the challenge is always just understanding the words.'
427
00:27:30,400 --> 00:27:33,680
What does that mean? "Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain."
428
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,640
- Because the heat-oppressed brain...
- Because my brain's so hot.
429
00:27:36,640 --> 00:27:39,440
I'm sweating, and feverish, right, right, right.
430
00:27:39,440 --> 00:27:42,080
It's not fancy poetical, it's actually...
431
00:27:42,080 --> 00:27:45,600
It's actually his head's hot. Yeah, right, OK. I get it, OK.
432
00:27:45,600 --> 00:27:50,320
"And on thy blade and dudgeon gouts of blood." Is that right? Gouts?
433
00:27:50,320 --> 00:27:54,680
- "Which was not... Which was not so before. Hectates..."
- Hecates.
434
00:27:54,680 --> 00:27:58,000
Hecate's. "Hecate's offerings, and wither'd murther." What's murther?
435
00:27:58,000 --> 00:27:59,720
- Murder.
- Oh, OK.
436
00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:02,640
Will you read it for me?
437
00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:05,960
There's always a certain magic that happens
438
00:28:05,960 --> 00:28:09,440
when you start to say the lines out loud that you can't anticipate.
439
00:28:12,040 --> 00:28:13,600
It feels like a spell.
440
00:28:15,760 --> 00:28:19,320
Is this a dagger which I see before me,
441
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:22,440
the handle toward my hand?
442
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:24,840
Come, let me clutch thee.
443
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:29,360
I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.
444
00:28:29,360 --> 00:28:31,520
Art thou not, fatal vision,
445
00:28:31,520 --> 00:28:34,840
sensible to feeling as to sight?
446
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:39,000
Or art thou but a dagger of the mind, a false creation,
447
00:28:39,000 --> 00:28:41,960
proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?
448
00:28:43,040 --> 00:28:44,880
I see thee yet...
449
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,240
I go, and it is done -
450
00:28:50,240 --> 00:28:53,200
the bell invites me.
451
00:28:53,200 --> 00:28:56,720
Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell
452
00:28:56,720 --> 00:28:59,640
that summons thee to heaven
453
00:28:59,640 --> 00:29:02,600
or to hell.
454
00:29:02,600 --> 00:29:06,200
See, what I find amazing is whenever I first start reading these
455
00:29:06,200 --> 00:29:07,600
it does seem...
456
00:29:09,240 --> 00:29:10,880
It seems so hard to reach.
457
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:13,920
You know, when you first start studying him -
458
00:29:13,920 --> 00:29:15,920
I don't know what martiallist means,
459
00:29:15,920 --> 00:29:18,720
or I don't know what murther means and it cuts me off from it,
460
00:29:18,720 --> 00:29:21,760
but then listening to you do it, it's so obvious.
461
00:29:21,760 --> 00:29:24,320
When you know what you're playing, it's so clear.
462
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,120
- Yes, but also I have played it.
- I know you have.
463
00:29:27,120 --> 00:29:30,200
So when you have played it, even when you've rehearsed it,
464
00:29:30,200 --> 00:29:32,760
you'll know that this is the beginning of act two.
465
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:39,760
You know, there are three more acts to go, so it can be...
466
00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,520
He hasn't done it yet. He hasn't been there yet.
467
00:29:48,720 --> 00:29:53,240
'Up until this point in the play, Macbeth is still an innocent man.
468
00:29:53,240 --> 00:29:57,320
'He's thought about killing, but he hasn't done it.
469
00:29:57,320 --> 00:30:00,560
'The next time we see him, he's a murderer
470
00:30:00,560 --> 00:30:03,600
'emerging bloody-handed from the scene of the crime.'
471
00:30:07,240 --> 00:30:08,840
I have done the deed.
472
00:30:11,120 --> 00:30:14,560
- Didst thou not hear a noise?
- I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.
473
00:30:14,560 --> 00:30:18,680
- Did not you speak?
- When?
- Now.
- As I descended?
- Aye.
- Hark.
474
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:21,600
- Who lies in the second chamber?
- Donalbain.
475
00:30:23,240 --> 00:30:24,920
This is a sorry sight.
476
00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:32,680
'Shock and numbness and denial'
477
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:37,640
are the first stages of human response after a massive trauma.
478
00:30:40,160 --> 00:30:41,880
Gwen Adshead has spent years
479
00:30:41,880 --> 00:30:44,800
working with people who have committed murder,
480
00:30:44,800 --> 00:30:47,880
listening first-hand to their experiences.
481
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,960
The fascinating thing about this
482
00:30:51,960 --> 00:30:56,160
is that Shakespeare demonstrates this in the language.
483
00:30:56,160 --> 00:30:58,920
If you look at the language of Macbeth,
484
00:30:58,920 --> 00:31:03,040
the language falls apart into these staccato half-sentences
485
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:06,200
and Shakespeare is really showing us through the language,
486
00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:08,960
in exactly the way that it happens in real life,
487
00:31:08,960 --> 00:31:11,360
because people's language does fall apart
488
00:31:11,360 --> 00:31:13,560
when they're agitated or distressed.
489
00:31:14,960 --> 00:31:16,360
Go get some water
490
00:31:16,360 --> 00:31:18,880
and wash this filthy witness from your hand.
491
00:31:21,200 --> 00:31:23,600
Why did you bring these daggers from the place?
492
00:31:23,600 --> 00:31:25,880
They must lie there!
493
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Go, carry them, and smear the sleepy grooms with blood.
494
00:31:31,240 --> 00:31:33,280
I'll go no more.
495
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:38,000
I am afraid to think what I have done, look on't again I dare not.
496
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:41,000
In his panic, Macbeth has emerged
497
00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:44,440
clutching the incriminating murder weapons and is frozen.
498
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:48,760
Lady Macbeth steps in, returning them to the scene of the crime -
499
00:31:48,760 --> 00:31:51,480
and now they're both covered in blood.
500
00:31:54,880 --> 00:31:57,200
You can never go back, and that, I think, for me,
501
00:31:57,200 --> 00:32:00,400
rings very true in terms of working therapeutically
502
00:32:00,400 --> 00:32:05,280
with people who have killed, is the absolute finality of this act,
503
00:32:05,280 --> 00:32:07,560
the fact that you've changed the universe
504
00:32:07,560 --> 00:32:12,160
and you can't ever go back to how it was before.
505
00:32:12,160 --> 00:32:14,600
And that is so profound.
506
00:32:21,640 --> 00:32:25,880
This scene is not just a watershed for the character Macbeth.
507
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:29,720
Shakespeare was writing in the wake of a devastating political crisis
508
00:32:29,720 --> 00:32:31,480
in British history -
509
00:32:31,480 --> 00:32:33,200
the Gunpowder Plot.
510
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:38,800
Roman Catholics had planted barrels of gunpowder
511
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:41,400
right under the House Of Commons.
512
00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:46,320
They had planned to blow up the ministers and King James himself.
513
00:32:47,360 --> 00:32:50,400
The parallel with Macbeth was obvious
514
00:32:50,400 --> 00:32:53,080
and, for Shakespeare, risky.
515
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:58,600
Any audience watching Macbeth in the early 17th century
516
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:02,520
would have had that in the back of their minds, absolutely,
517
00:33:02,520 --> 00:33:06,200
so the threat of rebellion, the threat of treason, sedition,
518
00:33:06,200 --> 00:33:09,600
is the great, sort of, white noise of politics at this time,
519
00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:13,680
so we need to think about an audience incredibly sensitised
520
00:33:13,680 --> 00:33:17,800
to anything to do with rebellion, treason, deceit, conspiracy,
521
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,920
and that's what this play is about - it's about a canker
522
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:24,960
right at the heart of government and the threat of murdering a king.
523
00:33:27,640 --> 00:33:32,640
And the consequences if you were caught were terrifying.
524
00:33:34,520 --> 00:33:37,360
Killing kings has catastrophic consequences
525
00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:39,920
for those who are discovered trying to do so,
526
00:33:39,920 --> 00:33:43,280
so the consequences of brutal, brutal torture
527
00:33:43,280 --> 00:33:46,520
and then death, execution and dismemberment
528
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:50,400
would have been in the audience's mind straightaway,
529
00:33:50,400 --> 00:33:54,800
so all of that blood is not only likely to have been Duncan's blood,
530
00:33:54,800 --> 00:33:59,160
but, potentially, the blood of Macbeth as well if he is discovered.
531
00:33:59,160 --> 00:34:03,320
So that fear of discovery for an audience is absolutely key, I think.
532
00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:09,400
The act of killing changes everything.
533
00:34:09,400 --> 00:34:11,520
Something Macbeth must now face.
534
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:19,440
The problem for Macbeth, I always think,
535
00:34:19,440 --> 00:34:21,520
is that he gets caught up in this idea
536
00:34:21,520 --> 00:34:23,360
of whether to do it or not to do it
537
00:34:23,360 --> 00:34:27,200
and feels like once he does it, it'll be done.
538
00:34:27,200 --> 00:34:29,320
But of course it's not done.
539
00:34:29,320 --> 00:34:31,840
It's actually just beginning,
540
00:34:31,840 --> 00:34:35,560
and I think that's what hits him after the murder's over.
541
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:39,360
He realises he's entered some new part of his life,
542
00:34:39,360 --> 00:34:42,560
that he can never return to the old one,
543
00:34:42,560 --> 00:34:45,560
and he has no idea what's coming now.
544
00:35:01,520 --> 00:35:05,200
Movement and dance are not what we immediately think of
545
00:35:05,200 --> 00:35:06,520
with Shakespeare.
546
00:35:06,520 --> 00:35:09,080
We think about words, but here in New York,
547
00:35:09,080 --> 00:35:12,240
they are rehearsing a version of Macbeth
548
00:35:12,240 --> 00:35:15,440
that relies on dance, movement and mime.
549
00:35:22,840 --> 00:35:25,760
'I want to see how these performers
550
00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:28,880
'portray the huge change that Macbeth has to undergo
551
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:30,760
'without the help of language.'
552
00:35:46,960 --> 00:35:50,160
Yeah, amazing. Unbelievable job.
553
00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:53,760
I will challenge myself, if I ever get to play...
554
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,240
- Do the Scottish play, to get buck naked...
- THEY LAUGH
555
00:35:57,240 --> 00:36:00,840
..because I think that there's something so scary and...
556
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,080
I mean, if you're really trying to clean yourself, it's really great.
557
00:36:04,080 --> 00:36:07,040
You know, that was the most moving thing
558
00:36:07,040 --> 00:36:10,040
I found about watching you guys play it out,
559
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:14,320
was there's certain things that you can express non-verbally
560
00:36:14,320 --> 00:36:18,840
that get lost when you put too much language in it.
561
00:36:18,840 --> 00:36:20,640
It would be an amazing thing
562
00:36:20,640 --> 00:36:23,760
if you were actually going to act Shakespeare's text,
563
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:27,640
- to make yourself do what you guys are doing.
- Take the words away.
564
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:31,320
Yeah, take the words away, because you'd find moments.
565
00:36:35,560 --> 00:36:38,920
You guys have these moments that are more powerful
566
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,000
than I've ever seen the play acted out in words,
567
00:36:42,000 --> 00:36:45,480
because you're forced to look and be with each other.
568
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,520
It's more innate, I think.
569
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:53,320
I think physicality is something that people can all relate to.
570
00:36:57,320 --> 00:36:59,960
I think there's something that can be taken
571
00:36:59,960 --> 00:37:02,240
from watching this interpretation.
572
00:37:02,240 --> 00:37:07,160
Macbeth had done the deed, but he and his wife were in this together.
573
00:37:14,440 --> 00:37:19,440
I think love is the focal point of this choice that they've made.
574
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,400
Without it, they would never be able to go down this path so far.
575
00:37:22,400 --> 00:37:24,600
He does it for her, in a way,
576
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:28,320
but not because he's manipulated by her,
577
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:30,440
but because he wants to make her happy
578
00:37:30,440 --> 00:37:32,640
and she wants something great for him.
579
00:37:34,720 --> 00:37:37,480
The Macbeths do something together
580
00:37:37,480 --> 00:37:40,600
that it seems neither of them would ever do alone.
581
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,480
Shakespeare's tapped into something that psychologists recognise.
582
00:37:48,880 --> 00:37:53,760
I think homicide often does involve creating a type of fantasy world
583
00:37:53,760 --> 00:37:57,200
and it may be easier to do that sometimes with another person.
584
00:37:58,720 --> 00:38:02,480
The process of justifying to yourself becomes crucial,
585
00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:05,560
and that's where the other person comes in.
586
00:38:07,040 --> 00:38:10,600
I think a key phrase that people can sometimes use on each other,
587
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:12,720
"This is the courageous thing to do,"
588
00:38:12,720 --> 00:38:15,560
and, in fact, Lady Macbeth says this, you know.
589
00:38:15,560 --> 00:38:19,000
"Nail your courage to the sticking-point and we will not fail."
590
00:38:24,680 --> 00:38:27,280
The couple had been united in their joint plot,
591
00:38:27,280 --> 00:38:29,120
but now, after the murder,
592
00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:32,760
they start to respond differently to what they've done.
593
00:38:33,800 --> 00:38:38,480
Even though Macbeth has become king, he doesn't feel secure.
594
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:41,000
Without confiding in his wife,
595
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:45,560
he orders the murder of his friend, but potential rival, Banquo.
596
00:38:46,560 --> 00:38:51,280
In a show of normality, Macbeth hosts a royal banquet
597
00:38:51,280 --> 00:38:55,400
and pretends to expect the murdered man to appear.
598
00:38:55,400 --> 00:38:57,600
Both sides are even.
599
00:38:57,600 --> 00:39:01,240
But Banquo's place at the table is filled...
600
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:04,360
..by his ghost.
601
00:39:04,360 --> 00:39:06,880
What is't that moves your highness?
602
00:39:09,200 --> 00:39:11,160
Which of you have done this?
603
00:39:11,160 --> 00:39:13,120
What, my good lord?
604
00:39:13,120 --> 00:39:16,520
- Thou canst not say I did it!
- Gentlemen, rise...
605
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:19,920
Macbeth is the only one who sees the ghost,
606
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,360
so the power of the scene hinges
607
00:39:22,360 --> 00:39:25,760
on how real the actor makes his illusion.
608
00:39:25,760 --> 00:39:29,000
Anthony Sher found his own key to playing the scene.
609
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:33,920
As part of my research for playing the part,
610
00:39:33,920 --> 00:39:37,520
I met two real-life murderers.
611
00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,440
And, although they were very different men,
612
00:39:40,440 --> 00:39:46,000
they both answered the same way to one of my questions, which was,
613
00:39:46,000 --> 00:39:50,280
"Do you ever dream of your victims?"
614
00:39:50,280 --> 00:39:53,200
And both, phrasing it differently, answered,
615
00:39:53,200 --> 00:39:55,480
"Only when I'm awake."
616
00:39:58,200 --> 00:40:01,320
And I thought, well, this is perfect,
617
00:40:01,320 --> 00:40:04,120
because I now know how to play Banquo's ghost.
618
00:40:05,560 --> 00:40:07,640
See there!
619
00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:11,080
Behold! Look!
620
00:40:11,080 --> 00:40:12,480
Lo!
621
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,760
While Macbeth is horrified to see Banquo's ghost,
622
00:40:21,760 --> 00:40:25,360
Lady Macbeth is desperately trying to cover for him.
623
00:40:25,360 --> 00:40:29,920
What? Quite unmann'd in folly?
624
00:40:29,920 --> 00:40:33,960
She sees he's in danger of revealing a terrible secret,
625
00:40:33,960 --> 00:40:37,840
even though she knows nothing about Banquo's death.
626
00:40:37,840 --> 00:40:41,120
He's going berserk cos he's seeing Banquo's ghost and she's going,
627
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,840
"What are you doing? Behave yourself, don't let it show!"
628
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:48,040
Why do you make such faces?
629
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:52,000
When all's done, you look but on a stool.
630
00:40:52,000 --> 00:40:55,320
She still doesn't know why he's going quite so mad.
631
00:40:56,720 --> 00:40:59,400
Because he hasn't told her what's going on.
632
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:01,360
Avaunt! And quit my sight!
633
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,360
Let the earth hide thee! Thy bones are marrowless. Thy blood is cold.
634
00:41:05,360 --> 00:41:08,760
Thou hast no speculation in those eyes!
635
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,720
Think of this, good peers, but as a thing of custom for 'tis no other.
636
00:41:12,720 --> 00:41:17,360
Ultimately, all she can do is chase the horrified guests away.
637
00:41:17,360 --> 00:41:18,960
At once, good night.
638
00:41:18,960 --> 00:41:22,000
Stand not upon the order of your going, but go at once.
639
00:41:23,080 --> 00:41:26,560
Publicly, the scene has been dangerous for the Macbeths.
640
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,360
But privately, it's a very intimate moment.
641
00:41:29,360 --> 00:41:34,040
Which must be acted ere they may be scann'd.
642
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:36,520
At the end of the banquet, she says,
643
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,760
"You lack the season of all natures, sleep."
644
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:44,120
As though saying, "Look, darling, we've had a terrible dinner.
645
00:41:44,120 --> 00:41:46,520
"You probably just need a good sleep."
646
00:41:46,520 --> 00:41:49,040
HE LAUGHS HYSTERICALLY
647
00:41:50,280 --> 00:41:52,760
'What you need is a good night's sleep.'
648
00:41:52,760 --> 00:41:55,080
All you need is a cup of tea, you know?
649
00:41:55,080 --> 00:41:59,320
And we just, we just both spontaneously burst
650
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:04,560
into rather hysterical, maniacal, not very comfortable giggles.
651
00:42:04,560 --> 00:42:08,120
Come, we'll to sleep.
652
00:42:08,120 --> 00:42:10,320
THEY LAUGH HYSTERICALLY
653
00:42:13,480 --> 00:42:18,320
They've had the dinner party from hell. It's been a complete disaster.
654
00:42:18,320 --> 00:42:24,560
And they just sit there laughing like a couple might who, you know,
655
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:27,000
the only thing left to do is to laugh.
656
00:42:34,560 --> 00:42:37,040
SHE WHIMPERS
657
00:42:40,200 --> 00:42:42,440
It's a desperate moment.
658
00:42:42,440 --> 00:42:45,400
Lady Macbeth has struggled to stop her husband
659
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:47,680
from revealing a terrible secret.
660
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,040
And the experience seems to divide them.
661
00:42:54,160 --> 00:42:56,720
The couple drifts further apart.
662
00:42:56,720 --> 00:42:59,600
Macbeth goes off alone to the witches for solace,
663
00:42:59,600 --> 00:43:03,080
but this just provokes him into the frenzied killing
664
00:43:03,080 --> 00:43:05,160
of even more potential rivals.
665
00:43:05,160 --> 00:43:08,480
He's becoming a solitary tyrant.
666
00:43:08,480 --> 00:43:12,800
'The Macbeths are never seen on the stage together again.'
667
00:43:20,720 --> 00:43:24,480
The only good thing that ever happened in the play
668
00:43:24,480 --> 00:43:27,520
was Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's love for each other,
669
00:43:27,520 --> 00:43:31,800
which somehow just slowly peters out.
670
00:43:31,800 --> 00:43:35,120
It's an interesting, sad element of the play
671
00:43:35,120 --> 00:43:38,440
that there isn't the big "I hate you," scene,
672
00:43:38,440 --> 00:43:43,160
"You've betrayed me," scene, "I don't love you anymore," scene.
673
00:43:43,160 --> 00:43:47,760
They just kind of fade out and dial down
674
00:43:47,760 --> 00:43:50,480
and go to their separate corners.
675
00:43:50,480 --> 00:43:53,320
There's something kind of truthful about that to me.
676
00:43:53,320 --> 00:43:59,040
People who have a big secret, they start to not want to see each other,
677
00:43:59,040 --> 00:44:03,160
because when they see the other one, they're looking at their own shame.
678
00:44:07,480 --> 00:44:11,200
The couple are no longer connected.
679
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,280
However, what we don't expect, is that, now alone,
680
00:44:14,280 --> 00:44:18,600
Lady Macbeth will completely break down.
681
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:22,680
In one of the most famous scenes of the play,
682
00:44:22,680 --> 00:44:25,480
we see Lady Macbeth driven to sleepwalking,
683
00:44:25,480 --> 00:44:29,000
obsessively acting out her part in the original crime.
684
00:44:30,160 --> 00:44:33,360
Her terrified maid has brought a doctor
685
00:44:33,360 --> 00:44:35,480
to observe this wild behaviour.
686
00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:38,400
Look, how she rubs her hands.
687
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:41,600
Yet here's a spot.
688
00:44:43,000 --> 00:44:46,400
Out, damned spot!
689
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,880
Out, I say!
690
00:44:48,880 --> 00:44:50,640
One, two.
691
00:44:52,360 --> 00:44:55,440
Why, then, 'tis time to do it.
692
00:44:55,440 --> 00:44:59,120
Hell is murky.
693
00:45:00,680 --> 00:45:04,200
The sleepwalking scene is one of the most
694
00:45:04,200 --> 00:45:08,000
horrifying scenes in literature, I think.
695
00:45:10,080 --> 00:45:14,800
It's a deeply distressing portrait of a broken woman.
696
00:45:14,800 --> 00:45:19,760
Lady Macbeth at the beginning of the play seems steely,
697
00:45:19,760 --> 00:45:22,040
calculating, cool...
698
00:45:23,800 --> 00:45:25,960
..able to handle anything.
699
00:45:25,960 --> 00:45:30,920
And in the course of the play, you watch her unravel.
700
00:45:32,360 --> 00:45:35,080
She has been the strong one, and then,
701
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:39,400
you don't expect her to have any kind of a breakdown
702
00:45:39,400 --> 00:45:42,640
or a moment in which what she's been keeping in
703
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:45,960
comes out again at night and with visions and so forth.
704
00:45:47,520 --> 00:45:56,280
Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him.
705
00:45:57,520 --> 00:45:59,520
Do you mark that?
706
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:05,240
What? Will these hands ne'er be clean?
707
00:46:05,240 --> 00:46:07,560
SHE WHIMPERS
708
00:46:13,360 --> 00:46:17,600
While Lady Macbeth is finally overwhelmed by her emotions
709
00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:19,320
and loses her mind,
710
00:46:19,320 --> 00:46:21,560
Macbeth seems to do the opposite.
711
00:46:22,600 --> 00:46:26,720
He seems to suppress all feeling and somehow just ploughs on.
712
00:46:28,720 --> 00:46:34,600
There's a very hurt but numb side in him now.
713
00:46:35,920 --> 00:46:42,800
"I'm covered in so much blood, it's not worth washing it off.
714
00:46:42,800 --> 00:46:44,760
"I just might as well carry on."
715
00:46:44,760 --> 00:46:51,080
He has no option but to continue along this murderous path,
716
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,640
and it becomes, erm...
717
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:56,280
..something he has to do.
718
00:46:56,280 --> 00:47:00,240
He has to plough his way on, having gained the throne.
719
00:47:01,760 --> 00:47:04,240
She loses her grip on him, and he becomes...
720
00:47:04,240 --> 00:47:06,960
it's almost, she's let loose this creature
721
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,160
who then she looks at and thinks, "What have I let loose?
722
00:47:11,160 --> 00:47:15,600
He's more of a murderer, he's more of a maniac than she ever envisaged.
723
00:47:15,600 --> 00:47:19,000
He's gone past the point when they could enjoy their power.
724
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,640
He's just not ever going to be content.
725
00:47:26,880 --> 00:47:29,120
'It's at this point,
726
00:47:29,120 --> 00:47:32,160
'when he's almost blindly hacking away at his enemies,
727
00:47:32,160 --> 00:47:34,960
'when he seems almost numb to all feeling,
728
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,280
'that Shakespeare gives Macbeth a speech
729
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:41,600
'of extraordinary beauty and utter isolation.
730
00:47:43,480 --> 00:47:45,040
'How does an actor prepare for that?
731
00:47:46,480 --> 00:47:50,400
'I'm going to see a copy of the earliest printed edition of Macbeth,
732
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:51,920
'known as the First Folio.'
733
00:47:54,760 --> 00:47:56,680
I have never seen a First Folio,
734
00:47:56,680 --> 00:47:58,720
and I've always wanted to, and so,
735
00:47:58,720 --> 00:48:01,760
it's kind of like diving back into time.
736
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:05,000
There's such a romanticism to the idea
737
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:09,520
of Shakespeare staying up all night, you know,
738
00:48:09,520 --> 00:48:12,360
Romeo and Juliet pouring out of his soul,
739
00:48:12,360 --> 00:48:14,520
Macbeth pouring out of his soul,
740
00:48:14,520 --> 00:48:19,000
and you somehow want to touch that lightning.
741
00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:24,080
'What's extraordinary is that the play Macbeth
742
00:48:24,080 --> 00:48:29,320
'was not printed until 1623, seven years after its author's death.
743
00:48:30,800 --> 00:48:33,280
'If it wasn't for his fellow actors publishing it,
744
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,680
'this play could have been lost forever.'
745
00:48:37,960 --> 00:48:39,680
Here we go.
746
00:48:42,640 --> 00:48:45,880
The book is in the Morgan Library in New York.
747
00:48:45,880 --> 00:48:49,240
It's over 400 years old and probably worth millions.
748
00:48:50,320 --> 00:48:53,720
But for many of us, it's priceless.
749
00:49:00,880 --> 00:49:03,880
Curator John Bidwell has retrieved it from the vault.
750
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:38,520
Ah, my favourite speech. Let's find it.
751
00:49:38,520 --> 00:49:42,400
Awfully near the end there but here we are already into Hamlet.
752
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:43,880
God, can you imagine?
753
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,600
Imagine a body of work like this?
754
00:49:47,600 --> 00:49:52,120
You turn one page, Macbeth finishes and then Hamlet begins.
755
00:49:54,160 --> 00:49:59,240
It kind of suits the end of the Scottish Play -
756
00:49:59,240 --> 00:50:04,440
there's a slight burn on the final page of Macbeth.
757
00:50:04,440 --> 00:50:09,080
Somebody was upset. This cigarette fell as Macbeth fell.
758
00:50:10,680 --> 00:50:14,040
Only one page? How does that happen in the book?
759
00:50:14,040 --> 00:50:15,120
Hmm.
760
00:50:17,520 --> 00:50:19,760
'The speech I'm looking for
761
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:23,040
'comes just after Macbeth has heard his wife is dead.
762
00:50:23,040 --> 00:50:28,920
'She's committed suicide, and yet he seems unable to respond.'
763
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,880
Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
764
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,760
creeps in this petty pace from day to day.
765
00:50:35,760 --> 00:50:38,560
To the last syllable of recorded time.
766
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:45,040
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death.
767
00:50:45,040 --> 00:50:47,320
Out, out brief candle.
768
00:50:47,320 --> 00:50:50,200
Life's but a walking shadow,
769
00:50:50,200 --> 00:50:56,160
a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage
770
00:50:56,160 --> 00:50:57,640
and then is heard no more.
771
00:50:57,640 --> 00:51:01,680
It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
772
00:51:01,680 --> 00:51:03,640
signifying nothing.
773
00:51:06,320 --> 00:51:11,840
You've heard of words to live by. Those are words to die by.
774
00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:18,000
His vision of life at that point is so nihilistic
775
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:23,160
that even the loss of the woman whom he clearly had loved
776
00:51:23,160 --> 00:51:27,680
so much no longer means anything to him, because he can no longer feel.
777
00:51:27,680 --> 00:51:29,320
He can no longer feel.
778
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,640
And I think that's... At the end of the day,
779
00:51:32,640 --> 00:51:35,320
that is Shakespeare's deepest insight
780
00:51:35,320 --> 00:51:43,600
about what it is to be able to commit murder, without remorse.
781
00:51:43,600 --> 00:51:47,240
And that is that you lose the capacity to feel.
782
00:51:55,600 --> 00:52:01,000
'Macbeth seems almost empty of emotion and yet, as the climax
783
00:52:01,000 --> 00:52:05,320
'of the play approaches, he will surely know fear.
784
00:52:07,080 --> 00:52:08,720
'And now he's learned
785
00:52:08,720 --> 00:52:11,960
'that the witches' promises of safety were just dangerous riddles.
786
00:52:14,440 --> 00:52:18,520
'And other forces have assembled to confront him in battle.
787
00:52:18,520 --> 00:52:21,320
'He will have to face his enemies.'
788
00:52:23,880 --> 00:52:25,920
That's where Macbeth is at that point.
789
00:52:25,920 --> 00:52:30,160
He has nothing left to live for so why not bring it all with him?
790
00:52:31,920 --> 00:52:36,240
Ring the alarm bell! Blow wind!
791
00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:43,280
It truly is a portrait of an animal trapped in a corner
792
00:52:43,280 --> 00:52:46,680
that's going to die.
793
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:52,800
That is still fighting in an instinctive but weary way.
794
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:58,680
It's still trying to defend itself, but it knows that it's lost.
795
00:52:58,680 --> 00:53:03,080
HE GROANS AND GASPS
796
00:53:06,960 --> 00:53:12,760
At last, Macbeth's brutal regime is over, but what really created it?
797
00:53:12,760 --> 00:53:16,080
Can we finally answer that question?
798
00:53:16,080 --> 00:53:20,560
Was it the witches that corrupted Macbeth? Or his own ambition?
799
00:53:24,520 --> 00:53:28,160
The fantastic idea of Macbeth is that there are things out there.
800
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:29,720
There really are.
801
00:53:29,720 --> 00:53:32,760
There are monsters, disgusting and disturbing.
802
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:34,560
But they are also in here.
803
00:53:37,600 --> 00:53:42,120
It is like the horror movie in which the character being chased
804
00:53:42,120 --> 00:53:45,280
locks the door, double locks it, triple locks it,
805
00:53:45,280 --> 00:53:47,680
retreats to the bedroom, locks that, and then discovers
806
00:53:47,680 --> 00:53:53,280
that whatever it is that he's most afraid of is already inside.
807
00:53:57,800 --> 00:54:01,640
'After travelling with Macbeth on this darkest of journeys,
808
00:54:01,640 --> 00:54:03,240
'what do we feel about it?'
809
00:54:05,560 --> 00:54:10,920
I do feel sorry for Macbeth, although sorry is too minor a feeling.
810
00:54:10,920 --> 00:54:16,360
I feel empathy for him, deep distress for him.
811
00:54:16,360 --> 00:54:21,560
I don't want him not to be captured, but there is a sense in which
812
00:54:21,560 --> 00:54:23,880
he still has a claim upon my human feelings.
813
00:54:25,320 --> 00:54:28,720
It is a tragedy because there were so many points
814
00:54:28,720 --> 00:54:32,360
at which he might have pulled back. And he doesn't.
815
00:54:32,360 --> 00:54:36,800
And he ends up destroying the things that were most valuable.
816
00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,400
Shakespeare's great gift as a writer
817
00:54:47,400 --> 00:54:51,600
is that he never holds people at arm's length.
818
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:56,160
He never says look at this person, isn't he disgraceful,
819
00:54:56,160 --> 00:54:58,440
or isn't he ridiculous?
820
00:54:58,440 --> 00:55:06,160
Shakespeare always says it's me, it's you, it's us. He always does that.
821
00:55:06,160 --> 00:55:08,200
It is his great gift.
822
00:55:10,560 --> 00:55:15,640
This powerful sense of our shared humanity is in the text of the play.
823
00:55:15,640 --> 00:55:18,080
'And it would just have to be the core
824
00:55:18,080 --> 00:55:20,440
'of what I would draw on to play the part.
825
00:55:21,600 --> 00:55:25,440
'To my mind, the greatest challenge in playing Macbeth
826
00:55:25,440 --> 00:55:28,320
'is not that dissimilar to a movie like Raging Bull.'
827
00:55:28,320 --> 00:55:34,000
What he's doing is so horrible, but why should the audience care?
828
00:55:34,000 --> 00:55:36,600
You can't do that by trying to be likeable, or something.
829
00:55:36,600 --> 00:55:39,000
You have to do it by being a human being.
830
00:55:39,000 --> 00:55:41,600
While you may not forgive them, or anything,
831
00:55:41,600 --> 00:55:44,480
you would at least have empathy for their humanity and the crisis
832
00:55:44,480 --> 00:55:48,040
they have gotten themselves into, and relate to it on some level.
833
00:55:48,040 --> 00:55:52,920
And that, that's the big magic trick, I think.
834
00:56:07,640 --> 00:56:11,880
'It's at the end of the play, when all the horrors are done,
835
00:56:11,880 --> 00:56:13,560
'that Shakespeare turns to offer
836
00:56:13,560 --> 00:56:17,280
'some compassionate words for the survivors.
837
00:56:17,280 --> 00:56:20,200
'And they can still be a comfort to us today.'
838
00:56:24,680 --> 00:56:29,640
They were our neighbours, our friends, our husbands, wives,
839
00:56:29,640 --> 00:56:31,920
brothers, sisters, children and parents.
840
00:56:31,920 --> 00:56:35,520
'The mayor of New York, at the 10th anniversary
841
00:56:35,520 --> 00:56:39,760
'of the World Trade Center bombing, what's he going to say?'
842
00:56:39,760 --> 00:56:44,600
How do words do it? What does he turn to? He's a smart guy.
843
00:56:44,600 --> 00:56:46,640
He turns to Shakespeare.
844
00:56:49,520 --> 00:56:53,720
At the end of Macbeth, Shakespeare says, try not to grieve with
845
00:56:53,720 --> 00:56:59,160
the same intensity that you loved, for then it would be unbearable.
846
00:56:59,160 --> 00:57:02,320
Let us recall the words of Shakespeare.
847
00:57:02,320 --> 00:57:06,040
"Let us not measure our sorrow by their worth.
848
00:57:06,040 --> 00:57:08,480
"For then it will have no end."
849
00:57:13,520 --> 00:57:17,120
When they lose a loved one, when words fail,
850
00:57:17,120 --> 00:57:22,120
Shakespeare provides us with the insight that we need
851
00:57:22,120 --> 00:57:26,440
to understand so many parts of our lives.
852
00:57:29,080 --> 00:57:32,480
Somebody said once, current events stay exactly the same.
853
00:57:32,480 --> 00:57:37,080
'There's always wars and there's always people desperate.'
854
00:57:37,080 --> 00:57:41,200
If you really want to change any of all that, then you need
855
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:44,480
to change it in your heart, and that's where poetry comes.
856
00:57:44,480 --> 00:57:48,280
That's where Shakespeare's most valuable.
857
00:57:59,920 --> 00:58:03,640
Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
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