Macbeth

I notice that more and more Youtube channels are offering full theatrical performances for a limited period of time. It might just be the silver lining during this pandemic, but then it is so only for those with interest in the performance arts. The average person is more concerned with their livelihood since many are unemployed at the moment. I don't need to check the news to know that we are experiencing a great economic slump. I just feel a bit lucky that at the very least, I still earn money during this time. The pandemic lockdown has given me great discomforts, me being accustomed to staying away from my toxic family but now forced to stay in with them. It's a wonder I am still alive after two full months of fully living with them. My super self-centered father has constantly made my blood boil that nowadays the mere knowledge that he is at home is enough to cause me anxieties and high level of stress. He takes pleasure in being outside because he has been accustomed to parties with his friends, and comes home with a long litany of complaints and fears that he might be a Covid-19 carrier. I have lost count of the number of times I rolled my eyes since this lockdown occurred. As for my mother, she is being her usual self who will stupidly do whatever it takes to please the useless males in the household, even when it means causing us girls to bear the burden. So never blame me for not celebrating mother's day. I lost a mother when the Light passed away five years ago. The monkey is being his asshole self, on his computer 24/7, and setting the fans all to him, later complaining of coughs and being feverish, and surprises of surprises! He still have the audacity to eat my sister's chocolates! Stupid males who appear on this earth to only be walking hotdogs.

The lockdown has forced us all to live together but nobody dares to confront. Our highly dysfunctional family, owing to people unfit to become parents, is a big shame. I envy my friends who have great relationships with their family members. I have been struggling for as long as I can remember and the old hag is nowhere near to admitting her faults, it is her fault that we have unreliable males in the household for she tolerates it.

It is no wonder that I look forward to weekend freebies to somehow escape from this very bleak domestic life. Today after watching Cats, I made good with a promise I made to myself. I searched for full shows of Shakespeare's plays and found Stratford Festival's (SF) channel which has one of the Bard's famous plays---- Macbeth. The SF version is very dark, literally. The whole play from beginning to end reminds me of chiaroscuro paintings and it was quite a challenge for me to watch since I don't like darkly lit scenes where I see almost nothing. However, that very technique is apt to suit the story's very dark and sinister plot of murders arising from lust of power. I am also very thankful because the actors and actresses spoke audibly and well that I wasn't as lost as when I watched DUP's Measure for Measure because audio was bad and couple that with hard-to-grasp Shakespearean English, I cannot say that I enjoyed myself fully. 

Macbeth is a classic tale of a power-hungry man who will commit murders to become king and remain in power. Far from being realistic, this play incorporates magic as the Three Witches' prophecy is the reason for Macbeth's corruption. His wife, Lady Macbeth, is an accomplice but is also the serpent to encourages her husband to murder King Duncan. My favorite part in the play comes immediately after the king's death, wherein the porter has his own scene which for me is the coolest. The porter scene can very well be the origins of the Knock Knock jokes. I am not ashamed to say that I replayed the scene many times because I just found it so humorous and so witty. And needless to say, I needed that comic relief since the whole play is too dark. Another comic relief is the scene wherein Lady Macduff converses with her witty son before they were slaughtered by Macbeth's men, but it is so short and the murder is too quick to happen. Another favorite part is  Macbeth's madness during the feast because of Banquo and the late King Duncan's apparitions. I just love seeing criminals cowering in fear when their conscience starts to attack. But this only further plunges our anti-hero to a deeper madness that will eventually cause him his and his wife's lives.

My favorite lines in the play:

Macbeth: "Stars, hide your fires, Let not light see my black and deep desires"

(This is during the time when King Duncan and his company are discussing the punishment for the erstwhile Thane of Cawdor for his treason and Macbeth offers his loyalty to the throne and to the king, but the King pronounces his son Malcolm as Prince of Cumberland.)

Lady Macbeth: "You should look like an innocent flower, but be the serpent under it."

Macbeth: "False face must hide what the false heart doth know."

(This is during one of those scenes when Lady Macbeth chides her husband for being cowardly and for thinking of backing out from their evil plan.)

Lady MacDuff: "I have done no harm. But I remember now I am in this earthly world; where to do harm is often laudable, to do good sometime accounted dangerous folly: why then, alas, do I put up that womanly defense, To say I have done no harm?"

(This resonates with me because of my many complaints of how weird this world is, that good men are punished, and evil men are rewarded. This is Lady Macduff's reaction when she is tipped of her impending murder.)

Macduff: "Bleed, bleed, poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure, for goodness dare not check thee."

(This is during Macduff and Malcolm's lengthy conversation wherein the latter is being persuaded to rise up to take back what is rightfully his but then he hesitates and tests Macduff's loyalty by saying that he might be a worse king than Macbeth himself. And this is a timeless quote because in every age in history, mankind is met with oppression and the rule of evil has never ended.)

Macduff: "My voice is in my sword."

(Delivered during the final confrontation with Macbeth after Malcolm is injured from fighting against Macbeth. And curiously, Macbeth does not make sure he leaves Malcolm dead before fleeing.)

And so I wonder why I have always been afraid to engage in Shakespeare works when it seems they are not as bad as many say. I should really really believe in myself and remember my highschool self who was so enamored with proving and algebra and trigonometry while everyone around me hated these math topics. I look forward to watching The Tempest next week.

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Update (23 May 2020)
After watching SF's The Tempest, I found Shakespeare's Globe's version of Macbeth. The characters wear contemporary clothes, and the porter scene, which is the one thing I greatly anticipate, is remarkably made shorter, but the porter did deliver a cool knock-knock joke with the audience who after asking "who's there?" got porter's response "Toby". The crowd asks "Toby who?" And witty porter answers, "To be or not to be, that is the question." LOL. Now I wonder how other performances recreates this comedic part.