Demon Drink

(or No more Cakes and Ale)

One summer, not that long ago, I spent a weekend in a remote village in Romania - so remote in fact there was no permanent vehicle access - cars drove up a dry river bed in summer to get to it - in winter, cars didn't.

It was there I learnt about water drinking:

Animals do - humans don't.

Humans drink wine, with breakfast, dinner and tea - even children drink wine - or the very young, milk. Herb tea would sometimes be taken for illness.

It isn't alcoholism - although it can easily spill over to that - and the associated domestic violence was an accepted part of life: It is the only safe way to live in a world where the water is dangerous (and science hasn't penetrated - schools? Boiling water cleans it of disease?).

Elizabethan England was the same.

Small beer (low in alcohol) was the Elizabethan 'water'. Every housewife made it at home, children drank it in school, and clergymen knocked back a pint before giving the Sunday sermon.

Strong ale was a social drink leading to drunkenness (and a reported cause for Shakespeare's death). Wine for the rich; cider in certain parts of the country.

No wonder then that drunkenness and drink is quite a common theme in the plays of Shakespeare.

The Porter in Macbeth is drunk.

He talks about drunkenness – and talks in a most vulgar way (it is also, in the hands of a good comedy actor, exceptionally funny).

Modern western audiences, with their convoluted views on alcohol and alcohol abuse, don’t see what Shakespeare’s audience see. An audience in America might be a lot more ‘puritan’ in outlook than one in England, but missing in both is the fundamental necessity of drinking ‘beer’ - or it’s fermented equivalent – as a preserver of life.

Also missing (although less so in parts of the USA) is the essential Co-Text to Shakespeare, the Bible (and associated Elizabethan Homilies and Sermons).

The first thing that came to me when thinking of the Porter Scene, was the text used by Luther on his First sermon on Advent – Romans, chap. 13 vs. 11 – 14.

The key verse is this:

13. Let vs walke honestly as in the day, not in riotyng & dronkennesse, neither in chaumberyng & wantonnesse, neither in strife and enuying.

Is there a better comment on Macbeth at this point in the play?

Macbeth is working at night, the porter talks about the carousing and drinking, about ‘chaumberyng & wantonnesse’ (lechery) and Macbeth himself, who enters quickly, represents envy and strife (although the porter does talk about fighting drunkeness).

It is worth thinking about Luther’s comments on the quoted verse at this point:

“The six works mentioned suffice to teach that he who lives in the darkness of unbelief does not keep himself pure in his neighbor’s sight, but is immoderate in all his conduct, toward himself and toward his fellow-man.”

When we watch Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ‘doing’ the killing, we get wrapped up in the tension and magnitude of the action: We do not think – oh, should he be doing that?

The Porter’s scene gives us space – not to relax, not to relieve ourselves, but to think.

We have an immoderate commentator – reminding us of the darkness of unbelief: Pointing, in the clearest possible way, the path Macbeth is treading.

Lady Macbeth has used the word drunk a couple of times by this point.

She talks of hope being drunk – and then sleeping off the effects.

More interestingly, she enters (Act 2 ii) and says – ‘That which hath made them drunk, hath made me bold’. She has been drinking – but what reads like simple Dutch courage to us, has the smell of sulfur around it:

Honest men it has incapacitated; the evil made bold.

Other drinkers in Shakespeare include Falstaff. If it is true that Falstaff has his origins in The Vice, then his constant drunkenness and whoring support the notion that an Elizabethan audience would be wary of such activities and, no matter how amusing he seems, see his route to the gallows is clearly marked out – lined with primroses maybe.

And a point worth making here is the audience watching Macbeth’s Porter could well have Falstaff in mind – surely it is the same actor playing the parts?

Which brings on the question – which parts did the Porter double? If it is a witch – his entrance as the Porter would instantly link evils.

What does this say of other drunks and drink scenes?

Iago uses drink to bring the downfall of Cassio – Iago playing another Vice/Morality play figure, Good Fellowship!

In Hamlet and Antony and Cleopatra, there are drink scenes with negative connotations.

In Julius Caesar though, and 12^th Night, surely drink is looked on slightly differently? Antony is praised by Caesar for ‘loving drink’.

And Toby Belch’s repost to the Puritan Malvolio, ‘Because thou art virtuous, Shall there be no more cakes and ale?’ surely has a double edge.

Brando, Collins and El Prat

Just about the most irritating film version of Julius Caesar (out of a pretty poor bunch) is the one (ill)staring Marlon Brando.

The deadly thing is his accent - his "British" accent. Sensibly, most of the Americans in the film keep their accents over the other side of the Atlantic leaving the genuine Brits to this side.

Not Brando - the method gets hold, the real Antony is to be found in a British Accent, so a British Accent he has to have!

It is a faultless British Accent too - not a sound out of place - as rigidly coiffured as Brando's greasy black hair.

And as false and dead.

It is too real - too correct - faultless and, so, faulty.

Real living Brits don't sound like that - the idiosyncrasies and foibles of the individual are missing. It tries so hard to be British it ends up an unintentional caricature. Not 'Allo Allo' caricature - that's funny because it is intentional - and is as much the English laughing at their own inability with languages as anything else. More a bad Elvis impersonator caricature – the costume white and sparkling, the gyrations all there, the exact copy of the voice – all lifeless.

I get the same feeling about 'Woman in White'. I'm up to the end of the lawyer's narrative.

It's very worthy, very realistic - checked for factual accuracy by a genuine lawyer - and as dead as the proverbial extinct bird.

Take Sir Percival Glyde, for example. We’re given lots of little details intended to bring a roundness and verisimilitude to the character – his balding head, his worn face, his tender, affectionate behaviour with Laura, his directness over the business of the letter – every sort of detail you would wish!

What’s the mantra of junior school teachers about character?

“You know a character by what he says, what others say about him, how he dresses, what he does and what he doesn’t do.”

It’s all there for Glyde. Nothing, so far, though really brings his character life. It’s just too correct.

And what is his character? The bad-man; the impostor: The beautiful, attractive gentleman everyone is in love with – he’s an Elf from ‘Lords and Ladies’!

In that book you don’t have to ask the question why people fall for the ‘Fair Ones’ – it is magic, they just do – and it takes a coven of exceptional “old prunes” to see through to the reality behind the mask. All the other characters fall for the attraction.

In Woman in White, the problem seems to be that in attempting to be realistic you have to give realistic reasons for people’s belief and faith in the ‘Attractive One’. No magic allowed (unlike in ‘Gothic’).

But Collins has spent a lot of his energies making sure none of his characters is actually attracted to Glyde. They all see through him – even the couldn’t-care-less uncle is aware of a problem.

And he doesn’t give the reader anything to say I understand why people fall for this man’s charms.

He’s wearing a black cowboy hat for goodness sake!