Makbeth

Not everything you think, is true.

Does Makbeth meet fairies or witches?

In a previous post I explored Shakspear and the connection with King James and his little work on Witchcraft.

Now I have the picture of Makbeth's first meeting with the 'witches'. It is from the ‘source’ Shakey would have used for the main elements of the plot – Holinshed’s Chronicles (need to check that – that is what it said on the Internet site I borrowed the picture from).

Now, I don't know about you, but the rather refined looking ladies greeting the Elizabethan 'gents' in the picture above don't quite fit my 'vision' of Macbeth and Banquo's 'black and midnight hags'.

What worries me is that the woodcut might be much closer to Shakspear’s image, and possibly the original production’s costuming, than I would like.

Part of the problem is that I am not sure how to read the picture – there is an iconography here which I am not a party to.

The gent closest to us – Makbeth I’d guess by the way the witches are looking to him – has no armour on – or rather has one symbolic piece, the helmet (possibly a breastplate – but it looks more doublet to me). If he is the victorious body splitting general of Shakspear, he’s had a jolly good wash and got the grooms to work on his horse too. Is the helmet enough to tell the Elizabethan reader this is a military hero? If it is, would it be enough for the Globe’s groundlings?

I notice behind his head is a castle – with some active birds – must be Macbeth’s castle – although they don’t look like Martins to me, more like crows: Does suggest Shakspear looked closely at the picture though.

More crows flying around the ‘castle’ on the top of the head of one of the ‘witches’ too – although these could be clouds. Is that Elizabethan headgear? Maybe not – old fashioned hat? And this one is pretty ugly – broken nose by the looks of it.

Wouldn’t say the others were ugly though – and they don’t look particularly old either – quite smart, upright, well shaped.

I am reminded of Alice Nutter.

For those of you not familiar with the local history of the Pendle area of Lancashire, Alice was hanged for being a witch in the early 17^th century: She was something of a lady – comparatively wealthy in fact, and not at all the ‘typical’ Halloween figure. She also just happened to be a catholic, which might have had something to do with the hanging. There were a number of other people (male and female) hanged at the same time – none of them quite of the same social standing.

The clothing on the witches is interesting – looks exotic – the woodcut cutter has taken pains over the patterns on the material – each different, each looking expensive, possibly silk or damask? This would make them stand out to the Elizabethans.

So, ‘from the farthest steep of India’? Spirits of some sort – hence the fairies.

Shakspear gives them beards – there is the slightest suggestion of such in the picture, from the attempt to create shadows. He has us meet them in weather very unlike that of the woodcut – which is quite pleasant. Certainly he takes us further – but how far would he have gone in production?

Nowhere near the broomstick riding cacklers of popular imagination I’d guess.

You Are What You Wear

In the words of a Genesis song:

Old man says, "You are what you wear" - wear well.

Certainly, in Shakespeare's England, you were what you wore: And Shakespeare makes use of this (overtly and covertly) in his plays.

In the modern Western World, we have lost 'the meaning’ clothes had attached to them in Elizabethan and Stuart England. There is a superficial understanding in some contexts - we can recognise the Queen of England on state occasions for example - she will wear one of her crowns - preferably with a big diamond in it - and a set of gowns somewhat out of date - made of materials distinctly politically incorrect (like dead animal).

But is there any difference between what a Prince wears or a Premiership footballer (soccer) visiting the sick in hospital? In the UK, both are exceptionally wealthy men, both will be wearing custom-made, designer suits.

Take a photograph of the Queen of England on any but a state occasion, remove the head (whoops, bit of republican sympathy there) and tell me what identifies her as Queen.

We can determine, to a certain degree, wealth by clothing - although with some fashion trends that is difficult. The people in Shakespeare's audience could recognise rank, and status, as well as wealth. Occupation was also much easier to 'see'.

This isn't simply blue-collar/white-collar social class, it is much deeper.

Let's look at a couple of examples of how Shakespeare overtly uses his audience's ability to distinguish and interpret role and give meaning through clothing.

The opening scene of Julius Caesar provides a prime example.

In Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, the crowd that comes onto the stage would have been wearing Elizabethan 'Sunday Best' - perhaps with a band of material over that to indicate they were Romans.

What would the audience have instantly seen? - Ordinary working men dressed out of work-clothes and therefore celebrating either a Religious day, or a special occasion. By their behaviour we can assume they would not have been dressed in Puritan Black, nor in wealthy materials like silks - which were reserved for a better rank of people. What the audience wouldn't see would be the occupations of the men - which on a working day would have been apparent - nor the relative ranks - who was a master craftsman, who a journeyman, who still an apprentice?

This gives a sense of disorder and Saturnalia from the instant the men are sighted. It also helps explain what happens when to two 'magistrates' come on - they see the disorder and react against it. Under their token Toga, the Elizabethan would have seen a very different rank of person. Richer materials would be worn, possibly some indication of office - a mayoral chain for example - gentleman certainly, possibly knights. The way the workmen respond, taking this in mind, indicates a very dangerous state of affairs - and the Elizabethan would have seen it as a danger to the status quo - foreshadowing the civil strife to come.

If a modern production chooses to dress these characters in 'Roman' costume, we loose all sense of this distinction and danger - we cannot interpret Roman costume in the same way. If we dress 'modern' we still have to find some way of packing into the clothes meanings we don't normally identify.

Another opening, with a similar 'packing-in' of meaning, is that to Romeo and Juliet.

After the Prologue, two servants enter. How does Shakespeare show they are servants? - They wear livery.

The very concept of livery is strange to us - but was essential to Shakespeare. On the entry of the new King, James, to London, Mr William Shakespeare and some of his fellow actors were issued with a quantity of red-dyed, woollen cloth - to make the livery of the King of England. Shakespeare marched in procession, carrying the awning over the head of the King, as he entered under specially constructed arches.

The new livery was a step up for Shakespeare and his fellow actors - they had become 'The King's Men'! They had worn livery before - it protected them when they moved about the country - it marked them as the servants of 'The Admiral' and then 'The Chancellor' - each liveery different - each not just saying, I am a servant, but my Lord is so and so, my Lord is 'this important', my Lord is the King of England - so leave me alone.

I do not know how often Shakespeare wore his livery - I suspect quite a lot - especially at court - but many lowlier servants wore theirs all the time, and may higher officials also.

When the Capulet and the Montague servants appear on stage - all this meaning is carried with their clothing - and when the fight starts, in rush more people dressed out of livery - working people, ordinary people, then in comes the 'Princes' livery - and woe betide anyone ignoring that.

I have to say at this point how good the Baz Lurhmann version is in this respect - we do get the sense of difference (through design) between the fighting parties - and the police uniforms work well to identify, ‘The State’. Contrast this with the 'traditional, Renaissance set, Zefferellie version - and you see how so much is lost in the 'authentic' costuming - we do not understand the connotations of livery instinctively (and that is part of the point - intellectually I can add it, but I don't feel it at first sight).

A final point here might be to contrast the two ‘designs’ of Friar Lawrence – Milo O’Shea as the traditional brown robed priest vs. Peter Prothero’s tattooed bruiser! I know which I think is closer to the spirit of an increasingly Protestant England with growing suspicions of Catholic infiltration and invasion.

The History plays are perhaps the most difficult for us to come to contemporary terms with – but some thought given to the workings of the costumes and the props on Shakespeare’s stage does help.

Henry IV, part 2 contains the remarkable scene of young Hal ‘trying on’ the crown – to us, “So what?”

But the crown is much more than an indication of political Kingship – it is a divine symbol – to rightfully assume the crown is to be elected of God. It would ‘shock’ the audience – as it shocks Hal’s father. We can never understand the meaning, or get the same impact from the simple action of taking the crown.

When he does acquire the crown and become Henry V, he changes role, becoming no longer a Prince, but KING – which is also very difficult for modern audiences to understand. Hal never had any moral authority, Henry V does.

Just as an actor changes character with costume changes (something Bottom and his colleagues didn’t understand) so too, the man changes with the costume. Shakespeare and his actor friends went from being the servants of a nobleman to being the ‘National Theatre’, and the red cloth showed that – embodied the status.

In what is most likely Shakespeare’s first History play, Henry VI, Part 2, we have the character of Gloucester, Uncle to the Young King and Lord Protector of England. He is known as Lord Protector by the black staff he carries – it is the symbol of his office – he makes his entrance, with the King in the first scene carrying it. When he loses the office, the staff goes too – he is denuded, becoming a naked, vulnerable human being again: Prospero breaks his staff and his power goes at the end of the Tempest and the same thing happens – denudation and change.

Shakespeare must have given up his livery when he left the Kings men to return to Stratford-upon-Avon, his wife and children.

The fact that so much meaning has been lost to us, leaves great empty spaces in the text – and, more importantly, in the performance of a Shakespeare work.

To attempt to recreate the original ‘performances’ is a non-starter – we do not view the world the way they did then – we cannot understand their performances.

The empty spaces have to be filled though – and that is why Shakespeare, when performed well, is so contemporary – it has to be filled with design and direction which fits today’s worlds.

Empty Spaces

(Or: Shakespeare, Everyone’s Contemporary)

I am not interested in repeating the old ‘A’ Level arguments; the grade 12/13 and equivalent essay: Is Shakespeare relevant?

The answer is, "Yes."

If you don't like it: Go away and grow up!

My question is this:

Why are Shakespeare's plays so contemporary?

How can we find ‘Post-Holocaust Landscapes’ in Lear? How does Richard the Third become subversive in the Muslim World (and in communist Romania before the fall of the Soviet Block)?

He’s Shaikh Al-Zubair, the Bard of Basra (aka Shakespeare).

What is in Romeo and Juliet to make modern film audiences go and watch - and black and white adaptations of Macbeth into Japanese film classics?

Young starlets wanting to make a name for themselves, and tired old thespians, willingly tackle the language of 400 hundred years ago, and Egyptian academics fight over the correct way to translate it - into modern or classical Arabic.

Why do the Turks - and Kurds - value the work of this very dead, very white (when he washed), very Christian, English Man?

I think a very large part of it is not what he wrote, but what he didn’t write.

It’s the empty spaces left to be filled by the actors, designers, directors (and the audience’s) imaginations.

People forget that Shakespeare was a man of ‘The Theatre’ (and afterwards, ‘The Globe’, and ‘The Blackfriars’). Many don’t like to be reminded that the building of ‘The Theatre’ was not only cutting edge art, but also great commerce.

No one knew how to write plays for this building – but they knew they wanted to write plays that made a lot of money.

As a jobbing playwright Shakespeare was the craftsman who produced words that were the starting point of these money-making productions. He had no concept of their being works of literature to be preserved – like Bach and Mozart in music, he was expecting his works to have a very limited period of use – disappearing, sometimes before his own life was ended.

The script was incomplete – in the very real sense of Shakespeare bringing into the rehearsal rough manuscripts, which he would work on and adapt during the rehearsals as he directed.

A contemporary reference to Elizabethan Theatre mentions the fact that the playwright directing the plays was one of the more distinctive features – and one of the main reasons the standards were so good in England when compared to continental Europe.

The words were also written in the knowledge that they had to be adaptable: Different spaces and different audiences required different versions – think what happens in Hamlet to ‘The Murder of Gonzago’ – how the play is added to, and changed, at very short notice.

The complete Hamlet, in the printed text academics are now so addicted to, was never performed in Shakespeare’s theatres: It is far too long – Shakespeare would have sliced it to pieces, ruthlessly cutting much of what is now thought to be essential.

There is no way, for starters, the groundlings would have ‘stood’ for the long hours needed to go through the whole text (a six hour Hamlet!). It would have got dark anyway and no one would have seen the stage. And why waste that much energy on performing when the punters would pay for less?

Unfortunately, when it was printed, it looks like someone used the unedited rough version – not the final stage version. I don’t think it is a coincidence that the drastic cuts needed to produce a filmable script, make Hamlet much more bearable and popular (with audiences) as a film than as a stage production: Hamlet in the cinema is entertainment, at ‘The Royal Exchange Theatre’ in Manchester, a religious observance.

A lot of the stage action couldn’t be fixed in the manuscript – it would change according to which actors (and how many) were available. How many people were available to represent an army? How much space was there? Was there a pair of good swordsmen? What was popular with the audience at the time – ‘shall we slip in a favourite visual joke this time?’

The playwright needed to make minimal commitment and leave it to the rehearsals to fill in the details. Shakespeare as the writer/director, was happy to do this – after all, no one else was going to mess up his text. It is a very different world from Sam Beckett who tried to control ever detail in the script – and to achieve a minimalism on stage, not only in the script. Although he did sometimes resort to directing, he usually relied on others to ‘see through’ his text and produce the play.

Bertolt Brecht, on the other hand, was very similar to Shakespeare in the way he wrote and directed. Interestingly, he did what Shakespeare never managed, he changed the way the world produced plays: So much of what we take for granted in theatre productions today, comes from Brecht that it is mind-blowing.

Shakespeare’s outdoor ‘Theatre’ blossomed. It fruited when it turned into ‘The Globe’, but then atrophied and went to the indoor Blackfriars. And that is when Shakespeare retired to the life of an English Country Gentleman: He’d lost the stand in the cold, groundlings, and their taste for the ‘Big Issue’, and got the seat loving rich, who didn’t want the tastes of the ‘poor populace’ thrust down their throats.

Mind you, they paid well.

Where Shakespeare is more like Beckett than Brecht is in the limitation of the resources available and the great use made of that limitation.

Shakespeare had a limited number of actors, all male - in various stages of life. He could either, like Beckett, limit the number of characters, or like himself – as writer, director, actor, promoter, and profit taker - have the same actor play many parts.

The consequences of taking the latter route have contributed to his remaining contemporary.

The same man playing different parts requires the audience to be flexible – they have to accept the deceit – the man stops being a real human and becomes a cipher –a representation of something in humans rather than a real person.

How do we know who or what he is (or represents)?

Shakespeare tells us. He frequently names the person and gives us, in Picaso-like brevity, the essence of the character.

With a Picaso, you, the spectator, have to work – to fill in the blanks. A two dimensional line on the page is ‘filled’ into a three dimensional face. So with Shakespeare – you fill in from your own (contemporary) experience the characters – and the wholeness of the characters cannot be formed without your contemporanianity.

The actor playing that character is wearing costume (or not) – and in Shakespeare more than any other English writer I can think of, the costume is pregnant with meaning.

As every school child knows (!), in Elizabethan England, the actors wore Elizabethan costume – and that is all the ‘justification’ needed to ‘dress’ modern productions in the most outlandish ways imaginable – sometimes, it seems, the wilder the better.

What is lost when we do that is the very remarkable and instant effect the costume had in a production in Shakespeare’s time.

A character’s rank and standing, psychological state and religious views, as well as gender, were defined the moment an actor stepped onto the stage by the costume he was wearing. Clothes then carried meaning in a way that only a few uniforms (official, like police, or unofficial, like businessman) do nowadays.

One reason it was so easy for an actor to change roles is this defining function of clothing – just as a crown made a king, and only a true king should wear the crown – think of the disputes over the crown in Richard the Second – so every costume said something about who the character was – and a change from servant to lord required no explanation and led to no confusion; the audience ‘saw’ the role change.

You wore what you were.

The paradox is that the very effectiveness of the costumes meant that Shakespeare didn’t waste time over clarifying many of his characters – the Costume defined them for him – Now, we have to add what the visual reference contained in whatever way we can.

But this ‘emptiness’ does give us the ability, in the theatre, and in the rare cases of designers who have grasped the import of their role, to bring in what is definitive in our own societies and sub-cultures.

That does not mean ‘modern dress’! Living where I do in Eastern Europe, 1956 is a more defining moment than 2006, and setting a Shakespeare History play, say Henry the Sixth, Part Two, in Revolutionary Hungary would most likely resonate with ordinary Hungarians much more than setting it today.

However, there is a danger of superficiality in this: Too often designers mix and match leading to questionings and confusions where the Elizabethan’s had clarity.

It is also a danger in the academic world where the expectation is that the written words carry far more meaning than was originally intended. Unintentionally we give characters characteristics and motivations to fill in the gaps, not always aware of the modernity of our in-fills.

The classic case for me is Romeo and Juliet, where the idiocy and sinfulness of the joint suicide has been turned ‘arse over tit’ into beauty and divine love.

Interestingly, this re-evaluation came to me teaching Muslim students in England and North Cyprus who added their own ‘contemporariness’ and relevance to Shakespeare’s words and came up with a very different reading from the post-Romantic standard unforgivably droned out in a thousand classrooms and lecture theatres across the United Kingdom, and beyond.

(To be continued)

bardseyeview: Shakespeare and Judaism

bardseyeview: Shakespeare and Judaism

Another view on Shylock well worth taking into consideration.