A Macbeth Halloween

      'Tis Halloween this night. We beyond the violet mist feel the magic magnified a hundredfold as the violet mist pervades the lands on both sides. It might be noted that not only is this a Halloween, but still more it is in the year 2013, a particularly good year for the mysterious and fantastical, as well as for rhyming (Halloween, twenty-thirteen), and a nice-looking date: October 31, 2013, or 10-31-13 (because, you know, 31 is 13 in reverse. Nifty, isn’t it?). In this, our literature class, Macbeth’s discussions have fallen in line rather well with this season of enchantment. We have been particularly discussing Lady Macbeth and her soliloquies and conversations with Macbeth and the many different interpretations of the Lady. We saw various videos of several actresses portraying her, each from different angles. One actress, from a stage production in an American replica of Shakespeare’s Globe, emphasized how happily married the Macbeths are and how there was a feeling that if they encouraged one another and didn’t let one another quit, between them they could accomplish anything, even if that thing happened to be something like, say, assassinating the king. In the other video we watched individually, though, Lady Macbeth was portrayed as almost a witch herself, dark and ominous and evil to the core, quite Halloween-ish and even slightly horror-film-esque.
      Even their physical appearances were largely different; the Lady in the stage production had golden blonde, gently waved hair and was slightly older, and had sort of a softer, kinder face, while the Lady in the movie clip had raven black, shortly-cropped hair and ghostly white skin, and though she looked in the same ballpark of the age of the other actress, she had a more haunted, less gentle face. Not to say that the former Lady Macbeth was some sort of cuddly grandmother-woman; indeed, she was far from it, slamming Macbeth forcefully against a door and speaking sharply to him. Still, she was somehow centering all her actions on the idea that her character was only acting and speaking out of her love for Macbeth and her belief that he deserved better, and that he could get it if only he would do what he had to do. The latter Lady Macbeth seems cold and filled with darkness; it almost seems she hardly needs to call on the spirits of darkness, for they may well already be in her.
      I found some of the effects in the movie-type version interesting as well. Before the second Lady says “the raven himself is hoarse,” a raven crows in a silent pause, and the single sound echoes powerfully through the chambers of the castle. After she finishes reading the letter from Macbeth, she opens a metal door that is almost cage-like, making an eerie, loud clattering sound. She says most of her lines as though she is speaking incantations. Her ghostly white gown flutters in a preternatural breeze as the forcefulness of her voice builds towards the end of the soliloquy. The gentler Lady Macbeth seems to have less opportunity for sound effects, but still her performance feels balanced and well done. It is much warmer where the other is colder. Light does filter strangely through a door at the side of the stage (the one against which she throws her husband) but there is less done with sounds and props. She speaks to her beloved husband with passion, almost as though giving him a rough sort of pep talk, energizing him and encouraging him to claim what she believes he deserves. Her gown is a lovely purple, bright and warm like her, and equally passionate and even volatile like her. In the commentary on the video of the stage production, I found it interesting where one person noted that the play is named Macbeth, not “Lady Macbeth and some guy she lives with”, which is what some performances of Macbeth may become when the Lady dominates the play. It is hard to say from the other video whether the Lady will overshadow her husband or not, as the clip was only her soliloquy and the only person with whom she interacted was a messenger, and that briefly.
      I think both interpretations of the play were strong. I perhaps preferred the lighter version, if only because I like to think of the Lady Macbeth as a somewhat good-hearted character, even if she is inciting her husband to murder, as perhaps it might be due to her love and hopes for him rather than greed for herself. The darker Lady Macbeth was a good interpretation as well, though, and certainly more Halloween-y and witch-like or ghostly, or even vampire-ish in coloration. She was most definitely a powerful woman, and clearly taken with evil and forces of the night. The people of the violet mist feel slightly odd that their typical sort of mysterious wrap-up sentence came at the start of the writing, and so feel the need to write some sort of “beyond the violet mist” wrap-up statement here. We beyond the violet mist wish you a Halloween filled to the brim with shimmering magic and must now post this while it remains Halloween.