An ancient engine leaves the stage, after driving around two killers : ‘Eumenidi’ by Aeschilous has just been well performed and directed by Davide Livermore at the ‘Greek Theater’ of Siracusa (Sicily) last July-August 2021. Excellently then Davide Livermore put again the same matter into ‘Macbeth’, in these days at ‘Teatro alla Scala’ of Milan https://www.teatroallascala.org  : an elegant auto-mobile of ancient times driven on the stage as un-chargeable means of murder. (‘Eumenidi’ was commented in ‘Discharging anxiety in the Law Court of gods’ https://tutorsalus.net/https://www.tutorsalus.net/index.php/en/events-2/289-anxiety-absolved-in-the-law-court-of-gods).

 

 

“…Hie thee hither

 

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear;

 

And chastise with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes thee from the  golden round

Which fate and metaphysical aid doth seem

To have thee crown'd withal.[1]»

 

Not so many feminine serial killers we have indeed, but Lady Macbeth can wear with elegance the role, as the character offers both the application and the slipping shade which William Shakespeare thought when he didn’t really define the Lady, in his shortest tragedy, opening then to the actress, time by time, the chance to personalize her as our main enemy.

The woman risen to Lady of nobleman Macbeth urges his man so that he could come back again to accept her tongue turning to masculine, so pouring into his ears the cruel and necessary know-how from which he is now impeded. A victim then Lord Macbeth himself ?

The losing nobleman, caught by the lust of  a ‘parvenu’ for a kingdom which will be defeated, is  victim indeed of his own keeping really ‘unmarried’[2], that is his shy interest in woman mind and remaining out-doors, virgin and unuseful.

As far as Lady Macbeth is concerned, she is suffering on her unfair side of the world, as she is female and not male : but we are curious about this present actress, well directed now by Davide Livermore for ‘Teatro alla Scala’ of Milan, because she ‘has’ to be pleased by evil…

And that game can be a hazard too, as we unfortunately know when we can’t acknowledge the evil in our own children.

 

                                                                                        Marina Bilotta Membretti, Cernusco sul Naviglio – December 28, 2021

 

 

[1] ‘Macbeth’ (1605-1608), by W.Shakespeare - Atto I scena V

[2] ‘The dream of the ‘married man’’, in ‘THINK!’ by Giacomo B. Contri – June 25, 2007.