Love’s Merchant MacBeth

MacBeth is hard to be deemed lovable, and if he is a merchant of sorts, he is one of lives—kill kill kill. On that positive note:

MacBeth is quite riveting. I admit—I do love the tragedies. They are rough and saddening and I do not always love or pity the tragic hero right away or completely, but as always, Shakespeare questions an angle, an aspect of humanity. Frankly, I was waiting for MacBeth to impress me, and I was impatient with the fated fool. But he does it, somewhere in his plotting and his wife’s ranting, he runs out a discourse infused with morality and questioning.

Love’s Labour’s Lost . . . hmm, the women have the power in this comedy, and I do enjoy that. Perhaps it was the version I chose (edited by Jonathon Bate and Eric Rasmussen), somehow I think not, but this is quite the bawdy play. My guess is the Folger Shakespeare Library version would have much less explication of the sexual innuendoes in its side notes, but none the less, some of them are quite obvious. Dirty sex jokes aside, Shakespeare took a direct blow at convention and sappy sonneteers as the men are instructed that it takes more than weepy antics to capture the trust of a woman and prove love true.

The Merchant of Venice is again, a very different comedy. This is why I love Shakespeare—although there are repeated themes and events, and although he seemed to lack an imagination for names, each play is separate somehow, and owns a piece of the audience. The villain, Shylock, is difficult to despise. He is not an Iago or an Edmund, whispering plans to the audience intimately; he is not a Claudio, marked by fratricide or a Polonius, nosy and obnoxious. Although all these villains have frighteningly human characteristics, they are less than deserving of pity and fail to redeem themselves, with perhaps the exception of Edmund. Shylock, though, is not only aware of his dislike for Antonio but it is  a reasonable dislike. It is Antonio who seems to be without excuse for his behavior—Antonio’s hatred of Shylock is similar to Iago’s dislike of Othello: “I hate the Moor.” Shylock asks for respect, to not be treated as a dog, reasoning that there is no difference between a Jew and a Christian outside of belief—the two are human and equal. This is why I love Shakespeare!! His audience, late 16^th and early 17^th century England, would have been with the “heroes,” highly anti-Semitic, yet it is Shylock, the Jew, who is given the voice of reason, even if only for a moment.

Next . . . I am not sure—perhaps Romeo and Juliet, simply because I have not read it, but for sure at least a couple of live plays. Shakespeare Santa Cruz is putting on Othello and Love’s Labour’s Lost, for which I am thrilled!!