Macbeth in Jerusalem
Macbeth in Jerusalem.
On the Motza’ei Shabbat before the Israeli elections, we attended the opening night performance of Shakespeare’s Macbeth at the Khan Theatre in Jerusalem.
Having spent years teaching the play, I was curious to see how an Israeli theatre company would interpret it some 420 years after it was written.
Historically, Shakespeare wrote Macbeth for King James I. One can’t avoid Shakespeare was pandering to the King. Shakespeare incorporated several elements particularly calculated to appeal to him: his praise of Duncan, the plot against Duncan’s life, and the presence of witchcraft—all themes that resonated with King James’s own interests and preoccupations. The playwright’s unequivocal denunciation of blind ambition and its inevitably tragic consequences presumably helped keep Shakespeare in the king’s good graces.
There are more than 30 named characters in the play. This presents a nightmare for any theatre company. The production we saw reduced the cast to five actors, three of whom played multiple roles, distinguished by frequent costume changes. It took a while to acclimatise to the idea of Banquo doubling as a witch—and even as his own murderer! Yes, in this production, even the dead come back to life, and not just, as in this case, in the form of Banquo’s ghost.
Once one gets the hang of it, however, this theatrical device works remarkably well. It also holds up a mirror to Israeli society, whose divisions are manifold and complex and constantly changing. One can walk the streets of Jerusalem and encounter enough competing identities and conflicting narratives to appreciate the theatrical logic.
Macbeth and his wicked wife lack the patience to allow the witches’ prophecies to unfold in their own time. Instead, they take matters into their own hands, forcing the prophecies to come true through violence. Macbeth anticipates the consequences of his actions: “Blood will have blood,” he declares. The murder of Duncan precipitates his descent into madness, which is mirrored by his wife’s tortured demise.
It is only in the final speech of the play that Shakespeare alludes to the political upheaval wrought by the Macbeths:
As calling home our exiled friends abroad,
That fled the snares of watchful tyranny.
I am not suggesting that citizens have fled Israel, although it has been documented that many did return in the hope of political change.
I found the setting of the play particularly compelling. The action does not take place in castles or courts. Instead it takes place in Macbeth’s home. The kitchen sink provides the water Lady Macbeth uses in her futile attempts to wash away King Duncan’s blood, while above it hangs the knife Macbeth uses to murder him. These simple, familiar domestic details make the play and its themes more accessible and relatable. The horrors of ambition and political violence are brought into the intimacy of an ordinary home, so that this production is almost an ode to domestic violence.
In my capacity as an English teacher, I have taught Macbeth at least 15 times over the past 42 years. It was fascinating to encounter a production that made this familiar play feel fresh again—and, in its own way, particularly relevant to contemporary political abuse in Israeli society.
The leading actor’s descent into madness, however, was tinged with histrionics. By the end of the play, he was writhing on the ground like a snake trying to swallow its own tail. To my eye, this physical contortion was superfluous. After all, Shakespeare relied on words to convey what physical acting cannot. Sometimes less is more, particularly when the words are Shakespeare’s.
Shakespeare was a brilliant dramatist. His understanding of human nature has arguably never been surpassed in the English language. He understood what lay beneath the motivations of his greatest characters.
Before murdering King Duncan, Macbeth is already aware of what will befall him should he go through with the deed:
I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o’erleaps itself
And falls on th’ other.
In other words, he admits that his only motivation is ambition: which propels him beyond reason towards the abyss.
This same blind ambition has led leaders in every generation to seek power and cling to it for as long as they can. When we look at the leaders of so many countries, we find men and women well into their seventies and eighties, seemingly reluctant to contemplate life beyond the corridors of power. We tend to forget that they cannot defeat biology. There is a reason the retirement age for men in Israel is 67.
In part, it is due to Shakespeare’s human insights, that his tragedies remain relevant today. Lear, Hamlet, Othello and Macbeth remain timeless masterpieces to the complexities of human nature.
The Khan theater have presented the public with an insightful and unique interpretation of Macbeth. In particular, the Hebrew translation remains as close to the playwrite’s prose as it possibly can.
My kitchen sink hasn’t looked the same since I watched Lady Macbeth’s futile attempt trying to wash Duncan’s imaginary blood from her hands. Since watching the play I can’t stop cleaning it