Customer Reviews
Thoughts on Macbeth - By: Gary Selikow, 16 Jun 2008 
Macbeth is the story of a generalin the army of King Duncan of Scotland, who is approached by three witches, who plant the seeds of ruthless ambitionin his mind, by predicting that he will be made King of Scotland.
He invites King Duncan to his castle, where encouraged by his, wife, he murders him.
He manipulates events to become King, & embarks on a reign of bloody tyranny, having all killed who standin his way, or who he suspects may do so.
Macbeth is the story of tyranny & ambition. It is also the story of inner struggles & of Macbeth's own diseased imagination.
The primary villains of the play are the three witches. They do not simply predict, but indeed their soul aim is to sow evil & destruction wherever they can: " Fair is foul & foul is fair. Hover through the fog & filthy air."
Their motto seems to be an apt encapsulation of the dominant 21st century worldview. Indeed Orwell & Kafka where to predict a similar world where truth would be lies & lies would be truth, good would be evil & evil would be good, war would be peace & peace would be war. This twisted view of the witches is the worldview of Bolshevism & leftism today, where terrorists & dictators are lauded as `revolutionary heroes' & those who defend against the former are vilified & reviled.
The three witches of today are academia, the media & the United Nations.
Lady Macbeth is but a pale shadow of the witches. She encourages her husbandin his evil, but is destroyed by her own guilt.
She needs to call on the evil spirits to `unsex' her & fill her with the direst cruelty, but at the end `all the perfumes of Arabia' cannot wash away the guilt of her deeds.
The plea to be unsexed is relevant to the sexlesness of the cruel Bolshevik women of the last century & of women terrorists & women leftwing academics. These are generally sexless & totally cruelin pursuing revolution & the destruction of Judeo-Christian civilization.
Lady Macbeth was outwardly beautiful but most of these unsexed women of the revolution have not. Unlike Lady Macbeth they have achieved the being of the three witches for whom they resemble.
The play is indeed full of rich irony- how Macbeth persuades the three murderers that Banquo is responsible for their misfortunes, twisting the truth to suit his unholy ends as the media so often does today.
Macbeth is brought to justice for his deeds. His arrogance is his downfall.
The benevolent influence though,in this story is the doctor of physic - the voice of compassion & religion who says while attempting to heal Lady Macbeth- "More she needs the divine than the physician-G-D, G-D forgive us all"
The greatest Lady Macbeth since Judi Dench - By: , 22 Mar 2006 OK: so it's a bit odd to review a performance of "Macbeth" & single out Lady Macbeth. Just as it is to compare an audio performance to a live one - they are, of course, massively different.
That said, Fiona Shaw's performance as Lady Macbeth is astoundingly good & real. Every word feels thought & every phrase feels new. It really is a remarkable piece of characterisation & performance. Stephen Dillane, though not Shaw's match, is a thoughtful & aware Macbeth.
It's a must own, for Shaw alone, but there are many pleasures to this great rendition of a great play.
Lay on, Macduff! - By: Daniel Jolley, 28 Nov 2002 While I was basically familiar with Shakespeare's Tragedy of Macbeth, I have only recently actually read the bard's brilliant play. The drama is quite dark & moody, but this atmosphere serves Shakespeare's purposes well. In Macbeth, we delve deeply into the heart of a true fiend, a man who would betray the king, who showers honors upon him,in a vainglorious snatch at power. Yet Macbeth is not 100% evil, nor is he a truly brave soul. He waxes & wanes over the execution of his nefarious plans, & he thereafter finds himself haunted by the blood on his own hands & by the ethereal spirits of the innocent men he has had murdered. On his own, Macbeth is much too cowardly to act so traitorously to his kind & his country. The source of true evilin these pages is the cold & calculating Lady Macbeth; it is she who plots the ultimate betrayal, forcefully pushes her husband to perform the dreadful acts, & cleans up after him when he loses his nerve. This extraordinary woman is the lynchpin of man's eternal fascination with this drama. I find her behavior a little hard to account forin the closing act, but she looms over every single male character we meet here, be he king, loyalist, nobleman, courtier, or soldier. Lady Macbeth is one of the most complicated, fascinating, unforgettable female charactersin all of literature.
The plot does not seem to move along as well as Shakespeare's other most popular dramas, but I believe this is a result of the writer's intense focus on the human heart rather than the secondary activity that surrounds the related royal events. It is fascinating if sometimes rather disjointed reading. One problem I had with this playin particular was one of keeping up with each of the many characters that appearin the tale; the English of Shakespeare's time makes it difficult for me to form lasting impressions of the secondary characters, of whom there are many. Overall, though, Macbeth has just about everything a great drama needs: evil deeds, betrayal, murder, fighting, ghosts, omens, cowardice, heroism, love, and, as a delightful bonus, mysterious witches. Very many of Shakespeare's more famous quotes are also to be foundin these pages, making it an important cultural resource for literary types. The play doesn't grab your attention & absorb you into its world the way Hamlet or Romeo & Juliet does, but this voyage deep into the heart of evil, jealousy, selfishness, & pride forces you to consider the state of your own deep-seated wishes & dreams, & for that reason there are as many interpretations of the essence of the tragedy as there are readers of this Shakespearean masterpiece. No man's fall can rival that of Macbeth's, & there is a great object lesson to be foundin this drama. You cannot analyze Macbeth without analyzing yourself to some degree, & that goes a long way toward accounting for the Tragedy of Macbeth's literary importance & longevity.
Not dark enough - By: , 02 Nov 2002 
I was disappointed by this CD, particularly as the Naxos recording of King Lear with Schofield is so fine & the Richard III with Branagh a worthy production. Dillane, rated as a fine actor, fails badly to convey the steel & darkness of Macbeth for the early part of this play. Famous soliloquies,'Is this a dagger' fall flat. Later, he improves but fails yet to hit the heights. Finoa Shaw as Lady Macbeth, however, is magnificent. The CD also has some annoying quirks of recording, one scene sounding as if it has been recordedin a shower room
Cleverly crafted and tragicaly true - By: , 28 Jul 1999 Shakespeare's cleverness shows throughin Macbeth,in my mind one of his greatest plays. By appealing to ALL components of his audience, from James I (via Banquo's royal progeny) to the uneducated & superstitious groundlings (via witches & ghosts), Shakespeare created a timeless classic. Macbeth's tragic flaw, "vaulting ambition," ultimately causes his downfall; this downfall serves as an ultimate, meaningful, & universal warning: while ambition may cause a person to risein status & prestige, too much ambition may cause a person to both lose touch with reality & improve his/her status by any means possible (including murder). Suspense & mystery, combined with mystical superstition, believable characters, eerily vivid descriptions, & universal themes, make Macbeth a wonderful play to read, to interpret, & to analyze.
