Macbeth and His Problems

What’s important and complex in Shakespeare plays, is not what it’s written, but what’s left to the interpretation of the director, or even of the public — the ambiguities, the imperfections, that let us imagine the motivations of the characters (as the article points - the motives are clear but not the motivations), and let us perceive their emotions, feel their reactions, mixed with ours.

Exactly what generative AI doesn't let you do.

But basically I don't think those problems are all meant to be solved

Yes, the supernatural events described on stage are very difficult to pull off even with modern effects. But they were impossible with Jacobean setups. And that's kind of the point

There is always a tension between what is seen and spoken in that play. We're meant to get the sense that Macbeth is partly talking himself into his frenzy

Supernatural events happen but they kind of have a bathetic, eye-rolling quality to them, like the prophecy that "Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him"

Which YEAH, it does, in that Macbeth's enemies construct a bunch of battering rams from the forest timber. You are supposed to groan at that. Magic is way weaker than any of the human beings and their ordinary vices

The crowd loved the short five-night run, last time. It made all the papers, tickets sold out, tourists rocked up for it.

Seven actors were injured, in a space that usually saw one injury a year. Six were ruled unavoidable by the fire warden doing the post-assessments.

I’ll see myself out.