Fred Haas

@heymrsbond.com Just read the NPR piece you where you were featured. Congratulations. I hope you were happy with the piece. As a journalism teacher, I appreciate your willingness to talk to the press, as well as your take on the topic. Plus, the pictures were great.

That’s a penalty. Troussard dives in and doesn’t get the ball, colliding with Wirtz. The quality of refereeing in the Premier League continues to be an absolute joke. It’s only gotten worse since adopting VAR too.

Album Cover for Steve Earle’s “I Feel Alright” cover art by Tony Fitzpatrick

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, or Alice In Chains

It also capitalizes on how often deaths in Shakespeare happen offstage. What possibilities there are theatrically for a production, when the actor playing MacDuff reappears with a head in his hands!

A5: Arguably my favorite. The greatest introduction to Shakespeare, in my opinion. It is lean, extraordinarily dramatic, & races with a pace that borders on relentless. It contains some of the greatest soliloquies, a fantastic female role, & some of the best theatrical possibility #SundayMacbethChat

A4 cont’d: This is ambition that is synonymous with desire (lust), vanity (pride), and fueled by envy. It is a feast of sins that fills Macbeth with ambition and the choice that proves his complete undoing. It’s the cautionary tale; it is what awaits those who submit to do evil.
#SundayMacbethChat

A4: Don’t remember if i read it somewhere but the play is about ambition, in its purest, oldest form. Macbeth says as much, “I have no spur/To prick the sides of my intent, but only/Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself/And falls on the other.”
#SundayMacbethChat

A3: It is wonderfully in synch with the essential nature of the play. It is all downhill from Act I Scene iii accelerating at intervals, Act II Sc i, Act III, Sc iv, and Act IV Sc i. That means a racing, flash-bang disintegration in Act V toward a violent & immediate correction
#SundayMacbethChat

A2 4: There is no light left for him, only darkness, and he knows. He’s always known from the moment he slayed Duncan and can no longer sleep. It is a tragedy, that such a great warrior fell afoul. He could not resist temptation.
#SundayMacbethChat

A2 3: it is in this moment, this soliloquy, where he knows his choices give him no salvation, & he recognizes the endless emptiness of all he had once hoped to do, be. There is a culmination of sorts just later in, “I gin to be aweary of the sun.”
#SundayMacbethChat

A2 2+: And what he sees is nothing. Most of all I firmly believe it is the news that L Macbeth’s dying that tips him over the edge. Once she is gone, he is truly left with nothing. He is alone, completely. He knows hellhounds are hunting him. There is no reprieve, no recovery
#SundayMacbethChat

A2 1+: So much in this speech. In a number of ways, I believe this is the kind of climax/nadir of the whole play. It is the highest, most poetical moment of Macbeth’s journey & yet it is also his most bleak, nihilist sentiment. It is one man’s glimpse into the abyss & what he sees
#SundayMacbethChat

A1 cont’d: Also, a quick rebalancing is a must given Macbeth’s surrender to naked ambition & nihilism. It’s all too dark, chaotic, & destructive to be allowed to continue. That to me is part of its cautionary quality. To utter, life is “full of sound and fury,/ Signifying nothing.” Is too bleak.

A1: Always felt like there is no other way to end the play. It has to be fast given the speed of the play. There also needs to be a swift remedy to counter the hastiness of Macbeth’s assassination & usurpation. The world must be righted, his decapitation is the first step. #SundayMacbethChat

I think he missed his chance, & so many things pick up steam so quickly there really isn’t time. It is almost an afterthought, once he comes unglued at dinner & then revisits the witches, the next scene he appears he is already under siege by rebellion to his rule.

Macbeth must believe that he is different. He has already come the realization “For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind.” But he tempts Fate & beckons it to “champion [him] to the utterance.” Regardless, he remains king & will do anything to secure his reign

A5 2/2: In defiling his mind, he invites the scorpions, and engages in the ultimate self-deception, falsely believing he might be different, which serves as his fatal flaw. It is his undoing & begins his descent into a dark, nihilistic agent of chaos that must be defeated #SundayMacbethChat

A5 1/2: No, especially in context of the play, deception involves insincerity, and sincerity is a requirement for truth. Another ingredient of truth is its potential hardness, which may require difficulty, challenge, even pain or sacrifice. Macbeth deceives all, especially himself #SundayMacbethChat

MacDuff is every much the loyal servant to the rightful king that Macbeth is not. He is a mirror in many ways, honest, empathetic, supportive, humble, trying to steel Malcolm for what lies before them. Yet, once he must face the loss of his family, he is fueled by bloody vengeance
#SundayMacbethChat

A3: She & kids are sacrificial lambs of the nation. MacDuff must leave w/out believing Macbeth would go so low as to kill his family. Yet, L MacDuff has to know the danger she faces & evil capacity of men. The scene is a painful revelation of the dishonesty in men & violent doom
#SundayMacbethChat

Always felt he knows he is already damned on return. He knows choices made, although he could not have anticipated the depth of consequence and complexity he must face. It is another step further into darkness to remain in power, not hopeless yet. He is still king, for now, but always under threat

A2 2/2: As king, he knows he is now a target. Any threat must be neutralized. This scene he realizes there is no limit to the blood spilling to remain king. It all builds to the darkest, evil moment involving MacDuff. Macbeth decides to murder his whole family, especially his kids
#SundayMacbethChat

A2 1/2: Returning to the witches seals his bond with the prophecy he chose to realize. He has already murdered multiple people to gain the crown. As a killer, he knows blood begets blood. He is wading in it. Seeing Banquo’s line, he must assure his reign for as long as possible.
#SundayMacbethChat

A1: Witches are the physical embodiment of all the dark, magic, mysterious, temptation, and fate. The beginning of Act IV is a kind of midpoint for the play, when all seems even more bleak, the reveal another darker door to Hell for Macbeth to choose pass thru. They’re necessary

#SundayMacbethChat

If I were directing, I think would suggest to the others that Macbeth might give it away when he admits to murdering the guilty guards in fit of passion for the dead Duncan. No witnesses has to raise antennae for at the very least MacDuff but also others. There needs to be some suspicion at dinner.

I mean, unless you can produce some cool stage magic effects, which certainly are possible, I think they can be more powerful when an actor is interacting with forces invisible to the audience but clearly present onstage. #SundayMacnethChat

A5: Ghosts always raise the stakes. They definitely had more purchase in Shakespeare’s time. Add witches in Macbeth, supernatural & dark forces abound, giving every element an extraordinary quality to heighten the drama. More in favor of imagined ghosts over realized ones #SundayMacbethChet

Agreed 100% I think there have to be Thanes who are against them at the dinner, some more obviously so. That scene will be even more dramatic if there are. There can be so much happening in that scene.

There is a great lore about the great Moscow Art Theatre actor Michael Chekov mesmerizing audiences with a ghost of the imagination. That was the first time I’d heard of that take.

This might be the most interesting take I’ve seen. It would be even more interesting if the same actor played both roles.