Mimesis | On Interpretations

As a little girl, my mother would routinely whisk us away to Philadelphia — a short drive from our home — to encounter the arts. We wandered the maze-like art museum and watched contemporary dance shows in glass-walled performance halls. I once walked the runway for a family friend in fashion school, dressed in pink and blue ruffles. A picture of me exists in that outfit, blowing a kiss to the audience. I remember these moments in fragments of color and the carsickness that followed our encounters with traffic. 

While we frequented grand locations, my most cherished and well-remembered was a brick building, only blocks from the Schuylkill River. Its first-floor windows, some of which hold AC units to ward off the summer heat, are barred. A set of double doors welcomes us to the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theatre.

From the outside, 2111 Sansom St. does not look like a church. Sometimes I imagine that I hallucinated the high-ceilinged rooms and symbols of Christ — there was always sunshine seeping into every corner of the place. A black cat greets us, rubbing its head on the wall. The stage is up a set of stairs and through another door. It is a bare platform only slightly raised. The walls and seats are black, and blue lights trace the room’s perimeter.

We were there to see a reimagined “Othello,” set in the height of the 1920s. Iago plotted in suspenders and a tie, Desdemona died with a pixie cut. At that age, I was generally unable to follow the Old English that clashed with the backdrop of an ambiguous American city.

Shakespeare is in the public domain, meaning that his work may be modified and used freely. In theater, these decisions occur within the limits of what is possible on stage. However, film directors take great liberties in their interpretations of Shakespeare’s greatest.

Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film adaptation of “Macbeth” remains true to the original’s period and location. While the film’s visual appeal is strong, offering misty shots of Scottish highlands and beaches, its perspective on the cast of characters lacks accuracy. 

My encounter with “Othello” proves that one needn’t maintain closeness to the original play to still put on a good show. It represents a combination in which the script was unaltered, but the setting was far removed from its source material. I think interpretations of Shakespeare generally fall into two distinct categories — loose retellings that take significant liberties in plot and setting, such as “10 Things I Hate About You” and “Taming of the Shrew,” or versions that present the drama with the richness and technology of film, leaving most content unchanged. 

Kurzel’s “Macbeth” represents the latter, but notably alters Lady Macbeth’s character and the ending. He portrays Lady Macbeth as a grieving mother who kills herself out of guilt for allowing her husband to execute a fellow mother and her children. The film strips Lady Macbeth of her malevolence and thirst for power, reducing her to a devoted wife and morally driven character. In fact, the portrayal of evil women is entirely absent at large. The Weird Sisters do not converse with their original deviance and evil tone. Kurzel portrays them as grim and mysterious beings but writes their personalities out of his film.

The Weird Sisters’ prophecies suggest that Banquo will father a line of kings, insinuating that his son Fleance will rise to the throne. In the play, Fleance escapes murder but does not return. His fate is left open to interpretation, but audience members can assume that he is alive and will eventually take the crown. Kurzel explicitly shows Fleance appearing out of the forest to take Macbeth’s discarded sword — overtly reminding viewers of his importance.

I like Kurzel’s “Macbeth.” However, it ironically shies away from trust in the audience to understand the characters and their motives. I believe that creative liberties are risky business when it comes to Shakespeare, and I wouldn’t say Kurzel’s imagining “simplifies” the story for the sake of digestibility.

I don’t want to come across as the Shakespeare police, but I do wonder what the production process looked like for Kurzel. Why make Lady Macbeth sympathetic? What makes the Weird Sisters scary to begin with? Shakespeare’s dramas offer creatives the opportunity to shape existing stories into something new. But at what point does their work become a new entity? 

I think all interpretations have value. I think Kurzel’s cinematography is stunning. I listened to the soundtrack from beginning to end twice. What I remember is the grit of Scotland and the gray, tan, green, black and red color palette. I remember the tears and the fighting and the monologues. Like the Roaring ’20s version of “Othello,” Kurzel’s “Macbeth” is something entirely new.

After the show, we’d descend into a bright room full of long, wooden tables. We’d eat Wawa hoagies and hunt around for a restroom. Too young to digest the tragedy, I’d busy myself with coloring books and watching out the car window on our drive home. I still remember the man who played Iago, his hair gray, a goatee and mustache decorating his face. 

To this day, I imagine Iago in that actor’s image. In high school, I acted out the drama in class with plastic swords and feathered foam hats. I learned that Shakespeare himself may not have written all of his plays in the first place, taking credit for the work of unnamed and forgotten artists. 

Interpretations of Shakespeare are popular not only because they are accessible to create, but because they are inhabited by richly flawed and decidedly human characters. Kurzel’s vision of Lady Macbeth may have arisen out of the image of a woman in his life. His portrayal of the ending may reflect his imagination, choosing a future for Fleance that he would wish for a son of his own.