RTÉ's recent radio series Macbeth in Monaghan brought back some disturbing memories. Its location in my home county was an alliterative accident, following last year's Lear in Longford. Presumably Hackballscross and Harmonstown are now rival bidders to host the series on Hamlet. But the title meant that this year's version included students from my own Alma Mater: the Patrician Brothers' High School, Carrickmacross, writes Frank McNally
Hearing the familiar lines delivered in the familiar accents was like one of those recorded segments they used to play on This is Your Life. Suddenly I was back in my old classroom as my Leaving Cert year wrestled with the play. Acting was not one of our strong points, sadly, so without meaning to, we exacerbated the tragedy. Macbeth only murdered King Duncan once. We murdered him every day for a year.
"The Scottish Play", as superstitious actors call it, is synonymous with bad luck. But it's a fortunate coincidence for students that this year's Leaving Cert will follow closely upon a general election. Macbeth is about the winning and losing of power, after all. And its plot revolves around a very early form of something that will dominate the coming campaign: the focus group.
Everything that Macbeth does is based on advice given to him by three witches - "the weird sisters" - who claim they can foresee the future. This, remember, was long before the amusing concept of giving the people a say in running the country, and it was a full 400 years before politicians realised they had to do whatever Frank Luntz tells them to win an election. So the methodology used by the Weird Sisters - magic spells and potions - is somewhat crude by modern standards.
Or maybe not. Frank Luntz's ability to divine the public mood appears to have magical elements too. It shouldn't be a surprise to people to find out what they think; and yet, with the US guru's methodology, it often is. British Conservatives barely knew who David Cameron was until Luntz's focus groups identified him as their obvious leader. Having taken the gamble, they can only hope that the British people will in time prove grateful for getting what the guru says they want.
So in retrospect, the Weird Sisters' research methods - stewing human and animal body parts and reciting incantations in bad verse - is perhaps not as mad as it sounds. The main thing is it works. They forecast that Macbeth will be king, that his children will not, but that nobody "of woman born" can harm him in the meantime. All of which proves accurate, at least within the bounds of poetic license.
Of course the predictions are deliberately vague in places, presenting the protagonist with a dilemma. He is apparently destined for the top. So should he just keep his nose clean and wait for Duncan to pop his clogs, or does destiny need a helping hand? Students may see this dilemma at work in the forthcoming election campaign. You can almost imagine Enda Kenny as Macbeth (work with me here, kids) saying: "If chance may have me king, why, chance may crown me, without my stir."
For him, the problem will be whether to risk presenting policies dramatically different from the Government's. Or to adopt a softly, softly approach, hoping the electorate will just tire of the incumbent and opt for a fresh face offering more of the same with superior management skills.
But getting back to the play, Macbeth chooses action: tabling a motion of no confidence in Duncan by the traditional Scottish method of slaughtering him in his bed. Whereupon disaster ensues. Soon the Weird Sisters present the bill for their services, which - in the way of political consultancy - is enormous.
For students who hate Shakespeare, Macbeth has one crowning virtue: it's the shortest of his 37 plays. This may be a factor in its reputation for bad luck, which is sometimes credited to the incantations. The calamities that befall productions may have rational explanations in that, being short, the play can be a late and under-rehearsed addition to repertoire. Throw in dark sets and sword-work and you have a recipe for disaster, without the help of witches.
Even non-acting Shakespeare lovers have problems with Macbeth, however. There was something of a backlash against the Bard a few months ago, when a number of prominent admirers conceded that there are weak bits in his plays. The belief is that he was sometimes drunk, hung over, or under severe deadline pressure when he wrote (situations with which many journalists will be familiar); and that only this can explain lines like Hamlet's
". . . take arms against a sea of troubles".
Macbeth's final plot twist is also a prime exhibit for the prosecution. Like a man belatedly studying the small-print of his life assurance policy, the main character discovers that his inviolability to "one of woman born" does not cover Macduff, who "was from his mother's womb untimely ripp'd". If you could get penalty points on your poetic licence, Shakespeare would have incurred at least four for that.
Even in the Scotland of the Middle Ages, Caesarean sections cannot have been such an invasive procedure as to deprive the mother of all credit for the pregnancy. These days, of course, the operation can be a lifestyle choice. The Leaving Cert class of 2007 must include a sizeable number of children born to women who were too posh to push, and such deliveries multiply every year. If Shakespeare is to be believed, marginal elections could soon be decided by a cohort of voters not of woman born. And then we'll all be in trouble.