a tale told by an idiot

You know how sometimes you’re in the park watching “Macbeth” at the Shakespeare Festival? You’re outside. It’s just a lovely evening. Someone has thoughtfully procured tickets to the theatre as a birthday present for you. And you know how you sit in your seat, tapping your toe, waiting impatiently for the show to start? Never mind that the old man next to you is really very large and apparently sleepy and starting to snore before the show even begins. You wish him sweet dreams, poppy, as long as he doesn’t topple over onto you.

Because you are laser focused on that stage.

And then you know how the show finally starts, with a thrill, with a rush? You’re engrossed. Nothing can distract you. Not even that vague smell of pastrami or some other cured meat wafting from the general direction of Sleepy Old Man.

And you know how the story unfolds and Macbeth murders Duncan, the king, and is plagued by memories of the ghastly deed and mocked by his horrible shrew wife and it’s all very intense and you’re rapt with attention, even though people around you are reciting the lines along with the actors, which you’re only doing in your head, thinking this somehow makes you the better person?

Minor irritations, truly. You are edge-of-your-seat enthralled.

And then you know how sometimes ALL the seals at the nearby zoo start barking and bellowing in dreadful, insistent unison?

Oh, you know how it goes. Macbeth is wigging out:

“How is’t with me, when every noise appalls me?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

Macbeth sees blood, only blood:

“Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARR AR ARR ARRR ARR ARR ARRR!!!

“No; this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red!”

ARR ARRR ARR ARRR ARRR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARRR ARR ARRRRRRRRRRR!!!

And you know how you’re trying to stifle the rising waves of laughter, because the juxtaposition is just too much, but this is the Old Globe Theatre, after all, and you’re allegedly an adult and someone was brave enough to risk taking you out in public and you’re still allegedly an adult — you’re a year older, for Pete’s sake — and you owe it to him to behave like one?

Then you glance at him and he is shaking, head bowed. Laughing. And you, grownup that you are, poke him and he looks at you, helpless to stop, and you’re toast. You’re gone. Laughing. Trying to be quiet, but laughing, nonetheless.

And you hear the ripples spreading across the ampitheatre, joining with Macbeth and that mighty marine chorus until the sound is simultaneously thus:

“WAKE DUNCAN WITH THY KNOCKING! I WOULD THOU COULDST!”

ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR ARR!!!

TEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE HEE TEE HEE TEE HEE HEE TEE HEE HEE!!!

So there you are, giggling with the other grownups, watching Macbeth’s tragedy become Macbeth’s comedy — if just for a moment — and you chuckle even more because it IS the thinnest of lines separating those two sides of the mask and isn’t that why you love the theatre, after all?

That crazy, sublime, maddening, transcendent theatre.