"Out, damned Darcy!"

Heh. Bluegarter has a funny take on the upcoming production of Macbeth starring Jennifer Ehle as Lady Mac.

Shakespeare in the Park opens with the Scottish Play, featuring Liev Schrieber and my personal heroine Jennifer Ehle… the day after I leave. I am heartbroken. If I didn’t have a job interview (for a job I really do want) in Portland on Tuesday, I would absolutely change my ticket. Who doesn’t want to see Lizzy Bennet become Lady Macbeth? It’s like a twisted fantasy in which life at Pemberley goes horribly awry.

Awry indeed!

Messenger

Lady Catherine de Bourgh comes here to-night.

MRS. DARCY

Thou’rt mad to say it:
Is not thy master with him? who, were’t so,
Would have inform’d for preparation.

Messenger

So please you, it is true: Mr. Darcy is coming:
One of my fellows had the speed of him,
Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more
Than would make up his message.

MRS. DARCY

Give him tending;
He brings great news.

Exit Messenger

The raven himself is hoarse
That croaks the fatal entrance of Lady Catherine
Under my battlements. Come, you shades of Pemberley
That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here,
And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full
Of direst cruelty! make thick my blood;
Stop up the access and passage to remorse,
That no compunctious visitings of nature
Shake my fell purpose, nor keep peace between
The effect and it! Come to my woman’s breasts,
And take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers,
Wherever in your sightless substances
You wait on nature’s mischief! Come, thick night,
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes,
Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,
To cry ‘Hold, hold!’

Enter DARCY

Great Darcy! worthy Pemberley!
Greater than both, by the all-hail hereafter!
Thy letters have transported me beyond
This ignorant present, and I feel now
The future in the instant.

DARCY

My dearest love,
Lady Catherine comes here to-night.

MRS. DARCY

And when goes hence?

DARCY

To-morrow, as she purposes.

MRS. DARCY

O, never
Shall sun that morrow see!
Your face, my love, is as a book where men
May read strange matters. To beguile the time,
Look like the time; bear welcome in your eye,
Your hand, your tongue: look like the innocent flower,
But be the serpent under’t. She that’s coming
Must be provided for: and you shall put
This night’s great business into my dispatch;
Which shall to all our nights and days to come
Give solely sovereign sway and masterdom.

DARCY

We will speak further.

MRS. DARCY

Only look up clear;
To alter favour ever is to fear:
Leave all the rest to me.

We have long held that Lady Macbeth is the single greatest theatrical role ever written for a woman. Lizzy Bennet might be a close second. (And Blanche DuBois is third!)

Read more about Miss Ehle’s latest film projects at the Jennifer Ehle Blog. Thanks to Jennite for the heads-up!