Me: "I've never read Macbeth. I've read so many others of Shakespeare's plays, seen even more performed, some brilliantly and some tepidly, but I've never read Macbeth."

My boyfriend: "It's been since high school for me."

Me: "We each have a copy... let's read it aloud!"

I have discovered so far that:
1. when dividing up the parts, it's hard to keep going when you are reading another character whose line comes directly after a character you've just read.
2. I am apparently very good at vocally differentiating the witches.
3. I am really enjoying finding on my own the places where Shakespeare breaks with patterns to create various effects, instead of letting the notes point it out for me.
4. People need to read more things aloud to each other before bed as adults.

5. Wow, way to write a woman as a power-mad harpy. Geeze.
6. Reading Shakespeare aloud is great date material.

How do you rate Shakespeare? There is so much material here on which so many other works are based; giving it a star rating of any sort feels weird. There are tropes here I find... frustrating?... because here they are presented unquestioned in their original context. Art is not life, but it arises as a comment on it-- the frustrating part is not the original play, but seeing how the shape of an idea has echoed down through other stories. And now having digested this play, it's thrown light on so many other things I've devoured, from Bluebeard to Ray Bradbury's work. To quote some dear friends who've majored in theater, "As a play, Macbeth is a mess." Yes and no, both.