...my Macbeth/Disney connection once more.
As some know, my daughter switched schools and now is not only at my school, but in my drama class as well. It's gotten past the initial weird first few days, and is working out quite well so far. I think we'll have to eventually work not to talk shop at home too much, since I doubt my wife or my son would enjoy that too much.
Meanwhile, he's in English 11 this semester at his school, which was probably my favorite grade to teach English back before my gig evolved into full time theatre, and he's studying Macbeth, which was probably my favourite unit in that course.
Thing is, his teacher's taking forever to get through the play. They've been at it for at least three weeks and they're just finishing Act II. (It's semestered, not linear.) He's started asking me about the play, and today my wife warned me off filling his head with "not the stuff his teacher will want them to know" about it.
Too late. First it was the whole "it makes more sense for Bellona's bridegroom to be Macduff" theory which I won't get into here, and then there was the "everything with Hecate was written by Middleton" issue. Still, I have to share the "Disney ripped off Shakespeare" Macbeth/Lion King thing once more. I've been flogging this with my classes since the late 90s (when my kids made us watch the damn movie over and over)
A good king (Duncan, Mufasa) is envied by a relative (Macbeth, Scar) who eventually murders him and places the blame on his son (Malcolm, Simba). The son flees his home (Scotland, Pride Lands) and goes into exile, while the new king begins a reign of terror aided by his evil supporters (mercenaries, hyenas).
Eventually things grow so bad that out of desperation one person (Macduff, Rafiki) travels to find the young king and convince him to return, but he argues that he is not worthy to come back and rule the land. Eventually Macduff/Rafiki succeed, and Duncan/Simba is joined by his newfound allies from the new land (Timon & Pumba/Old Siward & Young Siward) and they battle the evil king and his allies and restore the rightful heir to the throne.
But I guess they stole the "I am your father's ghost" from Hamlet.
1 comment:
I think it's good for your son to learn what he wants to know about Macbeth and not the watered down high school stuff he's probably learning from his teacher. I loved teachers who went beyond what the school wanted us to know.
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