When Sam Dixon, CEO and Artistic Director of Spivey Hall, was forced to cancel his presentation at our Lunch Colloquium on Monday, May 1, Gretchen Schulz volunteered to present on her favorite topic, a topic never more timely than now, when Emory is concluding the extensive programming with which the University has celebrated "The Year of Shakespeare," programming scheduled in support of the visit of the First Folio to our campus, our city, our state.  Given the date of the Colloquium, she considered offering something appropriate to "the merry month of May."  But given Emeritus College plans for a group visit to the Shakespeare Tavern to see their production of Richard III sometime in June (with the director of that production set to speak at a Colloquium soon thereafter), she decided to do something decidedly UNmerry.  She offered us a talk (that she first offered to a conference of interdisciplinarians a couple of years ago). It was entitled "'Something wicked this way comes':  The Problem of Evil in Shakespeare's Plays."

In the earlier talk--as in the updated version of last Monday--she argued that no one has ever been wiser about the problems we've taken to calling "wicked problems" than William Shakespeare--including the "wickedest problem of them all, the problem of wickedness itself."  So much of what happens in the world (and in the world as reflected in art) is awful-in ways that prompt us to ask "Why?"  And of course we most want an explanation when the awful can be traced to some human being--someone we might characterize as "evil."  According to Gretchen, Shakespeare's greatest villains and the plays they inhabit address this problem, raising questions about the nature of human nature and suggesting answers from a variety of perspectives that deserve designation as "interdisciplinary." She proceeded to discuss how Shakespeare "anatomizes" the "hard hearts" of his villains (the quote is from Lear) in Richard III, Macbeth, and Othello--positing (and portraying) causes for their behaviors that might well be labeled theological, psychological, sociological, even biological--if we were to use the labels we use today when discussing the evil characters we find in our own midst--and in our own drama. (She was, she said, thinking of Frank Underwood--from House of Cards--and his real-life counterparts, whoever they might be.)

After showing us a clip from a movie of Richard III in which Ian McKellen plays the infamous protagonist who announces he "is determined to prove a villain" in his opening speech, Gretchen first developed the theological interpretation of the man and the awful events for which he is (or seems to be) responsible--namely, the view the Tudors (who had followed Richard into power) promulgated, the view that God was actually the one responsible for Richard and all he did (and indeed for the whole bloody entirety of the Wars of the Roses), using Richard (as He had used all the other villains of that bloody period) to punish the Plantagenets for deposing and killing Richard II, back at the end of the 14^th century. And, of course, according to this view, it was God who swept the Tudors into power, too.  But Gretchen went on to argue that the play does not itself insist on the theological interpretation of events that so many of its characters adopt.  From the get-go, from that first speech in which Richard introduces himself as a villain who is proud to be so, it's clear that there's a whole other interpretation of events possible here--a secular one that we'd call psychological today.  She referenced some of the ways Shakespeare develops Richard in psychological depth before concluding this portion of her presentation by pointing out that, after all, there's really no need for anyone to choose between the theological and psychological views of the play's characters and events. As she said,  

Gretchen next showed us a clip from a production of Macbeth, the scene in which the witches greet Macbeth (and Banquo) and tell Macbeth (played by, you guessed it, Ian McKellen) that he "shalt be King hereafter."  As she said,  

Yes, the Ghost of Banquo may be a figment of Macbeth's imagination, a construct of his guilty conscience, a psychological phenomenon. After all, Lady Macbeth (and the others at the banquet) do not see this ghost. But Banquo does see the witches--and converse with them, as Macbeth does. The witches are real. Evil is real--evil external to the characters. And God himself seems to be busy fighting that evil--even as many of the characters do--not using it to accomplish his divine purposes (as in Richard III). The battle in which Macbeth finally falls is clearly not portrayed as just one more secular struggle in the sequence of secular struggles that makes up Scotland's history. Those who win--like those who win at the end of Richard III--see themselves as winning with the help of God-- and they say so. But this time, the play itself seems to say the same--urges us to take the theological view--by which God and good men join together to defeat evil, this time--though it's pretty clear that evil will continue to be a problem, a "wicked problem," for God and good men in times to come.

Of course, Gretchen did acknowledge that the theological interpretation of the events of the play doesn't vitiate the value of a psychological interpretation.  Shakespeare does handle Macbeth--and Lady Macbeth--so we see deep into their psyches. But, she argued, what we see there is further evidence that we should take the play's theology seriously, for it's clear that both characters experience an inner version of the struggle between the forces of Good and Evil that is going on around them in the world of the play. Both are good enough to suffer awful guilt at the evil that they do.  But both devolve into people bad enough that we find it hard to object when Malcolm (who takes over at the end) characterizes them as a "dead butcher and his fiendlike queen" (5.8.69).

Gretchen began the final portion of her presentation by showing us a clip from Othello that shows just how devilish--and how devilishly attractive--its villain, Iago, can be--especially when played by someone as devilishly attractive as Kenneth Branagh. (Or someone as devilishly attractive as Ian McKellen--for Gretchen wants us to know that there is another fine version of Othello out there in which McKellen is playing the role.) As Gretchen explained, Othello is like Richard III and Macbeth in that it invites interpretation in terms of the orthodox theology of the time; it, too, suggests that the forces of Good and Evil contend in the world the characters inhabit and within the characters themselves. In fact, in this play, Shakespeare goes so far as to imitate the so-called Morality Plays of the Middle Ages, allegorical dramas in which characters symbolizing Good and Evil struggle for possession of the protagonist's soul.  Even an audience unfamiliar with those predecessor plays would soon realize that Shakespeare is here handling the characters and plot (and even the settings) in an almost allegorical (and theological) way, with Desdemona symbolizing Good, Iago symbolizing Evil, and Othello the man in the middle, who marries her (and all she stands for) at the start but then lets Iago convince him that she's a "fair devil" (3.34.475), so he allies himself with Iago instead (in a scene that's a parody of a marriage ceremony).  We watch in horror as this trusted Venetian general, sent to Cyprus to fight for Christian civilization against the threatening Turks, himself "turns Turk" (2.3.169) under the influence of the most "Turkish" character in the play, the real "fair devil," "honest honest Iago" (5.2.151), who is so good at seeming good, and making others seem evil--and making others do evil, too--as he makes Othello kill Desdemona, thinking all the time he's doing what's appropriate in a civilized Christian world. At the end of the play, when Othello realizes how the "demi-devil" Iago (5.2.297) has "ensnared [his] soul" (5.2.298), he attempts to reclaim his soul by punishing himself for the sin he has committed, calling upon the good still within him to kill the evil, by killing himself. And it's worth noting that Shakespeare has him characterize his suicide by associating that good with Venice and that evil with Turkey; he asks those listening to his final speech to remember and remind others of a better Othello in an earlier time, "in Aleppo once, / Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk / Beat a Venetian and traduced the state."  Then, he says, "I took by the throat the circumcised dog / And smote him--thus" (5.3.348-352). As he stabs himself, he is both the Venetian and the Turk, as both this play and its Morality Play predecessors suggests we all are, a mix of capacities for good and bad, but in these final moments, it does seem as if the Venetian emerges ascendant. And, in spite of everything, we probably agree with Cassio, who sums Othello up as "great of heart" (5.3.357).

But no sooner had Gretchen persuaded us that the play is a sort of Morality Play than she began to argue that it's much more than an updated version of a Morality Play. Yes, she said,  

Of course, she explained, he understands that others in his world would label him a villain--if they were ever to discover he's not the "honest honest Iago" (5.2.151) he so successfully pretends to be. But he thinks that sort of thinking is just nonsense.  Traditional morality is a lot of hooey. And though he's quite willing to talk the talk--even walk the walk when it suits him--that's only ever a means to the end of his own satisfaction, an end he sees as good enough to justify any means at all, including means others might label evil. In short, he's a thoroughly Machiavellian character, and he voices his untraditional, amoral views with enough intelligence and intensity to constitute a real challenge to the orthodox old-think that's typical of the others in the play, those silly enough to believe that life is indeed a sort of Morality Play.

Forget good and evil. What Iago believes in is reason and passion. And it's reason that can make a man the king of the beasts with whom he is otherwise allied.  As we heard him explain to Desdemona's frustrated suitor, Roderigo, in the clip from the play, "If the balance of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most prepost'rous conclusions. But we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings or unbitted lusts" (1.3.321-326).  Success in our ventures depends upon virtu, such as Machiavelli touts, not virtue. As Iago says, "Virtue? A fig! 'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus" (1.3.314-15). And no God (or devil) has anything to do with it.

As Gretchen said, it's a point of view that's plausible--dauntingly plausible--given how Shakespeare handles what happens in the course of the play. And it can be seen as confirming a philosophy that rejects theology and its moralizing vocabulary-asserting a world view that's Hobbesian, even Darwinian, far before their time.

The clock was ticking, so Gretchen concluded her presentation with her comments on Othello and Iago, though she said she had hoped to be able to talk about King Lear and its villains, as well--its villains, plural--five characters who are like Iago in refusing to see themselves as villains.  Questions and comments from the audience followed (as interesting as questions and comments from our audience always tend to be). And one question did finally allow Gretchen to make the main point she most wanted to make about Lear-namely that it's that very plurality of villains who reject the thinking that would label them villains, who again, like Iago, reject theology and its moralizing vocabulary, that make the play so grim.  After all, as she pointed out, in the world of Othello, Iago is an anomaly.  In the world of Lear, such Machiavellian men (and women) abound.  And those who think the "old-think," who hold dear the values we would characterize as "Christian" (though the play is set in pre-Christian Britain)?  Tragically, they do seem very like the "moral fool[s]" the more "modern" characters accuse them of being--"modern" characters like Gloucester's bastard son, Edmund, who, as a final brief clip from a film confirmed, has just such insidious appeal as too many of these Shakespearean villains (or is it "villains") have . .

--Gretchen Schulz 

ADDENDUM:

For those who might want to find and watch the full versions of the productions from which Gretchen drew clips, here is the relevant information, drawn from Wikipedia:

Richard III is a 1995 British drama film adapted from William Shakespeare's play of the same name, starring Ian McKellen, Annette Bening, Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr., Nigel Hawthorne, Kristin Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, John Wood, and Dominic West. The film sets the play in a fictional fascist version of 1930s Britain. The film's concept was based on a stage production directed by Richard Eyre for the Royal National Theatre, which also starred McKellen. The production was adapted for the screen by McKellen and directed by Richard Loncraine.  (Information about the film, including a transcript of the full screenplay on Ian McKellen's website can be seen by clicking here. Information on IMDb can be seen by clicking here.  The YouTube clip that Gretchen showed can be seen by clicking here.)

Macbethis a 1979 videotaped version of Trevor Nunn's Royal Shakespeare Company production of the play by William Shakespeare. Produced by Thames Television, it features Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth. The TV version was directed by Philip Casson. The original stage production was performed at The Other Place, the RSC's small studio theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. It had been performed in the round before small audiences, with a bare stage and simple costuming. The recording preserves this style: the actors perform on a circular set and with a mostly black background; changes of setting are indicated only by lighting changes.  (The entire video can be seen on YouTube by clicking here.) 

Othello is a 1995 film based on William Shakespeare's tragedy of the same name. It was directed by Oliver Parker and stars Laurence Fishburne as Othello, Irène Jacob as Desdemona, and Kenneth Branagh as Iago. This is the first cinematic reproduction of the play released by a major studio that casts an African American 

Gretchen notes that you might also be interested in two other Othello's she likes very much, one with (you guessed it) Ian McKellen as Iago, the other with Frank Finlay as Iago (and Laurence Olivier as Othello, Maggie Smith as Desdemona).

Othello is a 1990 film produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, starring Ian McKellen, Willard White, Imogen Stubbs, and Zoë Wanamaker. It is based on a stage production of William Shakespeare's play Othello, directed by Trevor Nunn, and later rethought for TV and filmed in a studio.   It was shot in a black box theater, so minimal props or scenery were needed.  (A description of this film can be found by clicking here.  It is not clear that this film is available anywhere, although a several minute clip of it can be seen on McKellen's website by clicking here.) 

Othello is a 1965 film based on the National Theatre Company's staging ofShakespeare's Othello (1964-66) staged by John Dexter. Directed by Stuart Burge, the film starred Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, Joyce Redman, and Frank Finlay, who all received Academy Award nominations, and provided film debuts for both Derek Jacobi and Michael Gambon.  (Information on the IMDb website can be seen by clicking here.)

King Lear is a 2008 television film based on the William Shakespeare play of the same name, directed by Trevor Nunn. It was broadcast on More4 in the UK on Christmas Day, and shown on PBS' Great Performances in the United States in March 2009. The production was filmed mainly at Pinewood Studios in England. It features the same cast and director as the 2007 RSC production, and started filming only a few days after the final performance at the New London Theatre, at Pinewood Studios in Buckinghamshire. The film was released on DVD in the UK and then in the US on 21 April 2009.  (The YouTube clip shown by Gretchen can be seen by clicking here.  More information on the film  can be seen by clicking here.)

The recording of this Lunch Colloquium is available on our videos page.