Macbeth with Snot

Sometimes I am very lucky and this week I had one of those experiences. Jeannine had an extra, and very well priced ticket to Macbeth with Patrick Stewart at BAM. Not only have I never seen Macbeth, I had just read in New York Magazine that Lou Reed loved it, or at least admired Mr. Stewart. So I got to go this weekend to see the acclaimed performance.

I'm not a huge Shakespeare fan in that I am satisfied to see a production every few years. I would never again pick up one of the plays and just read it. And I don't rush to the movies to see the newest version of Hamlet or Othello. But I can enjoy a classic as much as the next person.

This production did not fail to entertain. My favorite touch was the witches, always the star of any show, were dressed as nuns who sang and danced their divinations for Macbeth. Also, they are called within the play the "weird sisters." Nuns. Ha ha.



Double, double toil and trouble'
Fire burn and auldron bubble.
Cool it with a Baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

It was long, more than 3 hours, which is a long time to sit in the straight-backed chairs of the balcony. It might not have seemed so long had the man sitting next to me not been snorting and snuffling the entire production. Every 20 seconds he inhaled his liquid and bubbly snot loudly and thoroughly. And every time I glared at him, trying to show my severe disgust and annoyance, his eyes were closed. Which of course led to snoring. Snotfuls of snoring sounds echoing in my left ear. I tried to look at the woman he was with, but she also was fast asleep.

And now today I am feeling kind of sick. Related events? I can't prove it, but if I ever see that short, fat, large assed, loud, slobbering man again I might have to sneeze right on him.