Stage Door News
Stage Door News
An expert witness called them “bananas.”
The defence said they were “bewitched.”
One judge referred to them as the “Caledonian Bonnie and Clyde.”
In the end, the Supreme Court of Stratford found Macbeth and Lady Macbeth guilty of the murder of King Duncan, overturning a previous verdict which found them not criminally responsible for their actions “due to insanity driven by politics.”
The 2-1 decision came at the end of an entertaining appeal that was carried out on the same spot where, just the night before, the Macbeths’ shocking crimes were portrayed on stage.
Nearly 1,300 people turned out at the Festival Theatre for the legal battle of wits before Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin and Supreme Court Justices Andromache Karakatsanis and Russell Brown.
But it was expert witness and former Ontario premier Bob Rae, called by defence lawyer Marlys Edwardh to describe the Macbeth’s state of mind, who provided some of the most compelling moments in the trial.
He said he conducted a series of “Skype-like” interviews with the Macbeths, and, asked by Edwardh how they appeared, Rae replied “pretty haggard.”
“They were in a place that was obviously very, very hot,” he said with a straight face.
His opinion of the couple?
“I think the technical term is, they were bananas,” said Rae, suggesting that the Macbeths were “seized by a manic lust for power. They were captured, the two of them together, by this incredible urge for power and for domination.”
It’s something he’s seen before in politics, he added.
Both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffered from hallucinations and delusions, but genuinely believed they were real, noted Rae.
Presented with Sigmund Freud’s opinion that the couple suffered a “brief psychotic episode” that led to the murder of King Duncan, Rae agreed.
“If they weren’t completely crazed, how could they have done what they did?” he said.
Asked by Edwardh if there was “any moral compass” guiding them at the time of the murders, Rae said no.
The cross-examination of the witness by Crown counsel Donald Bayne produced more than a few sparks, particularly when he challenged Rae’s credibility.
Bayne suggested that the former provincial and federal politician has not always been consistent in his own opinions, most notably when he wrestled with the question of “to be or not to be Liberal or NDP.”
“Consistency, as has been said, is the hobgoblin of small minds,” replied Rae.
Then Bayne referenced the “double double toil and trouble” of the Rae Days.
“Better a Rae Day than a Harper lifetime,” the witness shot back, to loud applause from the audience.
Rae was tripped up, however, when Bayne questioned his resume, and specifically his certificate in “emotional intelligence” from the Community College of Heidelberg.
“I made it up,” admitted Rae sheepishly.
But on the facts of the case, Bayne put it to the witness that the Macbeths knew full well what they were doing when they plotted, carried out and covered up the murder of the king, recognizing beforehand that it was a “horrid deed,” an act of “direst cruelty” and an “assassination.”
“Do those words and conduct not betray that they had full, even acute, awareness and appreciation that they were killing a human being, and that is legally and morally wrong?” asked Bayne.
Rae maintained that the Macbeths were “caught in a frenzy” that drove them to kill the king, and suffered a “brief psychotic disorder, and not a permanent condition.”
In her arguments, Edwardh traced the murder back to the witches and their prophesy that Macbeth will be king.
“Simply put, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are bewitched,” she said.
And under that spell, they were essentially “automatons,” and couldn’t possibly be responsible for their actions, she added.
But in their ruling, two of the three justices disagreed with that position.
Brown noted that “witch whispering” was as common in the 1600s as Pokemon Go is today, and listening to the “voodoo sisters” is not indicative of insanity.
“These two are guilty,” he concluded. “They’re very guilty.”
He had especially harsh words for Lady Macbeth, calling her a “two-bit, low-life assassin.”
Sitting in the front row beside her co-conspirator Ian Lake, Krystin Pellerin, who plays Lady Macbeth this season at the Festival, looked deeply insulted.
Karakatsanis was less blunt, and far more poetic, delivering her opinion in the form of a sonnet, iambic pentameter and all.
It concluded: “The crack of doom strikes, judgement here to end, The murderous Macbeths must be condemned.”
McLachlin dissented.
“I find myself compelled to conclude that the state … has not discharged its burden of showing Lord and Lady Macbeth guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” she said.
Calling the evidence “suspect,” and the expert witness even more so, McLachlin said Shakespeare’s words must be relied upon to determine guilt or innocence.
The influence of the witches – which we now call “voices” – can’t be discounted, she said, describing Macbeth’s state of mind before the murder as delusional.
As such, she would have acquitted the couple, she noted.
“Sadly, they will be sent once more to purgatory, under the jurisdiction of the Ontario Review Board,” said McLachlin.
By Mike Beitz for www.stratfordbeaconherald.com.
Photo: Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin and fellow Supreme Court of Canada Justice Russell Brown and former Ontario premier Bob Rae. ©2016 Mike Beitz.
2016-10-02
Stratford: Supreme Court justices find the Macbeths guilty of regicide in mock appeal at Stratford Festival