The Scottish Play

It's 3.45am and I've just written the long awaited Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth & Lady Macbeth scenes which is a great relief. Had spent the last few days listening to an audio version of Men are from Mars..... a few times and making notes, working out what aspects of the book's theories I had not yet incorporated adequately and trying to move towards thinking about how I might use these intended characters to express them. Realised I didn't want to get into the realms of Shakespearean dialogue (as all the other characters speak in modern English) or get bogged down in trying to adapt actual scenes from the plays but just to give a flavour of them with a couple of familar references. I was about to go to bed (3 or 4 hours ago) but decided to have a quick look at the stories in Lamb's Tales of Shakespeare first. I had not got much beyond "Macbeth had a wife, to whom he communicated the strange prediction of the weird sisters" before an idea started to gel in my mind about Lady M being jealous of him seeing these other women. I expect that's been done before as there can't be many variations on Shakespeare's plays that haven't been done before in some shape or form but I doubt it's been done quite like this. Had the role reversal idea ages ago and wanted to stick with that (I'm sure that's been done before too but again, not quite like this) and gradually all the elements - the role reversal, the jealousy and the V & M twist all began to come together. Part way through writing that I started to get an idea for the Romeo and Juliet scene which was to precede it, wrote that as well and then went back and finished the Macs and also adjusted the transition between the scenes (which was the only part I'd done already) to fit what came before and it all slotted nicely into place. Writing is so satisfying when that happens. Just Anthony & Cleopatra left to do now. Must go to bed as it's 4.10am now and I've got a busy day tomorrow!