Scotland PA: Shakespeare Reimagined

Billy Morrissettes 2001 Scotland PA is a dark comedy adaptation of Shakespeares Tragedy of Macbeth. The film is set in small town USA in the 1970s; instead of a castle, the main stage is a diner; instead of a warrior as in the original, Joe Mac McBeth is an employee of the diners owner. Instead of an heir to the throne, McDuff is a detective working the case as it develops. Instead of witches, the prophets of the film are two comedic stoners and their fortune-telling girlfriend. The film succeeds with these script changes because it grounds the action in comedy, with wry humorous lines given to the characters as they try to navigate the action of the plot. Because it is a dark comedy, the themes of murder and insanity are treated with some levity, and the resolution comes off more as just and happy than as tragic: Macs treachery is discovered, and McDuff comes into possession of the diner and fulfills his secret dream of breaking into the diner business. Outside the basic outline of plot points, the film is much different from the original play in just about every way imaginableyet the adaptation works because it has fun with the changes and does not insist upon using the source material for anything more than basic plotting purposes.

The original version of The Tragedy of Macbeth is conceived and executed as a tragic drama. The hero of the play is Macbeth: his tragic fall is a result of his pride and ambition; spurred on by his scheming wife, he kills the king and claims the crown for himself. The power grab does not allow him any rest, however; he feels threatened on all sides and goes on a killing spree that culminates in a battle for the throne, at which point he is decapitatedbut not before realizing that his plunge into nihilism and blood was precipitated by a foolish belief in the prophecies of the three deceiving witches.

The contemporary adaptation has none of the tragic vision of the original. The film plays the plot for laughs, turning the witches into buffoonish stoners; turning Banquo into a slow but not as dim-witted as he looks clerk at the diner; turning Macduff into a loveable old-school detective, whose appearance and demeanor are starkly out of keeping with the hippie-ish aspect of the rest of the assorted characters. The film replaces the poetic dialogue of the original with contemporary vernacular dialogue and action used for humorous purposes. The only ways in which the film really bears any resemblance to the original is in the use of names and in the use of the basic plot outline. But it does play on some of the words from the original.

For instance, the film opens with a cinematic touch, giving a long shot of a fair as the lights are shut off; the fair is overbut in one of the rides sits the two stoners and their girlfriend. They drop a bucket of chicken as they riff on foul and fair, with one saying, The fair was fair, and another saying, The fair was foul, and a third summarizing the comedic mood of the film with the words, My ass hurts, while the others giggle (Morrissette). This opening immediately lets the viewer know what kind of adaptation of Macbeth this film will be. For a modern day audience whose only sense of Shakespeare is likely to be the arbitrary semester in high school or college spent quickly going through some of the Bards plays, the comedic mood of the film is likely...

…unfinished food on a table. A waitress appears to clean the table and consumes what was left unfinished by the customer, reinforcing the comedic overtones of the film vs. the dramatic and tragic story of the original play.

The film succeeds mainly because it plays itself as a comedy. It takes the tragic source material of the play and makes it into something new. The names of the characters and the basic plot are similar to the source materialbut this film is really a wannabe-dark comedy. McBeth is not as heroic as Macbeth in Shakespeares playbut he is not meant to be. The happy ending of the film is really in the fact that McDuff gets to take over the diner and fulfill his secret dream. McBeth diesbut he is not decapitated like in the play. Essentially, what the film says that the play does not say is that these themes of good and evil can be taken in a light-hearted way and updated to more modern times to give the audience a little more fun and less labor along the way. The original play has few comical scenesbut the film adaptation is loaded with them: every scene is played for laughs. The film seems to be saying that one can appreciate Shakespeare without having to take it so seriously. But at the same time, by not taking it so seriously the filmmaker diminishes the tragic nature of the play and turns it into something different. There is no real cathartic effect at the end of Scotland PAnot like there is in Shakespeares playand this is because one never really feels that McBeth is a legitimately noble person. Even his heroism is depicted in a comedic manner, like what might be found in a typical sitcom. So while the film is good…