A To Z Blogging Challenge 2022 - Shakespeare - D Is For Duncan And Demetrius

 

Oberon, Titania, Puck And Dancing Fairies by William Blake.

Today’s Shakespeare characters are Duncan and Demetrius. They come from two very different types of play!

Duncan first. He is the king of Scotland in Macbeth. Well… not for long. King Duncan is assassinated by Mr and Mrs Macbeth very early on. And this is after he did something nice for Macbeth by making him Thane of Cawdor! Talk about gratitude.

At the start of the play, there is a battle going on. Macbeth and his friend Banquo have done very well, fighting for the king against the traitorous Thane of Cawdor, who is executed offstage and his title handed to Macbeth. 

But three witches come and tell these two heroes that Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and then king. When Duncan’s messenger arrives to tell him that he will be Thane of Cawdor, Macbeth starts thinking - if one prediction is right, why not the other? 

So, he and his wife invite the boss home for dinner and… we know the rest…

Interesting point is that Macbeth’s castle is actually not a Gothic horror. Duncan says what a nice place it is when he arrives: “This castle hath a pleasant seat. The air/nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/ To our gentle senses.” 

Of course, he might not be saying that if he knew what was going to happen to him…

The role has been played by some impressive actors over the years. One was Anthony Head, whom you might remember as Buffy’s mild mannered Watcher and school librarian. Most recently Duncan was played by Irish actor Brendan Gleeson in the Apple + version, with Denzel Washington and Frances McDormand as the Macbeths. Gleeson was Madeye Moody in the Harry Potter films. 

Let’s move on to Demetrius, a character from Shakespeare’s crazy romantic comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. 

I remember trying to explain the story to a bunch of Year 11 drama students whose teacher was absent. 

“So, there are these two young couples running around the forest… Hermia and Lysander are in love. They are being chased by Demetrius, who used to be dating Helena, but …” 

They did get it when I wrote up all the characters on the board and showed the links. Eventually, anyway.

So, who is Demetrius? He is one of four young lovers running around the forest which is full of fairies. Hermia’ s Dad has given his permission for Demetrius to marry her. But Hermia wants to marry Lysander, so the two of them elope, stopping only to tell Hermia’s best friend Helena.

Alas, Helena used to be an item with Demetrius, who has dumped her, so she tells him, thinking this will get her his approval. It doesn’t, and she follows him, while he tells her to get lost. Which they all do, but never mind…

Oberon, King of the fairies, feels sorry for her and orders his sidekick Puck to make Demetrius fall back in love with Helena, using a magic flower juice, but he does it to the wrong couple. Which leads to a lot of very funny scenes...

If you have the National Theatre At Home app, I do recommend that production. It features Gwendoline Christie, whom you might have seen either in Game Of Thrones as Brienne of Tarth, or as the evil Captain Phasma in Star Wars. She plays Titania, an amazing Fairy Queen. There was a quirk in this production as the lines of Oberon and Titania are swapped, so she plays the active role and Oberon gets all her lines and falls for Bottom, the guy with the donkey head(they share a bubble bath and drink  champagne). It’s on until June this year, so if you subscribe to this app, hurry.

If you aren’t subscribing, the film with Kevin Kline as Bottom is utterly magical. Demetrius is played by Christian Bale, who has a long filmography, including some Batman movies.