Dirtbag Macbeth

by Mallory Ortberg · March 25, 2014

lady macbethDIRTBAG SHAKESPEARE imagines modern remakes of Shakespearean plays with a teenage dirtbag cast. The rest is pretty self-explanatory. Most recently: Dirtbag Romeo & Juliet.

THREE WITCHES appear on the heath. 
WITCH #1: have you ever killed a pig
MACBETH: what
WITCH #2: do you want to be king
MACBETH: king of what
WITCH #3: king of jerking off
jesus
“king of what”

 

MACBETH: do you think I would make a good king
LADY MACBETH skateboards across the hall
LADY MACBETH: king of jerking off maybe

 

MACBETH is sleeping. LADY MACBETH pops a BMX wheelie over their bed.
LADY MACBETH: you should kill duncan
MACBETH: idk
LADY MACBETH: or i could do it
MACBETH: what
LADY MACBETH: its fine ill do it
brb
LADY MACBETH wheelies offstage.

 

MACBETH: arent you going to wash your hands
LADY MACBETH: lol what
no
MACBETH: youre covered in blood
LADY MACBETH: lets make out
MACBETH: what
LADY MACBETH: it’ll be metal as hell
MACBETH: i don’t know
LADY MACBETH: god it’s like being married to my fucking grandmother

 

duncanMACBETH is sleeping. LADY MACBETH straddles his body and kisses him while smearing blood across his face.
MACBETH: WHAT THE FUCK
LADY MACBETH: i wanted to make out
now were even
MACBETH: EVEN FOR WHAT

 

LADY MACBETH: you know who else we should kill
MACBETH: who
LADY MACBETH: that one guy
your friend
MACBETH: feel like we’ve already killed a lot of my friends
LADY MACBETH: then we could throw a PARTY
and make out

 

BANQUO’S GHOST appears.
MACBETH: don’t do that
come on
don’t look at me
don’t fucking do that
don’t be an asshole
BANQUO’S GHOST does not move.
MACBETH: fucking asshole

 

SEYTON: your wife is dead
MACBETH: who
SEYTON: your wife
Lady Macbeth
MACBETH: yeah well
she probably would have died tomorrow
SEYTON: what
MACBETH: or whenever
i mean we’re all going to die someday
so it doesn’t really matter


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45 Comments

  1. ArsenioB_Ham +126

    Man, dudes REALLY hate it when you wake them up by straddling them and smearing blood on their faces. What’s with that? It’s like, “Dude, I was only JOKING. GOD.”

  2. safvn +81

    All of MacBeth stems from Lady MacBeth’s sexual frustration as a dirtbag teen, it seems.

  3. heartstillatwar +6

    I loved studying Macbeth in school, but I would’ve loved the hell out of this version even more!

  4. PaigePoo +67

    I snorted at the very first exchange and coffee came out of my nose 🙁
    “Jesus, king of what”

  5. robot_dinosaur +71

    In high school I saw a version of Macbeth set around the Civil War, where the witches were former slaves from the West Indies, Banquo was black, Macbeth was a general and Lady Macbeth was this AMAZING Southern belle.

    “Fie my lord, fie, a soldier and afeared?” but in like, HOOPSKIRTS

    it was so weird, Lady Macbeth was so great though

    1. large_marge +28

      I never knew I could ever want to see a Shakespeare production so badly until this very moment.

    2. yahtzii +21

      My high school drama teacher adapted Macbeth to be about the cheerleading squad. :-/ forever.

      1. beatrizcentury +13

        noooooooooooooo although I would love a thread of the worst high school adaptations of shakespeare. undergrad theater clubs are also okay.

        ours was modern dress Taming of the Shrew and GUESS WHAT it is called “10 Things I Hate About You” and man is that play the worst.

        1. Bittersweet +7

          I saw a modern version of Taming of the Shrew at Arena Stage in DC when I was 15 and it was AMAZING. Bianca sat around in a bikini and Petruchio showed up to his wedding in with spiked hair and a Sex Pistols t-shirt. This was long before 10 Things I Hate About You, though.

        2. maya +25

          I saw an all male production once when i was a kid where Bianca was a six foot something ripped guy with dreads down to his ass and it was fantastic. It kind of set the bar in my mind for what a production of that play has to do vis-a-vis being self-aware about gender in order to not come off as the men’s rights manifesto of the Elizabethans.

    3. travanj +4

      Wait what I WORKED ON a Civil War-set version of Macbeth in college. Did you see it at University of Washington? How many versions of this can there possibly be?

    4. GreenGrasses +5

      Is this version widely available? Or was it a one-time high school production? Because….damn.

      1. robot_dinosaur +7

        It was actually put on by the University of Washington! I don’t know any more about it than that.

        2. ipomoea +3

          The drama dept at UW is so great, I worked there during undergrad and they’re all delighfully nuts. I wonder if there’s a record of the performance in the library?

    5. eegghh +33

      I saw a version in an old auto garage where the macbeths were mobster-ish (I’m from a mobster-ish part of the country) and the witches were 3 angelic little girls who would touch any other actor playing a dead person to speak the lines. Lady macbeth had some fierce leopard print going on.

      When they kill Lady Macduff and her kids, a car backed into the space through the existing garage door, they murdered them, threw the bodies in the trunk, and drove out into the night with one kid’s arm hanging out the trunk. I will never forget the glowing tail lights.

      it was excellent and dirtbaggy.

  7. aravisthequeen +21

    Poor Macbeth. A lot of his friends do get killed. And everyone makes fun of him! It’s like, Dirtbag Lady MacBeth and Sad Macbeth Who Just Wants To Hang Around And Be King Sometime.

  10. EPWordsnatcher +112

    “Let’s dress up as, like, trees, and go wreck shit.”
    “Jesus, man, how high are you?”

    2. headfullofhoney +10

      Sooo pleased to see a joke about this scene, because my one and only tattoo is a quote from this scene and I HAVE FOUND MY PEOPLE HERE, I AM HOME.

  11. Linette +117

    “I can’t be killed by anyone born of woman.”
    “Yeah, well, the parent who gave birth to me identifies as male, so fuck you.”

    1. Nick Douglas +10

      When J.R.R. Tolkien tried to one-up all of Shakespeare’s metaphorical prophecies, he should have gone with this. And made Saruman an MRA.

  12. Madge Howlet +23

    BRB rewriting a conference paper in light of this important critical breakthrough.

    1. GreenGrasses +26

      The David Bowie of Glam Castle is killing me. Also, “Dang, that’s manly.” I will try to say that to someone, somewhere, tonight.

    2. HateMachine +15

      I love the blatant pandering for the royal sponsors, and how ready King James is to be completely credulous about this.

  16. Megano! +11

    We all agree that Prince Hal in Henry IV is already a dirtbag, so that one doesn’t need to be rewritten.

    Also I vote Dirtbag Antony and Cleopatra next.

    1. Dr LadyBusiness +15

      Oh man, the entire plot of Henry IV is Local Dirtbag Makes Good, I love it so so much.

      1. Madge Howlet +2

        That is perfect and now I have to work 1HVI into my fall syllabus even though it has no reason to be there.

        1. beatrizcentury +3

          Please do! My amazing adjunct professor of Shakespeare in undergrad (we had to take Billy or Bible as Lit to complete the English degree) had this, IV pt 2 and Henry V on our syllabus and it opened me really hard to Shakespeare again. Also became an obsession that later became a part of my senior thesis. Plus you can show them Hollow Crown which is great (although not my favorite tbh.)