My Favorite Lady

In order of my favorite to my least favorite:


Judi Dench- As soon as she screamed, she won the title of my favorite lady. You can see, hear and feel the pain and the crazy she is experiencing. Initially, the way she walks right in between the other two characters catches my attention. Then, when she hold her hands up to the candle, she doesn't really examine the "blood" on them. She looks past her hands and looks crazed and extremely remorseful. When she says "hell is murky" and then looks directly at the other actors as well and into the camera and then delivers the "fie my lord fie" line, her look is penetrating. Her voice and her hand motions are so believable. Dench looks genuinely perturbed to her core and it manges to shake the viewer to the core. She seems so depressed when she delivers the "all the perfumes of Arabia line." She then rocks back and forth while sitting on the floor and that is something i can see someone who is losing their mind doing. She just comes across very believable in her techniques and really manages to deliver the emotions that needed to be portrayed for this scene.



Jane Lapotaire- Her portrayal overall seems rather manic. The way she plays the Lady does not feel as emotional or remorseful as Dench did. I like that her entrance felt ominous. Her "hell is murky" line delivery seemed a little fake. But she then compensates for it by her delivery of "who would have thought..." line. She seems shaken by that thought. She seems genuinely disgusted by the thoughts shes having. Then she begins to sing the delivery of her lines and i did not feel as though that was necessary. It enhances the belief that she is losing her mind, but i feel as though that it didn't fit into the scene. I also thought the her sniffing her hands the way she did after the "perfumes of Arabia" line was ridiculous. When she was pretending to pull Macbeth to bed, she seemed like she hasn't gone to the bathroom in a long time and was trying to push one out. Overall i don't think her performance was believable especially since she played lady Macbeth more crazed than sorry. Her remorse was meant to be hidden beneath her insanity.

Shirley Verrett- I think that the fact that this is an operatic performance, it gives the speech a totally different vibe. The acting skills in this scene are secondary to the voice of the singer. We really only have Verrett's singing to have any emotions evoked. The fact that is is a different language (even with the words in front of me) made it more complicated for me to understand. I think the singing was beautiful and it made me tear up, but i don't think it holds as strongly as Dench's performance, unless you are looking for an opera. For me, i missed the physicality of the other performances. I must admit though, they had the best staircase.