Remember the Porter
Analyzing Modern Reimagining’s of Macbeth’s Porter Figure
When you conjure images of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, the Porter probably is not the first character who comes to mind. In a show featuring witches, ghosts and the infamous Lady Macbeth, the Porter understandably does not often steal the spotlight. After all, he only appears in one scene and hardly interacts with the other characters. Yet, the Porter’s short soliloquy contains a multitude of truths that, when employed correctly, can underscore the play’s broader themes of mortality, identity and the repercussions of sin. Though I do not advocate for the Porter as a purely comedic character, I posit that even comedic portrayals of the Porter can serve to strengthen the overall darkness of Macbeth. Rather than treating the Porter as a random, nonsensical or unimportant character, we should, in Shakespeare’s words, “remember the Porter” and his connection to Macbeth’s larger action and thematic mission.
To my knowledge, the strongest analysis of Shakespeare’s Porter is Frederic B. Tromly’s 1975 essay “Macbeth and His Porter.” In this essay, Tromly asserts that the traditional way of viewing the Porter as a contrast to Macbeth is wrong, because the two share many similarities. He writes, “The ultimate function of the [Porter’s] scene is to humanize the murderer by forcing us to recognize him in the ‘ordinary’ Porter and perhaps in ourselves as well” (151). He goes on to elucidate the ways in which the Porter’s three “characters” embody three facets of Macbeth’s character: ambition, treason and thievery. Positing that sympathy for Macbeth is absent elsewhere in the text, Tromly views the Porter as a necessary reminder that Macbeth’s villainy is not too different from our own and that we can all fall prey to sin. The Porter’s path to Hell is well trodden because “human criminality” is common (152). I summarize Tromly’s argument because, despite its age, it provides a more robust and imaginative vision for the Porter than the traditional reading of Porter-as-comic or Porter-as-distraction. Instead, Tromly understands the Porter as a more approachable echo of the monstrous Macbeth. Through him, we literally and figuratively enter Macbeth’s hellscape and thus become complicit in the play’s horror. Simply put, Tromly leads us to the realization that our relationship to the Porter represents our relationship to the Macbeths and forces us to confront the potential of our own monstrous qualities and ambitions.
This paper looks at how modern directors and filmmakers “remember” and reimagine these readings of the Porter’s role in Macbeth. I will look at two successful characterizations of the Porter, found in Rupert Goold’s 2010 television performance for the BBC and Polly Findlay’s 2018 stage production for the Royal Shakespeare Company, and one unsuccessful interpretation found in Antoni Cimolino’s 2017 production for Canada’s Stratford Festival. The Findlay and Goold characterizations are successful in three ways: 1) they elevate the overall role of the Porter by incorporating him into the play’s later scenes 2) they successfully intertwine the comedy and horror latent in Shakespeare’s writing of the Porter 3) they employ the Porter not simply as another character but as a metaphorical device meant to communicate Macbeth’s definitions of morality and humanity. Meanwhile Cimolino’s Porter is unsuccessful, not because he does not meet any of these three points (for there are many additional ways that the Porter could be successfully portrayed) but because his characterization is simultaneously confusing and underwhelming; sometimes comedic, sometimes frustrated without cause, Cimolino’s Porter pulls the audience out of the play’s action where Findlay and Goold manage to form Porters that more deeply immense viewers in it. Lastly, this paper ends with a brief discussion of what is lost when the Porter is cut from productions of Macbeth, as is the case with Kurzel’s 2015 film adaptation, that ultimately argues that while the Porter is not greatly missed when he is gone, he can significantly add to any production of Macbeth when he is included.
FINDLAY & GOOLD: REMEMBERING & REIMAGING THE POWER OF THE PORTER
Featuring dark lighting, graphic imagery and pounding music, Goold’s and Findlay’s 2010 and 2018 adaptations of Macbeth are thoroughly modern in every way, including in their innovating reimaging’s of the Porter’s role in the play. Rather than restrict the Porter to his one soliloquy, Goold and Findlay elevate the Porter’s potential by writing him into Macbeth’s later, more tragic scenes. Thus, the Porter gradually develops in to a tragic and horrific character deeply invested in the play’s moral agenda.
Recognizing that, on the surface, the Porter’s lines seem removed from the play’s subsequent action, Goold relies on lighting and setting to elevate the Porter’s role. Unlike traditional productions in which the Porter (played by Christopher Patrick Nolan) suddenly appears on stage without a stated purpose, Goold designs a home for the Porter within the Macbeth’s estate. The first time we see the Porter, he is lounging in a reclining chair with a bottle of some unidentifiable alcoholic substance in his hand. A bright floor lamp shines in the background which, in a production with very little lighting, is itself an indicator that this Porter has something important to say and reveal about the other characters. We don’t linger in this sphere of domesticity for long, however. The Porter quickly springs from his chair and takes us on a journey through the Macbeths’ manor; meanwhile, his lines are interspersed with clips of the Macduffs traveling to visit the Macbeths, an ominous foreshadowing for viewers who know their fate. Eventually, the Porter ends up alone in a dark tunnel with no one to talk to but the audience, whom he addresses directly by looking straight at the camera. The tunnel also serves a second purpose in granting the Porter a layer of invisibility; it functions as a sonic port through which conversations from the rest of the house pass. In other words, the Porter’s location in the deepest corner of the Macbeths’ home allows him to hear all that is said without being seen. Thus, the Porter’s dark hideout is where the play’s truths come to light.
Goold further emphasizes the Porter’s omniscience with a flashlight, which the Porter wields while breaking the fourth wall as if to tell the viewer, “I know what you are.” The flashlight stands in sharp contrast to the dark background, a visual representation of the play’s exploration of light (good) versus dark (evil). By painting the background black and putting the light in the foreground, Goold tells his viewers that darkness is literally all around them. At one point, the Porter turns and asks the darkness behind him, “What are you?” — an odd choice considering he is alone in the tunnel. Yet, this turn communicates one of the major points of Macbeth, that is to investigate the definition of darkness or sin. But light here might be better interpreted as truth rather than goodness and, if so, darkness could equally represent ignorance or dishonesty. In this case, the Porter’s wielding of the flashlight marks his role as an arbiter of truth; Goold takes this role even further by assigning the Porter the job of announcing Lady Macbeth’s death at the end of the play. Considering this extension of the Porter’s purpose, the flashlight functions not only as a thematic representation of light/dark, but as a foreshadowing of the Porter’s later revelations.
In addition to being the drunken keeper of gates, Goold’s Porter also serves as a soldier in Macbeth’s army; though a surprising extension of the Porter’s duties, we can rationalize this decision by remembering that Goold’s Porter lives in the Macbeths’ home, making him forcibly partial to their cause. On one hand, we can say that this choice eliminates the Porter’s impartiality, his stance as a neutral translator of the play’s broader themes. And, this choice pairs nicely with Tromly’s thesis that the Porter is a representation of Macbeth; if Macbeth and the Porter are, literarily speaking, the same person, then it is necessary that they fight together for the same cause. Macbeth the character might die at the end of the play, but his values can be said to live on in the Porter. Yet, I am not convinced that Goold wants us to interpret the Porter’s militarism as a sign of his unwavering devotion to Macbeth; after all, he does not seem particularly remorseful when he tells Macbeth that his wife is dead. Rather, his participation in the war might simply be a representation of his love for chaos and disorder. If the Porter is to be interpreted as a literal gatekeeper to Hell, then it follows that he would be on the front lines of an unjust and preventable war. Furthermore, the Porter’s proximity to death and the underworld suggests that he is not actually an ally to Macbeth, but a hindrance. In taking the Porter from a gatekeeper to a soldier, Goold places him in an ambiguous realm and communicates that it is not necessarily beneficial to have the Porter on your side; as the Porter himself expressed earlier in Goold’s adaption, your transgressions are bound to catch up to you eventually. Findlay, too, explores the karmic element of Macbeth with her 2018 adaptation for the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Though I can’t know for sure where Findlay found inspiration for her treatment of the Porter, I would not be surprised to learn that she was greatly influenced by Goold. Aesthetically, Findlay’s setting for the Porter (played by Michael Hodgson) bears striking similarities to Goold’s. Findlay picks a commonplace brick wall for her backdrop which she accents with even more pedestrian accessories such as a large water cooler, potted plant and office chairs. Even the Porter, who remains on stage throughout the entire production, functions as an additional set piece, and he remains largely seated and silent. With this commonplace set, the stage is transformed into a sort-of waiting room at a doctor’s office or school, especially since the characters are constantly passing through it to get to their mark on stage. Keeping in mind the Porter’s assumed identity as the keeper to the Hell gates, this waiting room can potentially be interpreted as Limbo, or less generously as the pit stop before Hell itself. Even the objectively “good” characters such as Malcom or Macduff must pass through the Porter’s gate/waiting room, which could indicate that they are teetering not on the edge of the inferno, but of death or destruction. In another sense, Findlay seems to be communicating that the entrance to Hell is hidden in plain sight, meaning it is all too easy for any of us to fall into it, whether we believe in it or not. Thus, the Porter’s almost-invisible presence on stage reminds us that someone, somewhere is always watching and remembering what we do.
Like Goold, Findlay’s Porter also uses a flashlight to more directly interrogate her audience’s morality. The flashlight allows Findlay’s Porter to break the fourth wall and draw the audience into the play’s action — which, fittingly, is Tromly’s main argument for the purpose of the Porter. At one point in the recording, which features a live audience, the Porter shines a flashlight in someone’s face and asks, “What are you?” Though seemingly a comical moment, the Porter uses this line to ask the audience a deeply profound question: what kind of person are you? The Porter does not let us sit and judge the Macbeths without also forcing us to interrogate ourselves and our motives. Within this framework, the Porter’s last line to “remember” him can be read not just as a foreshadowing device, but as another reminder to the audience that someone is watching.
Where Findlay really departs from Goold, however, is in her Porter’s proximity to the Macbeths themselves. Though Findlay also includes the Porter in later scenes and has him interact with other characters, she does not, like Goold, plant the Porter firmly in Macbeth’s corner; rather, Findlay’s Porter does not align himself with any character. In fact, as touched on above, every character is subject to the Porter’s scrutiny and judgement. Though he never speaks, the Porter communicates moral judgements about the characters through his tallying and timekeeping duties. As the timekeeper, the Porter is responsible for starting and restarting a giant stopwatch on the set’s back wall; it starts shortly after Duncan dies and counts down to Macbeth’s death, only to reset at the end of the play when Fleance returns to avenge his father’s death. Thus, Findlay’s Porter becomes an arbiter of both the players’ literal time on stage and their characters’ time on earth. Once a character dies, the Porter marks his or her death with a chalk tally on the back wall, creating a very graphic visual of the play’s bloodshed. He does not only mark the stated deaths; once the war between Malcom and Macbeth begins, the Porter gets up and starts drawing random tally marks to signify the loss of soldiers, and perhaps even innocent civilians, in battle. The more tallies added, the more we are reminded of the violence happening at every turn; one could also say that the tallies, like the set, remind us that death and destruction are commonplace. Visually, the tally marks serve as incessant reminders that Macbeth is not just about the protagonists’ descent into madness or the follies of ambition; rather, it is a deeply serious play about the violent consequences of political greed, conspiracy and disloyalty. In this way, Findlay continues Goold’s messaging that our actions do not just affect us and, should those actions be unjust or immoral, they are bound to catch up to us eventually.
CIMOLINO: MISMANAGING THE COMEDY OF THE PORTER
I have stated that part of Goold’s and Findlay’s success lies in their ability to masterfully blend comedy and horror, but that does not mean that a purely comedic Porter cannot be equally compelling. Many critics have advocated for the portrayal of the Porter as comic relief following the heavy and often-graphic murder of Duncan. Furthermore, scholars have long pointed out comedy’s role in rebelling against the status quo and pointing out societal flaws. For example, Henri Bergson posits in Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic that laughter’s job is to ridicule its subject. He writes, “Laughter is, above all, a corrective. Being intended to humiliate, it must make a painful impression on the person against whom it is directed. By laughter, society avenges itself for the liberties taken with it. It would fail in its object if it bore the stamp of sympathy or kindness” (Stapleton, 197). Within this framework, the Porter still functions as a moral judge and prophet. Even as he jokes with Macduff about the lecherous effects of alcohol, he is conveying a warning about the lechery occurring beyond the gates. One could argue that, in a way, directing laughter at the Macduff family is a way of issuing a warning regarding what awaits them within the Macbeths’ home. Therefore, rendering the Porter comedic need not strip him of his seriousness.
The problem with Antoni Cimolino’s 2017 portrayal of the Porter (played by Cyrus Lane) is not that it attempts to be funny but that it does so only half-heartedly. In a pure stage production with minimal set pieces and costume pieces, the Porter should have more of an opportunity to shine, but Cimolino’s Porter struggles to occupy the empty stage. Unlike Goold and Findlay’s Porters, who are provided homes within the larger set, Cimolino’s Porter seems to come out of nowhere, leaving the impression that he is a one-off character rather than an integral component of the play’s moral arc. Furthermore, the Porter’s initial mannerisms are confusing and disjointed. At first, he delivers his lines in a very guttural fashion and appears angry or frustrated at having to perform his duties in the middle of the night. This anger manifests itself through his deep breathing, frantic hand motions and scrunched facial expressions. His speech is a bit slurred, which might suggest that he is drunk (as is typically the case with the Porter) if not for the fact that he does not have any alcohol with him on stage. Thus, it is not clear whether drunkenness or boredom inspire the Porter’s mimicry in this scene; all the audience knows is that, for some reason, the Porter has decided to mime a farmer, a tailor and equivocator in an exaggerated way.
The Porter continues to get more and more comedic as he continues his soliloquy, with his mime movements generating sizeable laughs from the audience. These movements even borderline problematic and offensive, with the Porter’s first laughs coming after he pretends to hang himself — multiple times. It’s one thing to stage a hanging, a potentially triggering tactic, but to stage it comically is irresponsible and disrespectful. That being said, this mimicry does elicit its intended reaction: laughter. So, the question then becomes, “Why is he funny now?” How does a character go from appearing extremely angry and frustrated at his current circumstances to finding levity and humour in the situation, even if alcohol is involved? Cimolino’s Porter makes this drastic turn without communicating why or how he is able to make it. One reason the Porter elicits laughs is that he switches voices when assuming the different professions; for example, he adopts a high British accent for his interpretation of the tailor. This subtle choice allows the viewer to buy in to the Porter’s one-man show; not only is the audience interacting with the Porter in Cimolino’s adaptation, but they are also interacting with his farmer, tailor and equivocator. Still, because he does not possess a clear persona or purpose, the Porter’s lines fall flat and are devoid of their typical moral saliency and prophesy. When we are so focused on the Porter’s silly hand motions or over-the-top accents, it is hard to grasp the ways in which his words reflect the larger action of the play. Unlike Goold’s and Findlay’s Porters, whose dark humour and audience interaction draws us deeper into the play’s moral framework, Cimolino’s Porter functions as a distraction. Then again, perhaps that is Cimolino’s point entirely: that it only takes one comedic persona to distract the other characters and the audience from the darkness all around them.
The only time the Porter’s comedy really makes sense in Cimolino’s production is when he interacts with Macduff and Lennox because then at least his jokes have a “real” audience. Unfortunately for the Porter, Macduff and Lennox are not too receptive to his jokes, for they are impatient to greet Macbeth. Yet, Macduff and Lennox’s frustration with the Porter emphasizes his distracting presence. Because they spend so much time trying to elicit specific answers from the Porter, Macduff and Lennox do not understand what the Porter is communicating, i.e. that treason and lechery lurk behind Macbeth’s gates. The irony, of course, is that the audience is equally naïve about what’s to come, at least theoretically (the plot of Macbeth is almost universally known at this point). In this sense, we, the viewers, are no different than Macduff and Lennox — too enamoured with the Porter’s drunken antics to understand his warnings about Macbeth’s “lechery.” Cimolino does nothing to elevate or reimagine the Porter’s role in Macbeth, but in the end, it is this lack of imagination that grants the Porter a modicum of success. Confused, underdeveloped and underwhelming, Cimolino’s Porter forces the audience to spend more time unpacking his persona than they do absorbing his judgements and warnings.
KURZEL ET AL: SACRIFICING THE PORTER TO THE BIG SCREEN
Up to now, we have discussed successful and unsuccessful interpretations of the Porter in twenty-first century adaptations, but what happens when the Porter is missing from the narrative entirely? Is there anything lost when the Porter is cut from adaptations of Macbeth? Justin Kurzel’s 2015 film adaptation, featuring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, provides an opportunity to explore the Porter’s absence and think critically about his importance to Macbeth’s overall plot and themes.
In addition to the usual themes of ambition and sin, Kurzel’s Macbeth explores the effects of trauma on an individual’s relationship to themselves and to others. Using additional image-based scenes and dramatic music, Kurzel’s adaptation tells the story of a husband and wife trying to piece their life together after undergoing traumatic experiences. The film opens with the Macbeths burying their child, a scene which provides visual representation to something that is only hinted at in the text. Throughout the first half of the film, Lady Macbeth is seen praying in a chapel-like space, suggesting that she is in mourning for her dead child. Meanwhile, Macbeth is suffering from PTSD after his involvement in the Scottish war against Ireland and Norway. To help his audience understand this post-traumatic stress, Kurzel depicts the gruesome battle — rife with bloodshed — in its entirety. The audience watches this battle unfold primarily from Macbeth’s point of view; this cinematographic decision forces us into Macbeth’s shoes and therefore makes us more sympathetic to Macbeth’s cause. By including these additional graphic scenes, Kurzel complicates traditional understandings of the Macbeth’s motives; rather than two privileged individuals greedy for even more power, Kurzel’s Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are painted as two trauma survivors desperately trying to maintain control over their lives.
It is interesting that in an adaptation that seeks to humanize and sympathize with the Macbeth family, the Porter — a character which Tromly argues provides a more robust understanding of Macbeth’s humanity — is cut. No doubt that Kurzel intends to induce sympathy, or at least to reduce judgement, through his depictions of trauma; in other words, he hopes to provide a wider context for the Macbeths’ actions, as terrible as they are. For Tromly, no one better provides this sort of contextualization better than the Porter. He writes, “The Porter Scene…serves the general rhetorical function of lowering ‘the horizon of behavior against which Macbeth's crimes are to be judged’” (153). Combined with the visual depictions of loss and trauma, the Porter scene could only aid Kurzel’s robust humanization of the Macbeth family. Of course, there were likely practical reasons for cutting the Porter — a desire to shorten the overall length of the film to appease theatregoers, an unwillingness to cut the camera away from the Macbeths for any period, or perhaps even a lack of understanding regarding the Porter’s significance. It is likely that with its modern stylization and celebrity cast, Kurzel’s Macbeth is meant to lure viewers who would not normally consider themselves Shakespeare aficionados and who might not realize that the Porter is missing from the film. Therefore, Kurzel’s film is able to succeed and generate sympathy even without its inclusion of the Porter. At the same time, it is probable that the Porter could have greatly aided Kurzel’s moral agenda had his character not been sacrificed to the big screen.
With Macbeth, Shakespeare delivered a tragic play filled with supernatural subjects and complex characters, one of whom is the Porter. Yet, whether for lack of research or time restraints, many productions fail to utilize the Porter to his full potential. Cimolino’s and Kurzel’s adaptations offer just two examples of Porters who are overly comedic or underrepresented, though there are countless other adaptations to which we could turn. At the same time, Goold’s and Findlay’s productions offer hope for the reintegration and reimaging of the Porter’s role in twenty-first century adaptations of Macbeth. By incorporating the Porter in to the play’s later scenes, characterizing him as both comedic and horrific, and employing him as a metaphorical device, Goold and Findlay remind audiences of the Porter’s thematic potential and allow viewers to step into the action of the play. When we remember the Porter, we remember that, at its core, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is not simply about one man’s ambition and pride; it is about all humans, everywhere.
