【文章标题】：《麦克白》及其难题
【文章正文】： If you’ve never seen a bad production of Macbeth, you’ve probably never seen a production of Macbeth. 若你从未看过糟糕的《麦克白》演出，那你可能根本就没看过《麦克白》。
Famously cursed, the play has inspired perhaps the gravest superstition in the superstitious demimonde of Western theater: Every actor, director, stage manager, set designer, tech, and seamstress knows that one must never speak the name of Shakespeare’s Scottish play inside a theater. 这部被诅咒的名剧催生了西方戏剧界最严重的迷信：每个演员、导演、舞台监督、布景师、技术人员和裁缝都知道，绝不能在剧院里直呼这部”苏格兰剧”的名字。
Partly this is derived from the story itself, brimful as it is with witchcraft, wickedness, and the violation of sacred bonds. 部分原因在于故事本身充斥着巫术、邪恶与背誓行为。
Partly it is inspired by the misfortunes visited upon numerous historical productions. 部分源于历史上众多制作遭遇的不幸。
Those involved with various stagings across the centuries have suffered breaks, burns, falls, riots, and heart attacks. 几个世纪以来，参与不同版本演出的人员遭遇过骨折、烧伤、坠落、骚乱甚至心脏病突发。
There have been a startling number of deaths, onstage and off, going back—as legend has it—to the boy playing Lady Macbeth in the very first production. 惊人的死亡案例（据传说可追溯到首演时饰演麦克白夫人的男孩）在台前幕后不断发生。
And partly the superstition arises from the difficulties of the play’s script. 而部分迷信则源于剧本本身的演绎难度。
Among playwrights, certain scripts are considered “actor-proof”—dialogical contraptions so tightly paced, dramatically propulsive, and self-evidently motivated that even a lackluster performance, direction, or design cannot snuff out the narrative power of the writing. 某些剧本被剧作家视为”演员保险箱”——其对话机制节奏紧凑、戏剧张力充沛、动机不言自明，即使平庸的表演、导演或设计也无法掩盖文本的叙事力量。
The truly actor-proof play, like the truly unsinkable ship, may not exist, but if there is such a thing as a script that can’t help but succeed in production, the Scottish play might be its opposite. 真正的”演员保险箱”剧本或许如永不沉没的船只般虚幻，但若真存在必然成功的剧本，《麦克白》恰是其反面。
Should every element of a production come together just right, Macbeth can be electrifying. 当所有制作元素完美配合时，《麦克白》能迸发惊人魅力。
But if even one bit goes awry, the whole thing falls to pieces. 但只要一个环节出错，全盘皆溃。
What makes Macbeth so hard to stage well? 为何《麦克白》如此难以完美呈现？
Setting aside the challenges of producing any four-hundred-year-old play, there are several problems built into the script. 除却四百年前剧作固有的制作难题，剧本本身存在多重桎梏。
First, it’s filled with magic. 首先，剧中充满魔幻元素。
It opens on a coven of witches who speak in riddles and spells and in so doing set a semi-supernatural frame around all of the play’s events, which include Macbeth’s vision of a floating dagger, Lady Macbeth’s vision of blood that won’t wash out, the ghost of Banquo, and an elaborate sequence of prophetic symbols, spirits, and harbingers conjured for Macbeth’s edification in the witch’s lair. 开场女巫们以谜语咒语构筑半超自然的叙事框架，后续情节包含悬浮匕首幻象、麦克白夫人无法洗净的血迹幻觉、班柯鬼魂，以及女巫洞穴中为警示麦克白而召唤的复杂预言符号与幽灵队列。
There is also the matter of the witches’ prophecies, delivered throughout the play, all of which come true, though often in ways that leave ambiguous their meanings. 贯穿全剧的女巫预言皆会应验，却常以意义含混的方式实现。
Precisely how the audience is meant to receive all of this magic is unclear. 观众该如何理解这些魔幻场景始终存疑。
Some instances, such as Lady Macbeth’s vision, seem to be mere hallucination, while others, such as the procession of Banquo’s line of future kings, are presented as objectively perceptible manifestations meant to be accepted by both characters and audience. 麦克白夫人的幻视似属幻觉，而班柯后代列王游行的场景则被呈现为角色与观众共同见证的客观显现。
That no one but Macbeth sees Banquo’s ghost and the “air-drawn dagger” might suggest that these are psychological rather than spiritual phenomena. 唯有麦克白能见的班柯亡魂与”空中匕首”或许暗示这是心理而非灵异现象。
The characters themselves disagree, however, about what counts as magic and whether any of it should be believed, which complicates the problem of the intended audience response. 角色们对何为魔法、是否可信亦存分歧，这使得观众预期反应更趋复杂。
Too much ambiguity regarding diegetic onionskins might try the audience’s patience, especially when the production is tasked with the additional work of preserving the suspension of disbelief with regard to onstage special effects. 叙事层次过度含混可能消耗观众耐心，尤其当制作还需维持舞台特效的可信度时。
The delicate orchestration of these interlocking variables in a theatrical production is possible, but only barely. 在剧场中精密协调这些交织变量虽有可能，却如履薄冰。
The second major challenge for any production of Macbeth is the play’s tone. 第二大挑战在于剧作基调。
The script is among Shakespeare’s shortest, and the scope and complexity of the story give the audience little chance to digest all of the plot developments. 作为莎翁最简短的剧本之一，其故事广度与复杂性让观众难以消化所有情节发展。
The abruptness with which characters shiftfrom unshakeable loyalty to blackhearted villainy or from cynical realism to hallucinatory ecstasy can risk producing a comic effect in the midst of what might otherwise be a scene of terrible gravity. 角色从坚定忠诚突变为黑心恶棍，或从愤世嫉俗转为迷幻狂喜，这种骤变可能在严肃场景中产生喜剧效果。
And when the characters display ambivalence about their choices, the wobbliness of their commitments can seem less tortured than incompetent. 当角色对选择表现矛盾时，其立场动摇更显无能而非挣扎。
When Macbeth returns from Duncan’s murder to confess the crime to his wife, Lady Macbeth is appalled to find her absent-minded husband still in possession of the bloody daggers. 麦克白弑君后向妻子坦白时，麦克白夫人震惊发现心不在焉的丈夫竟仍握着血刃。
The many references to drinking that appear between Duncan’s arrival at Inverness and the discovery of his body invite suspicion that the Macbeths might even have been drunk when they committed the murder. 从邓肯抵达因弗内斯到尸体被发现期间频繁出现的饮酒描写，令人怀疑麦克白夫妇行凶时是否处于醉酒状态。
Much has been made of the Porter’s comic soliloquy, coming as it does in the midst of one of the play’s darkest moments, but that darkness has already been confused by a series of mishaps and half-measures on the part of the murderers. 看门人插科打诨的独白出现在全剧最黑暗时刻常被讨论，但凶手们一连串失误与半吊子行径早已冲淡了黑暗氛围。
The script itself does not specify the proper tone with which to present such moments to the audience. 剧本本身未指明此类场景应呈现的恰当基调。
The third and perhaps greatest problem presented by Macbeth is that of motivation. 第三个或许最严重的问题在于动机。
Within the play’s first few scenes, we are introduced to Macbeth by other characters who speak enthusiastically about his incomparable virtue, but we’ve scarcely met the man himself b 开场几幕中，其他角色盛赞麦克白无与伦比的美德，但我们几乎没机会真正认识这位主人公（原文截断）