Court is in session for the crimes of Lady Macbeth

History has not been kind to poor, unkind Lady Macbeth. According to the Urban Dictionary, to call someone a “Lady Macbeth” in 2023 is to call her “an unpleasant, cruel or maliciously insane woman.” She is no less than “the female incarnation of Evil Itself” (capitalized!).

Now, hold on just one second, history.

“Undone: The Lady M Project,” an original play created by our own Local Theater Company, grants Lady M the trial (and the first name) Shakespeare never gave her in life. And it does so from a decidedly 2023 sensibility.

So what did she really do to have earned such ongoing, idiomatic contempt, 420 years after her literary suicide? Macbeth, after all, is the warmongering general who assassinated his king … and his best bud … and ordered the massacre of wives and children ... and anyone else who stood in the way of his succession to the throne.

In the end, this intriguing new play is more interested in asking an urgent contemporary social question than it is in answering a legal one: “Why are men so afraid of decisive, powerful women?” One need look no further than the gleeful conservative grave-stomping this week at news of the death of Colorado’s pioneering feminist and congresswoman Pat Schroeder.

But as I watched this play, which puts Lady M on trial for her (after)life with poor dead Duncan as her prosecutor and those three mischievous witches as her judges, I kept wondering what a real-life lawyer might say about all this.

So I asked my lawyer sister (Theresa), and my lawyer brother (Kevin): If this story played out in the here and now, and in a comparable context, what criminal charges might Lady M actually be facing – and how would you defend her? For this game to work, let’s say Macbeth is the U.S. Secretary of Defense, which puts him at No. 6 on the presidential succession pecking order. Which is pretty close to where Macbeth was when those wicked, wicked witches whispered in his ear that one day he would be king.

Domino tipped.  

Now, Lady M certainly stood by her man. She helped lure the king to her house under lethally false pretenses. She got him wasted and roofied his guards so her hubby could slip into the guest room for the easy kill. She helped frame Duncan’s two grown sons for the dirty deed. That damned spot is metaphorically real.

But it was Macbeth who killed Duncan, his two guards and his presidential rival, Banquo. It was Macbeth who embarked on a subsequent reign of terror, slaughtering Macduff's entire family (and others). Dude is a mass murderer.

Still, brother Kevin says, Lady M is going to be up to her ears in criminal charges of her own.

“She is facing conspiracy to commit murder against the king – which is both sedition and treason,” said Kevin, who specializes in family law. “The conspiracy is clearly evidenced by her substantially aiding and abetting in the murder. And she actively participated in the placement of the weapons. Therefore she was also aware of the impending coverup. That is aiding and abetting both before and after the fact. So that’s aggravated murder with a dangerous weapon.”

“Aggravated” is a big word in legal circles. It applies to any violent crime with a dangerous weapon, and it comes with mandatory sentencing under Colorado law.

And even though Lady M takes a back seat for the rest of the killing spree, she’s legally on the hook for all of it, Kevin says. Because from the start, she vows to help Macbeth become king by whatever means necessary. That makes her legally responsible for every subsequent crime her husband undertakes to make that happen. We’re talking multiple consecutive sentences for each count.

“If you are part of a series of actions that leads to a murder, you are equally guilty in the eyes of the law,” adds Theresa, whose bailiwick is trust, estate and probate litigation. “That’s why the getaway driver is just as guilty as the guys inside robbing the bank.”

Lady M is portrayed in the play by the masterful Anne Penner, an associate professor of theater at the University of Denver who acts with the same kind of precision Macbeth uses to wield a dagger. Here, Lady M takes responsibility for her actions and expresses remorse, which both sibs say will factor positively in her sentencing.

The issue of historic gender bias looms large in the play because, in the end, playwrights Mare Trevathan, Hadley Kamminga-Peck and Penner are most interested in giving Lady M her long-awaited opportunity to both be heard and better understood. After all, she lived in an inherently suppressive and patriarchal time that some might say hasn’t changed enough in 400 years.

But, my familial attorneys agree: She’s not going to get much sympathy from the legal community there. Because in the end, it all comes down to the facts of the case and the actions that she took. And one of those facts is that Lady M was living a generously blessed existence.

“This is a woman in a wealthy and privileged position,” Theresa said. “She was married to a powerful man of high status in their community, and she’s not evidently being dominated by him in their relationship. It’s true that women get blamed for far more than they should, but this is a woman who had agency. She not only knew what her husband was doing, but she helped set it up – and that is what felony murder is all about.”

So how would they defend Lady M if she were their client? Both agree that an insanity defense would be a hard sell, because she’s clearly of sound mind at the start, when the plot is hatched. But her impaired mental judgment at the end would make her unable to assist in her own defense, Kevin said, and therefore she would be unable to stand trial – period.

What I really wanted to know, though, is what legal comeuppance those damned mischievous witches ought to be facing. Because, really, would Macbeth have done any of it if the witches hadn’t put the kingly idea in his head in the first place? Maybe not, but Kevin insists: That doesn’t make them guilty of a crime. It just makes them *sshats.

In the end, Kevin looks not to Shakespeare but to the 19th century British politician Lord Acton, who coined the phrase, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” When ultimately judging Lady M’s crimes, he looks to Dante's “Inferno.”

“The lowest, darkest, coldest circle of Hell is for traitors to God, country and family,” he said. “And she fits all of those. Unfortunately, there's no way out for her."