Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow

Yay! I finished Macbeth on Wednesday but I haven't had time to post about it until now. The best part of the play for me is Macbeth's speech after his wife has died:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,

To the last syllable of recorded time;

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.

Macbeth doesn't have the sophistication of Hamlet, and it's hard to imagine the savage, rough Macbeth saying anything like Hamlet's To Be or Not To Be soliloquy, but this moment is just as tragic. Macbeth has lost his wife and the one person who understands him, who stood by him in all his scheming and aided him to the throne. As awful as his bloody ascent was, we have to feel sympathy for Macbeth as his world falls apart.

I remembered hearing an interview with Patrick Stewart about this speech, so I found it on Youtube. He tells some of the advice that he got from Ian McKellan as Stewart was beginning his run of Macbeth:

I watched both his and Ian McKellan's versions of the speech, and I can definitely see the influence there. However, I don't really like either version! Blasphemy, I know. But I think this speech is more beautiful on the page than read aloud. Aloud, it needs to be read with apathy or bitterness or desperation, and the shape of the words lose some of their beauty. What do you think--can you find a better version of the speech, or have I missed something of value in these two renditions?