The Thane Struts Again

What does it take to get to the top fast in today's go-go business world of big buyouts and bigger burnouts? What does it take to endure the slogging pettiness of a political campaign in order to get elected to office? In the corporate world they call it "drive." In politics they call it "fire in the belly." In both cases, what it takes can be summed up in one word:

. Can you imagine a worse middle manager's report to a CEO about an underling than the dread words, "...lacks ambition"? Or what happens to the morale of a campaign if staffers begin to think, "Hey, this guy may not be willing to do what it takes to win?"

But ambition exacts a price. It requires shelving some quaint old qualities, like humanity, sympathy, and modesty. It can become the killer fish in the aquarium that gobbles up all the others. Are we beginning to feel some ambivalence about crowning ambition as the prime virtue of our era? Do I detect some mixed feelings out there? Our dilemma may not be entirely novel. In 1606, nearly four centuries ago, an ambitious young playwright named Will Shakespeare was pleased to see his latest work, "Macbeth," produced in London. The play is about ambition run wild, and what it can do to people. The specter still haunts us, and consequently the play still grips us. This spring, two productions of "Macbeth" came to life on American stages. One, starring "Frasier" star Kelsey Grammer, closed in New York after critics panned it. Another, staged by the Royal Shakespeare Company in New Haven, Conn., and starring Antony Sher, has been enthusiastically received.

I am not surprised that the Thane of Cawdor is back. He is a creature defined by his driving ambition and his gnawing ambivalence about it. His other qualities, if he ever had them, have atrophied. Here is how he explains it to his equally:

...I have no spur
To prick the sides of my intent, but only
Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself
and falls on th' other side.

But of course, Macbeth does retain the residues of a few other feelings, and they almost cause him to lose his nerve. And he does have a spur, a very pointy one named Lady Macbeth, the ideal corporate spouse, who keeps needling him onward and upward whenever he seems to falter.

Both Lord and Lady lose their minds before the play ends. She cannot, even with "all the perfumes of Arabia," rinse her bloody hands of that foul spot. He sees the troubled ghost of Banquo, whose murder he has arranged, at a banquet. They both go berserk, and both end up dead.

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