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= Macbeth =
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Introduction
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'The Tragedy of Macbeth', often shortened to 'Macbeth' (), is a
tragedy by William Shakespeare, estimated to have been first performed
in 1606. It dramatises the physically violent and damaging
psychological effects of political ambitions and power. It was first
published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book, and is
Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. Scholars believe 'Macbeth', of all the
plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of King James I,
contains the most allusions to James, patron of Shakespeare's acting
company.
In the play, a brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a
prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of
Scotland. Consumed by his latent ambition and spurred to violence by
his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne
for himself. Then, racked with guilt and paranoia, he commits further
murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, becoming a
tyrannical ruler in the process. The violence perpetrated by the
power-hungry couple leads to their insanity and finally to their
deaths.
Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of
Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in 'Holinshed's Chronicles' (1587), a
history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and
his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively
from the history of the real Macbeth.
There was a stage superstition that the name of the play should not be
spoken, and that it should instead be called "The Scottish Play". The
play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and has been adapted to film, television,
opera, novels, comics, and other media.
Act I
=======
Amid thunder and lightning, three witches decide that their next
meeting will be with Macbeth, the Thane (Lord) of Glamis. In the
following scene, soldiers report to King Duncan of Scotland that his
generals Banquo and Macbeth have just defeated a rebellion led by the
traitorous Thane of Cawdor, allied with forces from Norway and
Ireland. Duncan praises his kinsmen for their bravery and fighting
prowess, announcing that the title of Thane of Cawdor shall be
transferred to Macbeth.
Wandering on a heath, Macbeth and Banquo are puzzled when the three
witches appear, prophetically hailing Macbeth as "Thane of Glamis" and
"Thane of Cawdor", next saying he shall "be king hereafter". When
Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches respond that he will
father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. The witches
vanish, and the Thane of Ross arrives, informing Macbeth of his newly
bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor. The witches' first prophecy is thus
fulfilled, and Macbeth immediately begins to harbour nervous ambitions
of becoming king. King Duncan himself soon welcomes and praises
Macbeth and Banquo, declaring they will all spend the night at
Macbeth's castle in Inverness; also, Duncan's son Malcolm is announced
as his official heir. Macbeth sends a letter about the witches ahead
to his wife, Lady Macbeth, who is resolute that she and her husband
should murder Duncan in order to obtain the crown. When Macbeth
arrives in Inverness, she persuades him to kill the king that very
night. They plan to get Duncan's two chamber attendants drunk so that
they will black out; thus, the next morning they can frame the
attendants for the murder.
Act II
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That night, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural omens,
including a hallucination of a blood-smeared dagger, Macbeth goes
offstage and stabs the sleeping Duncan to death. Returning, he is so
shaken that Lady Macbeth finds him still holding the bloody daggers,
which she scolds him for, reminding him they must be left on Duncan's
sleeping servants. She takes the knives and places them back in
Duncan's chamber. When the couple hears knocking at the castle gate,
they hurry to bed.
A drunken porter opens the gate, admitting Macduff (the Thane of
Fife) and a nobleman named Lennox: they wish to visit the king.
Macbeth, greeting them, leads them to Duncan's chamber. Macduff enters
the chamber then returns to the stage, announcing with shock the
murder of Duncan. Macbeth and Lennox rush into the chamber where,
offstage, Macbeth impulsively kills Duncan's servants to prevent them
from professing their innocence. He reappears and confesses to the
other nobles that he has killed the servants, but lies that his
intentions were to avenge the king's murder. Duncan's two sons flee
the country, fearing that they will be killed next. Macduff explains
that their flight makes them the main suspects in the king's death,
and Macbeth, as Duncan's next of kin, assumes the throne offstage as
the new King of Scotland. Banquo remembers the witches' prophecy about
how his own descendants would inherit the throne, and he is suspicious
that Macbeth might be Duncan's true killer.
Act III
=========
Despite Macbeth's success, he remains uneasy about Banquo's role in
the prophecy. Inviting Banquo to a royal banquet, Macbeth discovers
that Banquo and his young son Fleance will be riding out that night.
Macbeth rapidly arranges to have Banquo and Fleance killed, hiring two
men and later adding a third murderer to the plan. During the ambush,
the murderers succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth
is furious that an heir of Banquo remains alive.
At the banquet, Macbeth has invited his lords and Lady Macbeth to a
night of drinking and merriment, though Macduff has refused to come.
Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves
fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is visible only to him.
The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair,
until a desperate Lady Macbeth lies that her husband is merely
afflicted with a harmless lifelong illness. The ghost departs and
returns once more, causing the same riotous anger and fear in Macbeth.
This time, Lady Macbeth demands that the visitors leave. Elsewhere,
Hecate, queen of witchcraft, scolds the three witches for
communicating with Macbeth without consulting her. Hecate instructs
the witches to next give Macbeth a false sense of safety and
overconfidence about his new position. Through verbal irony, Lennox
reveals to another lord his suspicions that Macbeth is a murdering
tyrant and they discuss how Macduff, refusing to attend Macbeth's
banquet, has gone to England to find allies who will help take back
the Scottish throne.
Act IV
========
Macbeth visits the three witches and asks them to reveal the truth of
their prophecies to him. They summon horrible apparitions, each of
which offers further supernatural pronouncements. First, they conjure
an armoured head, which tells him to beware of Macduff (IV.i.72).
Second, a bloody child tells him that no one born of a woman will be
able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that
Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill.
Macbeth is relieved because he knows that all his enemies are born of
women and a forest cannot possibly travel across the land. However,
the witches also conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, the last
carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings, and finally the ghost
of Banquo pointing to the procession. Macbeth realises nervously that
these are all Banquo's descendants who will acquire kingships in
numerous countries.
In light of the latest prophecies, Macbeth orders the disobedient
Macduff's castle seized and sends assassins to slaughter all its
inhabitants, including Macduff's wife and young son. Meanwhile,
Macduff himself is in England meeting with Prince Malcolm (the elder
of King Duncan's sons) to discuss Macbeth's tyrannical regime.
Malcolm, who must be cautious for any traps, confesses that he would
be a terrible leader if the crown were handed to him, but this is
merely a lie to see how Macduff will react. Macduff shows that he is
more loyal to Scotland than any particular leader, impressing Malcolm,
who now reveals the lie and says Macduff has won his trust. The Thane
of Ross arrives to deliver the horrible news to Macduff that his
"castle is surprised, your wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd"
(IV.iii.204-205). With this news of his family's murders, Macduff is
stricken with grief, but he is quickly provoked to vengeance by
Malcolm who explains that he has raised an army with the help of the
English King Edward. Together, they can defeat Macbeth and take back
the Scottish throne.
Act V
=======
At night, in the royal palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman
discuss Lady Macbeth's sudden frightening habit of sleepwalking. Lady
Macbeth enters in a trance, bemoaning the recent murders and trying to
wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands. Her observers marvel at
her guilt-ridden confessions. Meanwhile, Prince Malcolm's allied
forces plan to join up at Birnam Wood, additionally supported by
Macduff and defecting Scottish thanes alarmed by Macbeth's recent
barbarities. While encamped in Birnam Wood, Malcolm orders his
soldiers to cut down and carry tree boughs to camouflage their
numbers.
As Macbeth readies for the attack, he receives news that his wife has
suddenly died, causing him to deliver a despairing "Tomorrow, and
tomorrow, and tomorrow" soliloquy (V.v.17-28). Still, he is emboldened
by the witches' seeming guarantee of his invincibility against any
"man of woman born", until a servant reports that Malcolm's army is
advancing on Dunsinane in the form of moving trees. As the invaders
take his castle, Macbeth is confronted by Macduff. Macbeth tells him
that he cannot be defeated by "one of woman born", but Macduff reveals
that he was born by Caesarean section and thus did not have a natural
childbirth. In the ensuing duel with Macduff, Macbeth is killed
offstage. Macduff reenters with Macbeth's severed head, and Malcolm
discusses how order has been restored. He implies that Lady Macbeth's
death was a suicide, declares his benevolent intentions for the
country, promotes his thanes to earls, and invites all to see him
crowned at Scone.
Characters
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* Duncanking of Scotland
* MalcolmDuncan's elder son
* DonalbainDuncan's younger son
* Macbetha general in the army of King Duncan; originally Thane of
Glamis, then Thane of Cawdor, and later king of Scotland
* Lady MacbethMacbeth's wife, and later queen of Scotland
* BanquoMacbeth's friend and a general in the army of King Duncan
* FleanceBanquo's son
* MacduffThane of Fife
* Lady MacduffMacduff's wife
* Macduff's sona young boy
* Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, CaithnessScottish thanes
* Siwardgeneral of the English forces
* Young SiwardSiward's son
* SeytonMacbeth's armourer and chief servant
* Hecatequeen of the witches
* Three Witchesthree mysterious women who approach Macbeth and
prophesy his fate
* Captainin the Scottish army
* Murderersemployed by Macbeth
** First and Second Murderers
** Third Murderersent by Macbeth to assist the first two murderers
* Portergatekeeper at Macbeth's home
* DoctorLady Macbeth's doctor
* Doctorat the English court
* GentlewomanLady Macbeth's caretaker
* Lordopposed to Macbeth
* First Apparitionarmed head
* Second Apparitionbloody child
* Third Apparitioncrowned child
* Attendants, Messengers, Servants, Soldiers
Sources for the play
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Shakespeare's source for the story is 'Holinshed's Chronicles' (1587),
a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare
and his contemporaries. He combines two very similar stories from
Holinshed: one about a man named Donwald, and another about Macbeth,
an 11th-century Scottish king. Donwald, a "captain of [a] castle",
finds several of his kinsmen put to death by his king, Duff, for
dealing with witches. After being pressured by his wife, he and four
of his servants kill the king in his own house. In 'Chronicles',
Macbeth is portrayed as a commander struggling to support the kingdom
in the face of King Duncan's ineptitude. He and Banquo meet the three
witches, who make exactly the same prophecies as in Shakespeare's
version. Macbeth and Banquo then together plot the murder of Duncan,
at Lady Macbeth's urging. Macbeth has a long, ten-year reign before
eventually being overthrown by Macduff and Malcolm. The parallels
between the two versions are clear. However, some scholars think that
George Buchanan's 'Rerum Scoticarum Historia' matches Shakespeare's
version more closely. Buchanan's work was available in Latin in
Shakespeare's day.
While medieval sources give information about King Macbeth, no
medieval account mentions the Weird Sisters, Banquo, or Lady Macbeth,
and, with the exception of the last-named, it is probable that none of
them actually existed. The characters of Banquo, the Weird Sisters,
and Lady Macbeth were first mentioned in 1527 by the Scottish
historian Hector Boece in his book 'Historia Gentis Scotorum'
('History of the Scottish People'), who wanted to denigrate Macbeth in
order to strengthen the claim of the House of Stuart to the Scottish
throne. Boece portrayed Banquo as an ancestor of the Stuart kings of
Scotland, adding in a "prophecy" that the descendants of Banquo would
be the rightful kings of Scotland while the Weird Sisters served to
give a picture of King Macbeth as gaining the throne via dark
supernatural forces. Macbeth did have a wife, but it is not clear if
she was as power-hungry and ambitious as Boece portrayed her, which
served his purpose of having even Macbeth realise he lacked a proper
claim to the throne, and only took it at the urging of his wife.
Holinshed accepted Boece's version of Macbeth's reign at face value
and included it in his 'Chronicles'. Shakespeare saw the dramatic
possibilities in the story as related by Holinshed, and used it as the
basis for the play.
No other version of the story has Macbeth kill the king in Macbeth's
own castle. Scholars have seen this change of Shakespeare's as adding
to the darkness of Macbeth's crime as the worst violation of
hospitality. Versions of the story that were common at the time had
Duncan being killed in an ambush at Inverness, not in a castle.
Shakespeare took the detail of the king being murdered while a guest
from the story of Donwald and King Duff.
Shakespeare made another important change. In 'Chronicles', Banquo is
an accomplice in Macbeth's murder of King Duncan and plays an
important part in ensuring that Macbeth, not Malcolm, takes the throne
in the coup that follows. In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to
be an ancestor of the Stuart King James I. (In the 19th century it was
established that Banquo is an unhistorical character; the Stuarts are
actually descended from a Breton family which migrated to Scotland
slightly later than Macbeth's time.) The Banquo portrayed in earlier
sources is significantly different from the Banquo created by
Shakespeare. Critics have proposed several reasons for this change.
First, to portray the king's ancestor as a murderer would have been
risky. Other authors of the time who wrote about Banquo, such as Jean
de Schelandre in his 'Stuartide', also changed history by portraying
Banquo as a noble man, not a murderer, probably for the same reasons.
Second, Shakespeare may have altered Banquo's character simply because
there was no dramatic need for another accomplice to the murder; there
was, however, a need to give a dramatic contrast to Macbeth--a role
which many scholars argue is filled by Banquo.
Other scholars maintain that a strong argument can be made for
associating the tragedy with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. As presented
by Harold Bloom in 2008: "[S]cholars cite the existence of several
topical references in 'Macbeth' to the events of that year, namely the
execution of the Father Henry Garnet for his alleged complicity in the
Gunpowder Plot of 1605, as referenced in the porter's scene." Those
arrested for their role in the Gunpowder Plot refused to give direct
answers to the questions posed to them by their interrogators, which
reflected the influence of the Jesuit practice of equivocation.
Shakespeare, by having Macbeth say that demons "palter...in a double
sense" and "keep the promise to our ear/And break it to our hope",
confirmed James's belief that equivocation was a "wicked" practice,
which reflected in turn the "wickedness" of the Catholic Church.
Garnet had in his possession 'A Treatise on Equivocation', and in the
play the Weird Sisters often engage in equivocation, for instance
telling Macbeth that he could never be overthrown until "Great Birnan
wood to high Dunsinane hill/Shall Come". Macbeth interprets the
prophecy as meaning never, but in fact, the Three Sisters refer only
to branches of the trees of Great Birnam coming to Dunsinane hill.
Other texts have been cited as possible sources for the play, such as
Montaigne's 'Essays', Pierre Le Loyer's 'A Treatise of Specters', and,
for some individual sections, the anonymous pamphlet 'Newes from
Scotland' (1591?), William Camden's 'Remains' 'Concerning Britain'
(1605), and Samuel Daniel's 'The Queenes Arcadia' (1606). Sandra Clark
and Pamela Mason write, "It is hard to imagine that Shakespeare would
not have consulted ['Newes from Scotland'], given that it is an
account of a plot by Scottish witches against the King, the
publication of which James himself commissioned. […] Shakespeare may
also have consulted the King's own 'Daemonologie' (1597)." On the
other hand, Nicholas Brooke writes that there is "no evidence at all
that Shakespeare made any use" of the 'Daemonologie' and 'Newes from
Scotland', and he compares them with certain passages only to
"illustrate common beliefs".
'Macbeth' has been compared to Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra.'
As characters, both Antony and Macbeth seek a new world, even at the
cost of the old one. Both fight for a throne and have a 'nemesis' to
face to achieve that throne. For Antony, the nemesis is Octavius; for
Macbeth, it is Banquo. At one point Macbeth even compares himself to
Antony, saying "under Banquo / My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said /
Mark Antony's was by Caesar." Lastly, both plays contain powerful and
manipulative female figures: Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth.
Date and text
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'Macbeth' cannot be dated precisely, but it is usually taken to be
contemporaneous to the other canonical tragedies: 'Hamlet', 'Othello',
and 'King Lear'. While some scholars have placed the original writing
of the play as early as 1599, most believe that the play is unlikely
to have been composed earlier than 1603 as the play is widely seen to
celebrate King James' ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne
in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo),
suggesting that the parade of eight kings--which the witches show
Macbeth in a vision in Act IV--is a compliment to King James. Many
scholars think the play was written in 1606 in the aftermath of the
Gunpowder Plot, citing possible internal allusions to the 1605 plot
and its ensuing trials. In fact, there are a great number of allusions
and possible pieces of evidence alluding to the Plot, and, for this
reason, a great many critics agree that 'Macbeth' was written in the
year 1606. Lady Macbeth's instructions to her husband, "Look like the
innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" (1.5.74-75), may be an
allusion to a medal that was struck in 1605 to commemorate King James'
escape that depicted a serpent hiding among lilies and roses.
Particularly, the Porter's speech (2.3.1-21) in which he welcomes an
"equivocator", a farmer, and a tailor to hell (2.3.8-13), has been
argued to be an allusion to the 28 March 1606 trial and execution on 3
May 1606 of the Jesuit Henry Garnet, who used the alias "Farmer", with
"equivocator" referring to Garnet's defence of "equivocation". The
porter says that the equivocator "committed treason enough for God's
sake" (2.3.9-10), which specifically connects equivocation and treason
and ties it to the Jesuit belief that equivocation was only lawful
when used "for God's sake", strengthening the allusion to Garnet. The
porter goes on to say that the equivocator "yet could not equivocate
to heaven" (2.3.10-11), echoing grim jokes that were current on the
eve of Garnet's execution: i.e. that Garnet would be "hanged without
equivocation" and at his execution he was asked "not to equivocate
with his last breath". The "English tailor" the porter admits to hell
(2.3.13), has been seen as an allusion to Hugh Griffin, a tailor who
was questioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 27 November and 3
December 1607 for the part he played in Garnet's "miraculous straw",
an infamous head of straw that was stained with Garnet's blood that
had congealed into a form resembling Garnet's portrait, which was
hailed by Catholics as a miracle. The tailor Griffin became notorious
and the subject of verses published with his portrait on the title
page.
When James became king of England, a feeling of uncertainty settled
over the nation. James was a Scottish king and the son of Mary, Queen
of Scots, a staunch Catholic and English traitor. In the words of
critic Robert Crawford, "'Macbeth' was a play for a post-Elizabethan
England facing up to what it might mean to have a Scottish king.
England seems comparatively benign, while its northern neighbour is
mired in a bloody, monarch-killing past. ... 'Macbeth' may have been
set in medieval Scotland, but it was filled with material of interest
to England and England's ruler." Critics argue that the content of the
play is clearly a message to James, the new Scottish King of England.
Likewise, the critic Andrew Hadfield noted the contrast the play draws
between the saintly King Edward the Confessor of England who has the
power of the royal touch to cure scrofula and whose realm is portrayed
as peaceful and prosperous versus the bloody chaos of Scotland. James
in his 1598 book 'The Trew Law of Free Monarchies' had asserted that
kings are always right, if not just, and his subjects owe him total
loyalty at all times, writing that even if a king is a tyrant, his
subjects must never rebel and just endure his tyranny for their own
good. James had argued that the tyranny was preferable to the problems
caused by rebellion which were even worse; Shakespeare by contrast in
'Macbeth' argued for the right of the subjects to overthrow a tyrant
king, in what appeared to be an implied criticism of James's theories
if applied to England. Hadfield also noted a curious aspect of the
play in that it implies that primogeniture is the norm in Scotland,
but Duncan has to nominate his son Malcolm to be his successor while
Macbeth is accepted without protest by the Scottish lords (thanes) as
their king despite being an usurper. Hadfield argued this aspect of
the play with the thanes apparently choosing their king was a
reference to the Stuart claim to the English throne, and the attempts
of the English Parliament to block the succession of James's Catholic
mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, from succeeding to the English throne.
Hadfield argued that Shakespeare implied that James was indeed the
rightful king of England, but owed his throne not to divine favour as
James would have it, but rather due to the willingness of the English
Parliament to accept the Protestant son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of
Scots, as their king.
Garry Wills provides further evidence that 'Macbeth' is a Gunpowder
Play (a type of play that emerged immediately following the events of
the Gunpowder Plot). He points out that every Gunpowder Play contains
"a necromancy scene, regicide attempted or completed, references to
equivocation, scenes that test loyalty by use of deceptive language,
and a character who sees through plots--along with a vocabulary
similar to the Plot in its immediate aftermath (words like 'train,
blow, vault') and an ironic recoil of the Plot upon the Plotters (who
fall into the pit they dug)."
The play utilises a few key words that the audience at the time would
recognize as allusions to the Plot. In one sermon in 1605, Lancelot
Andrewes stated, regarding the failure of the Plotters on God's day,
"Be they fair or foul, glad or sad (as the poet calleth Him) the great
Diespiter, 'the Father of days' hath made them both." Shakespeare
begins the play by using the words "fair" and "foul" in the first
speeches of the witches and Macbeth. In the words of Jonathan Gil
Harris, the play expresses the "horror unleashed by a supposedly loyal
subject who seeks to kill a king and the treasonous role of
equivocation. The play even echoes certain keywords from the
scandal--the 'vault' beneath the House of Parliament in which Guy
Fawkes stored thirty kegs of gunpowder and the 'blow' about which one
of the conspirators had secretly warned a relative who planned to
attend the House of Parliament on 5 November...Even though the Plot is
never alluded to directly, its presence is everywhere in the play,
like a pervasive odor."
Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at Oxford in
the summer of 1605 that featured three "sibyls" like the weird
sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this
and alluded to it with the weird sisters. However, A. R. Braunmuller
in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605-06 arguments inconclusive,
and argues only for an earliest date of 1603.
One suggested allusion supporting a date in late 1606 is the first
witch's dialogue about a sailor's wife: "'Aroint thee, witch!' the
rump-fed ronyon cries./Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the
'Tiger'" (1.3.6-7). This has been thought to allude to the 'Tiger', a
ship that returned to England 27 June 1606 after a disastrous voyage
in which many of the crew were killed by pirates. A few lines later
the witch speaks of the sailor, "He shall live a man forbid:/Weary
se'nnights nine times nine" (1.3.21-22). The real ship was at sea 567
days, the product of 7x9x9, which has been taken as a confirmation of
the allusion, which if correct, confirms that the witch scenes were
either written or amended later than July 1606.
The play is not considered to have been written any later than 1607,
since, as Kermode notes, there are "fairly clear allusions to the play
in 1607". One notable reference is in Francis Beaumont's 'Knight of
the Burning Pestle', first performed in 1607. The following lines (Act
V, Scene 1, 24-30) are, according to scholars, a clear allusion to the
scene in which Banquo's ghost haunts Macbeth at the dinner table:
'Macbeth' was first printed in the First Folio of 1623 and the Folio
is the only source for the text. Some scholars contend that the Folio
text was abridged and rearranged from an earlier manuscript or prompt
book. Often cited as interpolation are stage cues for two songs, whose
lyrics are not included in the Folio but are included in Thomas
Middleton's play 'The Witch', which was written between the accepted
date for 'Macbeth' (1606) and the printing of the Folio. Many scholars
believe these songs were editorially inserted into the Folio, though
whether they were Middleton's songs or preexisting songs is not
certain. It is also widely believed that the character of Hecate, as
well as some lines of the First Witch (4.1 124-131), were not part of
Shakespeare's original play but were added by the Folio editors and
possibly written by Middleton, though "there is no completely
objective proof" of such interpolation.
Themes and motifs
======================================================================
'Macbeth' is an anomaly among Shakespeare's tragedies in certain
critical ways. It is short: more than a thousand lines shorter than
'Othello' and 'King Lear', and only slightly more than half as long as
'Hamlet'. This brevity has suggested to many critics that the received
version is based on a heavily cut source, perhaps a prompt-book for a
particular performance. This would reflect other Shakespeare plays
existing in both Quarto and the Folio, where the Quarto versions are
usually longer than the Folio versions. 'Macbeth' was first printed in
the First Folio, but has no Quarto version - if there were a Quarto,
it would probably be longer than the Folio version. That brevity has
also been connected to other unusual features: the fast pace of the
first act, which has seemed to be "stripped for action"; and the
comparative flatness of the characters other than Macbeth. A. C.
Bradley, in considering this question, concluded the play "always was
an extremely short one", noting the witch scenes and battle scenes
would have taken up some time in performance, remarking, "I do not
think that, in reading, we 'feel' 'Macbeth' to be short: certainly we
are astonished when we hear it is about half as long as 'Hamlet'.
Perhaps in the Shakespearean theatre too it seemed to occupy a longer
time than the clock recorded."
As a tragedy of character
===========================
At least since the days of Samuel Johnson, analysis of the play has
centred on the question of Macbeth's ambition, commonly seen as so
dominant a trait that it defines the character. Johnson asserted that
Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled
by the reader.
This opinion recurs in the critical literature, most notably in the
work of A. C. Bradley who discusses Macbeth as a character with
courage and ambition, but also with the “imagination of a poet”. For
Bradley, Macbeth’s imagination is central to his character as he
imagines the consequences of his own ambition and imagines the ghosts
of his guilt with the ‘ecstasy of a poet’.
Additionally, an emphasis on character exists in the work of Caroline
Spurgeon, who highlights the way Shakespeare uses the imagery of
clothing to characterize his tragic hero. Spurgeon calls attention to
how Macbeth is often described as wearing garments that either seem
too big or too small for him, as his ambition is too big and his
character too small for his new and unrightful role as king. After
Macbeth is unexpectedly greeted with his new title as Thane of Cawdor
as prophesied by the witches, Banquo comments:
And, at the end, when the tyrant is at bay at Dunsinane, Caithness
sees him as a man trying in vain to fasten a large garment on him with
too small a belt:
while Angus sums up what everybody thinks ever since Macbeth's
accession to power:
Like Richard III, but without that character's perversely appealing
exuberance, Macbeth wades through blood until his inevitable fall. As
Kenneth Muir writes, "Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder; he
has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be
a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown." Some critics, such
as E. E. Stoll, explain this characterisation as a holdover from
Senecan or medieval tradition. Shakespeare's audience, in this view,
expected villains to be wholly bad, and Senecan style, far from
prohibiting a villainous protagonist, all but demanded it.
Yet for other critics, it has not been so easy to resolve the question
of Macbeth's motivation. Robert Bridges, for instance, perceived a
paradox: a character able to express such convincing horror before
Duncan's murder would likely be incapable of committing the crime. For
many critics, Macbeth's motivations in the first act appear vague and
insufficient. John Dover Wilson hypothesised that Shakespeare's
original text had an extra scene or scenes where husband and wife
discussed their plans. This interpretation is not fully provable;
however, the motivating role of ambition for Macbeth is universally
recognised. The evil actions motivated by his ambition seem to trap
him in a cycle of increasing evil, as Macbeth himself recognises:
While working on Russian translations of Shakespeare's works, Boris
Pasternak compared Macbeth to Raskolnikov, the protagonist of 'Crime
and Punishment' by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Pasternak argues that "neither
Macbeth or Raskolnikov is a born criminal or a villain by nature. They
are turned into criminals by faulty rationalizations, by deductions
from false premises." He goes on to argue that Lady Macbeth is
"feminine ... one of those active, insistent wives" who becomes her
husband's "executive, more resolute and consistent than he is
himself". According to Pasternak, she is only helping Macbeth carry
out his own wishes, to her own detriment.
As a tragedy of moral order
=============================
The disastrous consequences of Macbeth's ambition are not limited to
him. Almost from the moment of the murder, the play depicts Scotland
as a land shaken by inversions of the natural order. Shakespeare may
have intended a reference to the great chain of being, although the
play's images of disorder are mostly not specific enough to support
detailed intellectual readings. The play was meant to be performed
specifically for King James, whose belief in the divine right of kings
suggests that the tragedy of 'Macbeth' is distinctly moral. The King's
own 'Daemonologie' is believed to have inspired the structure of the
witches' coven, making the supernatural world of Macbeth an inversion
of the natural kingship, in which he struggles. As in 'Julius Caesar',
though, perturbations in the political sphere are echoed and even
amplified by events in the material world. Among the most often
depicted of the inversions of the natural order is sleep. Macbeth's
announcement that he has "murdered sleep" is figuratively mirrored in
Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking.
Macbeth's generally accepted indebtedness to medieval tragedy is often
seen as significant in the play's treatment of moral order. Glynne
Wickham connects the play, through the Porter, to a mystery play on
the harrowing of hell. Howard Felperin argues that the play has a more
complex attitude toward "orthodox Christian tragedy" than is often
admitted; he sees a kinship between the play and the tyrant plays
within the medieval liturgical drama.
Some modern queer readings of 'Macbeth' are concerned with the play's
themes of "linearity, temporality, and succession," rather than
transgressive sexuality. Lady Macbeth's request that the spirits she
calls on "unsex" her is read by Madhavi Menon as indicative of
sinthomosexual drive, and queer anti-maternity. The theme of androgyny
is often seen as a special aspect of the theme of disorder, with
feminist critic Dympna Callaghan arguing that Duncan's corpse stands
in for both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth's "gender indeterminacy". Macbeth
also plays with the inversion of normative gender roles, most famously
in the case of the witches (and with Lady Macbeth as she appears in
the first act). Whatever Shakespeare's degree of sympathy with such
inversions, the play ends with a thorough return to normative gender
values. Some feminist psychoanalytic critics, such as Janet Adelman,
have connected the play's treatment of gender roles to its larger
theme of inverted natural order, as expressed through the "malignant
maternal power" of the witches and Lady Macbeth. Macbeth is punished
for his violation of the moral order by being removed from the cycles
of nature (which are figured as female); nature itself (as embodied in
the movement of Birnam Wood) is part of the restoration of moral
order.
As a poetic tragedy
=====================
Critics in the early twentieth century reacted against what they saw
as an excessive dependence on the study of character in criticism of
the play. This dependence, though most closely associated with A. C.
Bradley, is clear as early as the time of Mary Cowden Clarke, who
offered precise, if fanciful, accounts of the predramatic lives of
Shakespeare's female leads. She suggested, for instance, that the
child Lady Macbeth refers to in the first act died during a foolish
military action.
Reacting to what he perceived as a concerning trend among critics to
treat Shakespeare's characters as real people, L.C. Knights wrote "How
Many Children Had Lady Macbeth?" where he argued that "a Shakespeare
play is a dramatic poem" and that critics should place a greater
emphasis on the ways the language works in the play. In the essay he
quotes from G. Wilson Knight who similarly argued that "The persons,
ultimately, are not human at all, but purely symbols of a poetic
vision." Under this analytic lens, Lady Macbeth's invocation of a
child she has "given suck" interacts with other images of infants in
the play, such as the apparitions in Act 4.
Witchcraft and evil
=====================
The three "weird sisters" open the play and have been a frequent
subject of interpretation. Some, like Peter Stallybrass and Diane
Purkiss focus on the historical understanding of witchcraft, and
others, like Janet Adelman and Stephen Greenblatt, focus more the
psychological or cultural symbolism.
King James I, the patron of Shakespeare's theater company The King's
Men, had a well documented interest in witchcraft. He believed himself
to be the victim of a murder plot involving witchcraft and he wrote a
dissertation on witchcraft titled 'Daemonologie' first published in
1597. It has often been suggested that the King's interest in
witchcraft, along with the general popular interest it created,
inspired the inclusion of the three witches in the play.
Diane Purkiss, a historian of witchcraft, has noted that Shakespeare
pulled from many different witchcraft traditions, claiming that "the
witches of 'Macbeth' are a low-budget, frankly exploitative collage of
randomly chosen bits of witch-lore, selected not for thematic
significance but for its sensation value."
Other critics, like Greenblatt, argue that the witches do have
thematic significance. He argues that "the theater and witchcraft are
both constructed on the boundary between fantasy and reality, the
border or membrane where the imagination and the corporeal world,
figure and actuality, psychic disturbance and objective truth meet."
In the play, the Three Witches represent darkness, chaos, and
conflict, while their role is as agents and witnesses. Their presence
communicates treason and impending doom. During Shakespeare's day,
witches were seen as worse than rebels, "the most notorious traytor
and rebell that can be". They were not only political traitors, but
spiritual traitors as well. Much of the confusion that springs from
them comes from their ability to straddle the play's borders between
reality and the supernatural. They are so deeply entrenched in both
worlds that it is unclear whether they control fate, or whether they
are merely its agents. They defy logic, not being subject to the rules
of the real world. The witches' lines in the first act: "Fair is foul,
and foul is fair: Hover through the fog and filthy air" are often said
to set the tone for the rest of the play by establishing a sense of
confusion. Indeed, the play is filled with situations where evil is
depicted as good, while good is rendered evil. The line "Double,
double toil and trouble," communicates the witches' intent clearly:
they seek only trouble for the mortals around them. The witches'
spells are remarkably similar to the spells of the witch Medusa in
Anthony Munday's play 'Fidele and Fortunio' published in 1584, and
Shakespeare may have been influenced by these.
While the witches do not tell Macbeth directly to kill King Duncan,
they use a subtle form of temptation when they tell Macbeth that he is
destined to be king. By placing this thought in his mind, they
effectively guide him on the path to his own destruction. This follows
the pattern of temptation used at the time of Shakespeare. First, they
argued, a thought is put in a man's mind, then the person may either
indulge in the thought or reject it. Macbeth indulges in it, while
Banquo rejects it.
According to J. A. Bryant Jr., 'Macbeth' also makes use of Biblical
parallels, notably between King Duncan's murder and the murder of
Christ:
Superstition and "The Scottish Play"
======================================================================
While many today would say that any misfortune surrounding a
production is mere coincidence, actors and others in the theatre
industry often consider it bad luck to mention 'Macbeth' by name while
inside a theatre, and sometimes refer to it indirectly, for example as
"The Scottish Play", or "The Bard's Play", or when referring to the
characters and not the play, "Mr. and Mrs. M", or "The Scottish King".
This behavior results from a superstition that saying the name of the
play inside a theatre will bring bad luck to any given production, and
perhaps cause physical injury or death to cast members. There are
stories of accidents, misfortunes and even deaths taking place during
runs of 'Macbeth'.
There are many theories for how this superstition began. Some
attribute it to real witches, who, unhappy with their representation
in the play, cursed the play. There is no historical evidence for
this. The origins of the superstition have been traced to a satirical
article written by the humorist and theater critic Max Beerbohm. In
the article, written from the perspective of Samuel Pepys, he claims
that in an early performance of the play the boy actor set to play
Lady Macbeth became fatally ill and Shakespeare himself needed to play
the part. Since then, the article claimed, 'Macbeth' has been cursed.
Beerbohm's article, though creating a fictional story, was a response
to a long history of accidents and set-backs during 'Macbeth'
performances. During 1672 performance of Macbeth in Amsterdam the
actor playing Macbeth committed murder on stage. In 1721 riots broke
out during a performance in London and in 1937 Lilian Baylis, a
theater manager, died the night before a run of 'Macbeth' began at the
Old Vic.
According to the actor Sir Donald Sinden, in his Sky Arts TV series
'Great West End Theatres'
Several methods exist to dispel the curse, depending on the actor.
One, attributed to Michael York, is to immediately leave the building
the stage is in with the person who uttered the name, walk around it
three times, spit over their left shoulders, say an obscenity then
wait to be invited back into the building. A related practice is to
spin around three times as fast as possible on the spot, sometimes
accompanied by spitting over their shoulder, and uttering an
obscenity. Another popular "ritual" is to leave the room, knock three
times, be invited in, and then quote a line from 'Hamlet'. Yet another
is to recite lines from 'The Merchant of Venice', thought to be a
lucky play.
Patrick Stewart, on the radio program 'Ask Me Another', asserted "if
you have played the role of the Scottish thane, then you are allowed
to say the title, any time anywhere".
Shakespeare's day to the Interregnum
======================================
The only eyewitness account of 'Macbeth' in Shakespeare's lifetime was
recorded by Simon Forman, who saw a performance at the Globe on 20
April 1610. Scholars have noted discrepancies between Forman's account
and the play as it appears in the Folio. For example, he makes no
mention of the apparition scene, or of Hecate, of the man not of woman
born, or of Birnam Wood. However, Clark observes that Forman's
accounts were often inaccurate and incomplete (for instance omitting
the statue scene from 'The Winter's Tale') and his interest did not
seem to be in "giving full accounts of the productions".
As mentioned above, the Folio text is thought by some to be an
alteration of the original play. This has led to the theory that the
play in the Folio was an adaptation for indoor performance at the
Blackfriars Theatre (which was operated by the King's Men from 1608) -
and even speculation that it represents a specific performance before
King James. The play contains more musical cues than any other play in
the canon as well as a significant use of sound effects.
Restoration and eighteenth century
====================================
All theatres were closed down by the Puritan government on 6 September
1642. Upon the restoration of the monarchy in 1660, two patent
companies (the King's Company and the Duke's Company) were
established, and the existing theatrical repertoire divided between
them. Sir William Davenant, founder of the Duke's Company, adapted
Shakespeare's play to the tastes of the new era, and his version would
dominate on stage for around eighty years. Among the changes he made
were the expansion of the role of the witches, introducing new songs,
dances and 'flying', and the expansion of the role of Lady Macduff as
a foil to Lady Macbeth. There were, however, performances outside the
patent companies: among the evasions of the Duke's Company's monopoly
was a puppet version of 'Macbeth'.
'Macbeth' was a favourite of the seventeenth-century diarist Samuel
Pepys, who saw the play on 5 November 1664 ("admirably acted"), 28
December 1666 ("most excellently acted"), ten days later on 7 January
1667 ("though I saw it lately, yet [it] appears a most excellent play
in all respects"), on 19 April 1667 ("one of the best plays for a
stage ... that ever I saw"), again on 16 October 1667 ("was vexed to
see Young, who is but a bad actor at best, act Macbeth in the room of
Betterton, who, poor man! is sick"), and again three weeks later on 6
November 1667 ("[at] 'Macbeth', which we still like mightily"), yet
again on 12 August 1668 ("saw 'Macbeth', to our great content"), and
finally on 21 December 1668, on which date the king and court were
also present in the audience.
The first professional performances of 'Macbeth' in North America were
probably those of The Hallam Company.
In 1744, David Garrick revived the play, abandoning Davenant's version
and instead advertising it "as written by Shakespeare". In fact this
claim was largely false: he retained much of Davenant's more popular
business for the witches, and himself wrote a lengthy death speech for
Macbeth. And he cut more than 10% of Shakespeare's play, including the
drunken porter, the murder of Lady Macduff's son, and Malcolm's
testing of Macduff. Hannah Pritchard was his greatest stage partner,
having her premiere as his Lady Macbeth in 1747. He would later drop
the play from his repertoire upon her retirement from the stage. Mrs.
Pritchard was the first actress to achieve acclaim in the role of Lady
Macbeth - at least partly due to the removal of Davenant's material,
which made irrelevant moral contrasts with Lady Macduff. Garrick's
portrayal focused on the inner life of the character, endowing him
with an innocence vacillating between good and evil, and betrayed by
outside influences. He portrayed a man capable of observing himself,
as if a part of him remained untouched by what he had done, the play
moulding him into a man of sensibility, rather than him descending
into a tyrant.
John Philip Kemble first played Macbeth in 1778. Although usually
regarded as the antithesis of Garrick, Kemble nevertheless refined
aspects of Garrick's portrayal into his own. However it was the
"towering and majestic" Sarah Siddons (Kemble's sister) who became a
legend in the role of Lady Macbeth. In contrast to Hannah Pritchard's
savage, demonic portrayal, Siddons' Lady Macbeth, while terrifying,
was nevertheless - in the scenes in which she expresses her regret and
remorse - tenderly human. And in portraying her actions as done out of
love for her husband, Siddons deflected from him some of the moral
responsibility for the play's carnage. Audiences seem to have found
the sleepwalking scene particularly mesmerising: Hazlitt said of it
that "all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical ... She glided
on and off the stage almost like an apparition."
In 1794, Kemble dispensed with the ghost of Banquo altogether,
allowing the audience to see Macbeth's reaction as his wife and guests
see it, and relying upon the fact that the play was so well known that
his audience would already be aware that a ghost enters at that point.
Ferdinand Fleck, notable as the first German actor to present
Shakespeare's tragic roles in their fullness, played Macbeth at the
Berlin National Theatre from 1787. Unlike his English counterparts, he
portrayed the character as achieving his stature after the murder of
Duncan, growing in presence and confidence: thereby enabling stark
contrasts, such as in the banquet scene, which he ended babbling like
a child.
Nineteenth century
====================
Performances outside the patent theatres were instrumental in bringing
the monopoly to an end. Robert Elliston, for example, produced a
popular adaptation of 'Macbeth' in 1809 at the Royal Circus described
in its publicity as "this matchless piece of pantomimic and choral
performance", which circumvented the illegality of speaking
Shakespeare's words through mimed action, singing, and doggerel verse
written by J. C. Cross.
In 1809, in an unsuccessful attempt to take Covent Garden upmarket,
Kemble installed private boxes, increasing admission prices to pay for
the improvements. The inaugural run at the newly renovated theatre was
'Macbeth', which was disrupted for over two months with cries of "Old
prices!" and "No private boxes!" until Kemble capitulated to the
protestors' demands.
Edmund Kean at Drury Lane gave a psychological portrayal of the
central character, with a common touch, but was ultimately
unsuccessful in the role. However he did pave the way for the most
acclaimed performance of the nineteenth century, that of William
Charles Macready. Macready played the role over a 30-year period,
firstly at Covent Garden in 1820 and finally in his retirement
performance. Although his playing evolved over the years, it was noted
throughout for the tension between the idealistic aspects and the
weaker, venal aspects of Macbeth's character. His staging was full of
spectacle, including several elaborate royal processions.
In 1843 the Theatres Regulation Act finally brought the patent
companies' monopoly to an end. From that time until the end of the
Victorian era, London theatre was dominated by the actor-managers, and
the style of presentation was "pictorial" - proscenium stages filled
with spectacular stage-pictures, often featuring complex scenery,
large casts in elaborate costumes, and frequent use of tableaux
vivant. Charles Kean (son of Edmund), at London's Princess's Theatre
from 1850 to 1859, took an antiquarian view of Shakespeare
performance, setting his 'Macbeth' in a historically accurate
eleventh-century Scotland. His leading lady, Ellen Tree, created a
sense of the character's inner life: 'The Times critic saying "The
countenance which she assumed ... when luring on Macbeth in his course
of crime, was actually appalling in intensity, as if it denoted a
hunger after guilt." At the same time, special effects were becoming
popular: for example in Samuel Phelps' 'Macbeth' the witches performed
behind green gauze, enabling them to appear and disappear using stage
lighting.
In 1849, rival performances of the play sparked the Astor Place riot
in Manhattan. The popular American actor Edwin Forrest, whose Macbeth
was said to be like "the ferocious chief of a barbarous tribe" played
the central role at the Broadway Theatre to popular acclaim, while the
"cerebral and patrician" English actor Macready, playing the same role
at the Astor Place Opera House, suffered constant heckling. The
existing enmity between the two men (Forrest had openly hissed
Macready at a recent performance of 'Hamlet' in Britain) was taken up
by Forrest's supporters - formed from the working class and lower
middle class and anti-British agitators, keen to attack the
upper-class pro-British patrons of the Opera House and the colonially
minded Macready. Nevertheless, Macready performed the role again three
days later to a packed house while an angry mob gathered outside. The
militia tasked with controlling the situation fired into the mob. In
total, 31 rioters were killed and over 100 injured.
Charlotte Cushman is unique among nineteenth-century interpreters of
Shakespeare in achieving stardom in roles of both genders. Her New
York debut was as Lady Macbeth in 1836, and she would later be admired
in London in the same role in the mid-1840s. Helen Faucit was
considered the embodiment of early-Victorian notions of femininity.
But for this reason she largely failed when she eventually played Lady
Macbeth in 1864: her serious attempt to embody the coarser aspects of
Lady Macbeth's character jarred harshly with her public image.
Adelaide Ristori, the great Italian actress, brought her Lady Macbeth
to London in 1863 in Italian, and again in 1873 in an English
translation cut in such a way as to be, in effect, Lady Macbeth's
tragedy.
Henry Irving was the most successful of the late-Victorian
actor-managers, but his 'Macbeth' failed to curry favour with
audiences. His desire for psychological credibility reduced certain
aspects of the role: He described Macbeth as a brave soldier but a
moral coward, and played him untroubled by conscience - clearly
already contemplating the murder of Duncan before his encounter with
the witches. Irving's leading lady was Ellen Terry, but her Lady
Macbeth was unsuccessful with the public, for whom a century of
performances influenced by Sarah Siddons had created expectations at
odds with Terry's conception of the role.
Late nineteenth-century European Macbeths aimed for heroic stature,
but at the expense of subtlety: Tommaso Salvini in Italy and Adalbert
Matkowsky in Germany were said to inspire awe, but elicited little
pity.
20th century to present
=========================
Two developments changed the nature of 'Macbeth' performance in the
20th century: first, developments in the craft of acting itself,
especially the ideas of Stanislavski and Brecht; and second, the rise
of the dictator as a political icon. The latter has not always
assisted the performance: it is difficult to sympathise with a Macbeth
based on Hitler, Stalin, or Idi Amin.
Barry Jackson, at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in 1923, was the
first of the 20th-century directors to costume 'Macbeth' in modern
dress.
In 1936, a decade before his film adaptation of the play, Orson Welles
directed 'Macbeth' for the Negro Theatre Unit of the Federal Theatre
Project at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, using black actors and
setting the action in Haiti: with drums and Voodoo rites to establish
the Witches scenes. The production, dubbed 'The Voodoo Macbeth',
proved inflammatory in the aftermath of the Harlem riots, accused of
making fun of black culture and as "a campaign to burlesque negroes"
until Welles persuaded crowds that his use of black actors and voodoo
made important cultural statements.
A performance which is frequently referenced as an example of the
play's curse was the outdoor production directed by Burgess Meredith
in 1953 in the British colony of Bermuda, starring Charlton Heston.
Using the imposing spectacle of Fort St. Catherine as a key element of
the set, the production was plagued by a host of mishaps, including
Charlton Heston being burned when his tights caught fire.
Some critics contend there were three great Macbeths on the
English-speaking stage in the 20th century, all of them commencing at
Stratford-upon-Avon: Laurence Olivier in 1955, Ian McKellen in 1976
and Antony Sher in 1999. Olivier's portrayal (directed by Glen Byam
Shaw, with Vivien Leigh as Lady Macbeth) was immediately hailed as a
masterpiece. Kenneth Tynan said it succeeded because Olivier built the
role to a climax at the end of the play, whereas most actors spend all
they have in the first two acts.
The play caused difficulties for the Royal Shakespeare Company,
especially at the (then) Shakespeare Memorial Theatre. Peter Hall's
1967 production was (in Michael Billington's words) "an acknowledged
disaster" with the use of real leaves from Birnham Wood getting
first-night laughs, and Trevor Nunn's 1974 production was (Billington
again) "an over-elaborate religious spectacle".
But Nunn achieved success for the RSC in his 1976 production at the
intimate Other Place, with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in the central
roles. A small cast worked within a simple circle, and McKellen's
Macbeth had nothing noble or likeable about him, being a manipulator
in a world of manipulative characters. They were a young couple,
physically passionate, "not monsters but recognisable human beings",
but their relationship atrophied as the action progressed.
The RSC again achieved critical success in Gregory Doran's 1999
production at The Swan, with Antony Sher and Harriet Walter in the
central roles, once again demonstrating the suitability of the play
for smaller venues. Doran's witches spoke their lines to a theatre in
absolute darkness, and the opening visual image was the entrance of
Macbeth and Banquo in the berets and fatigues of modern warfare,
carried on the shoulders of triumphant troops. In contrast to Nunn,
Doran presented a world in which king Duncan and his soldiers were
ultimately benign and honest, heightening the deviance of Macbeth (who
seems genuinely surprised by the witches' prophecies) and Lady Macbeth
in plotting to kill the king. The play said little about politics,
instead powerfully presenting its central characters' psychological
collapse.
'Macbeth' returned to the RSC in 2018, when Christopher Eccleston
played the title role, with Niamh Cusack as his wife, Lady Macbeth.
The play later transferred to the Barbican in London.
In Soviet-controlled Prague in 1977, faced with the illegality of
working in theatres, Pavel Kohout adapted 'Macbeth' into a 75-minute
abridgement for five actors, suitable for "bringing a show in a
suitcase to people's homes".
Spectacle was unfashionable in Western theatre throughout the 20th
century. In East Asia, however, spectacular productions have achieved
great success, including Yukio Ninagawa's 1980 production with Masane
Tsukayama as Macbeth, set in the 16th century Japanese Civil War. The
same director's tour of London in 1987 was widely praised by critics,
even though (like most of their audience) they were unable to
understand the significance of Macbeth's gestures, the huge Buddhist
altar dominating the set, or the petals falling from the cherry trees.
Xu Xiaozhong's 1980 Central Academy of Drama production in Beijing
made every effort to be unpolitical (necessary in the aftermath of the
Cultural Revolution): yet audiences still perceived correspondences
between the central character (whom the director had actually modelled
on Louis Napoleon) and Mao Zedong. Shakespeare has often been adapted
to indigenous theatre traditions, for example the 'Kunju Macbeth' of
Huang Zuolin performed at the inaugural Chinese Shakespeare Festival
of 1986. Similarly, B. V. Karanth's 'Barnam Vana' of 1979 had adapted
'Macbeth' to the Yakshagana tradition of Karnataka, India. In 1997,
Lokendra Arambam created 'Stage of Blood', merging a range of martial
arts, dance and gymnastic styles from Manipur, performed in Imphal and
in England. The stage was literally a raft on a lake.
'Throne of Blood' (蜘蛛巣城 Kumonosu-jō, 'Spider Web Castle') is a 1957
Japanese samurai film co-written and directed by Akira Kurosawa. The
film transposes 'Macbeth' from Medieval Scotland to feudal Japan, with
stylistic elements drawn from Noh drama. Kurosawa was a fan of the
play and planned his own adaptation for several years, postponing it
after learning of Orson Welles' 'Macbeth' (1948). The film won two
Mainichi Film Awards.
The play has been translated and performed in various languages in
different parts of the world, and 'Media Artists' was the first to
stage its Punjabi adaptation in India. The adaptation by Balram and
the play directed by Samuel John have been universally acknowledged as
a milestone in Punjabi theatre. The unique attempt involved trained
theatre experts and the actors taken from a rural background in
Punjab. Punjabi folk music imbued the play with the native ethos as
the Scottish setting of Shakespeare's play was transposed into a
Punjabi milieu.
In 2021, Saoirse Ronan starred in 'The Tragedy of Macbeth' at the
Almeida Theatre in London. The following year a revival production
opened on Broadway with Daniel Craig and Ruth Negga to middling
reviews.
A new production starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo ran at London's
Donmar Warehouse from 8 December 2023 to 10 February 2024. Max Webster
directed the production. The show received 3 Laurence Olivier Award
nominations, including Best Revival. It transferred to the Harold
Pinter Theatre in the West End from 1 October 2024 for a limited run.
Operas
========
'Macbeth' was adapted into an Italian opera ('Macbeth') by composer
Giuseppe Verdi and librettist Francesco Maria Piave in 1847 (revised
in French in 1865). An English opera adaptation of the play was
created by Lawrance Collingwood in 1927.
Contemporary opera adaptations include Luke Styles' 'Macbeth' (2015)
and Pascal Dusapin's 'Macbeth Underworld' (2019).
An indirect adaptation is Dmitri Shostakovich's 'Lady Macbeth of
Mtsensk' (1934), based on the novella of the same name by Nikolai
Leskov.
See also
======================================================================
* Cultural references to 'Macbeth'
* List of idioms attributed to Shakespeare
References
======================================================================
All references to 'Macbeth', unless otherwise specified, are taken
from the Arden Shakespeare, second series edition edited by Kenneth
Muir. Under their referencing system, III.I.55 means act 3, scene 1,
line 55. All references to other Shakespeare plays are to The Oxford
Shakespeare 'Complete Works of Shakespeare' edited by Stanley Wells
and Gary Taylor.
External links
======================================================================
*
* [
https://shakespeare.folger.edu/shakespeares-works/macbeth/
'Macbeth'], eds. Barbara Mowat, Paul Werstine, Michael Poston, and
Rebecca Niles. Folger Shakespeare Library.
*
[
http://ahds.ac.uk/ahdscoll/docroot/shakespeare/performanceslist.do?playId=11017/
Performances and Photographs from London and Stratford performances of
'Macbeth' 1960-2000] - From the Designing Shakespeare resource
*
* [
http://www.bl.uk/works/macbeth 'Macbeth'] at the British Library
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20080120211936/http://bardolatry.com/macbeth-on-film/
'Macbeth' on Film]
* [
http://video.pbs.org/video/1604122998/ PBS Video] directed by
Rupert Goold starring Sir Patrick Stewart
* [
http://theshakespeareproject.com/macbeth/macbeth-1-1.html Annotated
Text at The Shakespeare Project] - annotated HTML version of
'Macbeth.'
* [
http://shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/SceneTextIndex.html
'Macbeth' Navigator] - searchable, annotated HTML version of
'Macbeth.'
*
* [
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/macbeth_1_1.html 'Macbeth'
Analysis and Textual Notes]
* [
http://www.shakespeare-navigators.com/macbeth/SelectedBiblio.html
Annotated Bibliography of 'Macbeth' Criticism]
* [
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/20073 'Shakespeare and the Uses of
Power'] by Steven Greenblatt
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http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macbeth
