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Book about some dumb hoeebag |
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{{About|Shakespeare's play|the historical Scottish king|Macbeth, King of Scotland|the title character of the play|Macbeth (character)|other uses}} |
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{{Use British English|date=August 2011}} |
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{{Use dmy dates|date=October 2013}} |
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{{italic title}} |
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] 1884 American production of ''Macbeth'', starring Thomas W. Keene. Depicted, anticlockwise from top-left, are: Macbeth and Banquo meet the ]es; just after the murder of ]; Banquo's ghost; Macbeth duels Macduff; and Macbeth.]] |
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'''''Macbeth''''' ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|k|ˈ|b|ɛ|θ}}; full title '''''The Tragedy of Macbeth''''') is a ] by ]; it is thought to have been first performed in ].<ref>For the first performance in 1606, see Gurr (1992, 238), Thomson (1992, 64), and Wickham (1969, 231); for the date of composition, see Brooke (1990, 1) and Clark and Mason (2015, 13).</ref> It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake. Of all the plays that Shakespeare wrote during the ], who was patron of Shakespeare's ], ''Macbeth'' most clearly reflects the playwright's relationship with his sovereign.<ref>Wickham (1969, 231).</ref> It was first published in the ], possibly from a ], and is his shortest tragedy.<ref>Clark (2015, 1)</ref> |
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A brave Scottish general named ] receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become ]. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the Scottish throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia. Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. |
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Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of ]; ]; and ] in '']'' (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. The events of the tragedy are usually associated with the execution of ] for complicity in the ] of 1605.<ref name="Harold Bloom p. 41">Bloom (2008, 41).</ref> |
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In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "]". Over the course of many centuries, the play has attracted some of the most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It has been adapted to film, television, ], novels, comics, and other media. |
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==Characters== |
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{{div col|cols=2}} |
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* ] – King of ] |
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** ] – Duncan's elder son |
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** ] – Duncan's younger son |
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* ] – a general in the army of King Duncan; originally ] of ], then Thane of ], and later King of Scotland |
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* ] – Macbeth's wife, and later Queen of Scotland |
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* ] – Macbeth's friend and a general in the army of King Duncan |
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** ] – Banquo's son |
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* ] – Thane of ] |
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** ] – Macduff's wife |
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** ] |
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* Ross, Lennox, Angus, Menteith, Caithness – Scottish Thanes |
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* ] – general of the English forces |
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** ] – Siward's son |
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* Seyton – Macbeth's armourer |
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* ] – Queen of the witches |
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* ] |
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* Captain – in the Scottish army |
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* Three Murderers – employed by Macbeth |
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**] |
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* Two Murderers – attack Lady Macduff |
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* Porter – gatekeeper at Macbeth's home |
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* Doctor – Lady Macbeth's doctor |
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* Doctor – at the English court |
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* Gentlewoman – Lady Macbeth's caretaker |
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* Lord – opposed to Macbeth |
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* First Apparition – armed head |
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* Second Apparition – bloody child |
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* Third Apparition – crowned child |
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* Attendants, Messengers, Servants, Soldiers |
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{{div col end}} |
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==Plot== |
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] |
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===Act I=== |
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The play opens amidst thunder and lightning, and the Three Witches decide that their next meeting shall be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded sergeant reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals{{mdash}}Macbeth, who is the Thane of Glamis, and Banquo{{mdash}}have just defeated the allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitorous Macdonwald, the Thane of ]. Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess. |
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In the following scene, Macbeth and Banquo discuss the weather and their victory. As they wander onto a heath, the Three Witches enter and greet them with prophecies. Though Banquo challenges them first, they address Macbeth, hailing him as "Thane of Glamis," "Thane of Cawdor," and that he shall "be King hereafter." Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence. When Banquo asks of his own fortunes, the witches respond paradoxically, saying that he will be less than Macbeth, yet happier, less successful, yet more. He will father a line of kings though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the witches vanish, and another thane, ], arrives and informs Macbeth of his newly bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth, previously skeptical, immediately begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. |
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King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, and declares that he will spend the night at Macbeth's castle at ]; he also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a message ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband's uncertainty and wishes him to murder Duncan in order to obtain kingship. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband's objections by challenging his manhood and successfully persuades him to kill the king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan's two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out; the next morning they will blame the chamberlains for the murder. They will be defenseless as they will remember nothing. |
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===Act II=== |
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While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including a hallucination of a bloody dagger. He is so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by placing bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of ], arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. Macbeth murders the guards to prevent them from professing their innocence, but claims he did so in a fit of anger over their misdeeds. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new ] as a kinsman of the dead king. Banquo reveals this to the audience, and while sceptical of the new King Macbeth, he remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne; this makes him suspicious of Macbeth. |
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] (1819–1856), ''Macbeth seeing the Ghost of Banquo,'' 1854]] |
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===Act III=== |
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Despite his success, Macbeth, also aware of this part of the prophecy, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal ], where he discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. Fearing Banquo's suspicions, Macbeth arranges to have him murdered, by hiring two men to kill them, later sending a ]. The assassins succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes. Macbeth becomes furious: he fears that his power remains insecure as long as an heir of Banquo remains alive. |
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At a banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ] enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as the ghost is only visible to himself. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger and fear in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth tells the lords to leave, and they do so. |
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]]] |
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===Act IV=== |
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Macbeth, disturbed, visits the three witches once more and asks them to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers predictions and further prophecies to put Macbeth's fears at rest. 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 shall be able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will be safe until ] comes to ]. Macbeth is relieved and feels secure because he knows that all men are born of women and forests cannot move. Macbeth also asks if Banquo's sons will ever reign in Scotland: the witches conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, all similar in appearance to Banquo, and the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings. Macbeth realises that these are all Banquo's descendants having acquired kingship in numerous countries. After the witches perform a mad dance and leave, Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth orders Macduff's castle be seized, and, most cruelly, sends murderers to slaughter Macduff, as well as Macduff's wife and children. Although Macduff is no longer in the castle, everyone in Macduff's castle is put to death, including ] and ]. |
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]]] |
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===Act V=== |
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Meanwhile, Lady Macbeth becomes wracked with guilt from the crimes she and her husband have committed. At night, in the king's palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth's strange habit of sleepwalking. Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the murders of Duncan, Lady Macduff, and Banquo, she tries to wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows she pressed her husband to do. She leaves, and the doctor and gentlewoman marvel at her descent into madness. Her belief that nothing can wash away the blood on her hands is an ironic reversal of her earlier claim to Macbeth that " little water clears us of this deed" (II.ii.66). |
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In England, Macduff is informed by Ross that his "castle is surprised; wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd" (IV.iii.204–5). When this news of his family's execution reaches him, Macduff is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Prince Malcolm, Duncan's son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge Macbeth's forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth's tyrannical and murderous behaviour. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen ] (the Elder), the ], against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree limbs to camouflage their numbers. |
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Before Macbeth's opponents arrive, he receives news that Lady Macbeth has killed herself, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair and deliver his "]" ] (V.v.17–28). Though he reflects on the brevity and meaninglessness of life, he nevertheless awaits the English and fortifies Dunsinane. He is certain that the witches' prophecies guarantee his invincibility, but is struck with fear when he learns that the English army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood, in apparent fulfillment of one of the prophecies. |
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A battle culminates in Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth, who kills Young Siward in combat. The English forces overwhelm his army and castle. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was "from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (V.8.15–16), (''i.e.,'' born by ]) and is not "of woman born" (an example of a ]), fulfilling the second prophecy. Macbeth realises too late that he has misinterpreted the witches' words. Though he realises that he is doomed, he continues to fight. Macduff kills and beheads him, thus fulfilling the remaining prophecy. |
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Macduff carries Macbeth's head onstage and Malcolm discusses how order has been restored. His last reference to Lady Macbeth, however, reveals "'tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life" (V.ix.71–72), but the method of her suicide is undisclosed. Malcolm, now the King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at ]. |
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Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo ("Thou shalt get kings") was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true: James VI of Scotland (later also ]) was supposedly a descendant of Banquo.<ref>Muir, Kenneth, ed. (1984) ''Macbeth''. The Arden Shakespeare, Second Series, 11th ed., p. xxxvi.</ref> |
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==Sources== |
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]]] |
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]'s ''Chronicles of England, Scotlande, and Irelande'', printed in 1577.]] |
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]'' (1577)<ref>Orgel (2002, 33)</ref>]] |
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A principal source comes from the '']'' of ] published in 1597 which included a news pamphlet titled '']'' that detailed the infamous ] of 1590. The publication of ''Daemonologie'' came just a few years before the tragedy of ''Macbeth'' with the themes and setting in a direct and comparative contrast with King James' personal experiences with witchcraft. Not only had this trial taken place in Scotland, the witches involved were recorded to have also conducted rituals with the same mannerisms as the three witches. One of the evidenced passages is referenced when the witches involved in the trial confessed to attempt the use of witchcraft to raise a tempest and sabotage the very boat King James and his queen were on board during their return trip from ]. This was significant as one ship sailing with King James' fleet actually sank in the storm. The following quote from ''Macbeth'' is one such reference:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Warren |first1=Brett |title=The Annotated Daemonology of King James. A Critical Edition. In Modern English. 2016 |isbn=1-5329-6891-4 |page=107 |quote=Moreover she confessed that at the time when his Majesty was in Denmark, she being accompanied with the parties before specially named, took a Cat and christened it, and afterward bound to each part of that Cat, the cheefest parts of a dead man, and several joints of his body, and that in the night following the said Cat was conveyed into the midst of the sea by all these witches sailing in their riddles or Cues as aforesaid, and so left the said Cat right before the Town of Leith in Scotland: this done, there did arise such a tempest in the Sea, as a greater has not been seen: which tempest was the cause of the perishing of a Boat or vessel coming over from the town of Brunt Island to the town of Leith, of which was many Jewels and rich gifts, which should have been presented to the current Queen of Scotland, at her Majesty’s coming to Leith. Again it is confessed, that the said christened Cat was the cause that the King Majesty’s Ship at his coming forth of Denmark, had a contrary wind to the rest of his Ships, then being in his company, which thing was most strange and true, as the King’s Majesty acknowledges - Daemonologie, Newes from Scotland... If this sounds familiar, Shakespeare took inspiration from this very passage and applied the same methods of witchcraft to his play Macbeth just a few years after the publication of Dæmonologie. All of the inhabitants of England and Scotland would have been familiar with this case and as the play of Macbeth is also set in Scotland, many quotes from King James' dissertation are taken as inspiration. The three witches of the play thus cast their spells in the same manor.}}</ref> |
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<blockquote>''purposely to be cassin into the sea to raise winds for destruction of ships.''- Macbeth, I. iii. 15-25.</blockquote> |
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''Macbeth'' has been compared to Shakespeare's ''].'' Both Antony and Macbeth as characters seek a new world, even at the cost of the old one. Both are fighting 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.<ref>Coursen (1997, 11–13)</ref> |
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Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in '']'', a popular history of the British Isles well known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In ''Chronicles'', a man named Donwald finds several of his family put to death by his king, 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 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 ]'s ''Rerum Scoticarum Historia'' matches Shakespeare's version more closely. Buchanan's work was available in Latin in Shakespeare's day.<ref>Coursen (1997, 15–21)</ref> |
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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 ], not in a castle. Shakespeare conflated the story of Donwald and King Duff in what was a significant change to the story.<ref>Coursen (1997, 17)</ref> |
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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.<ref name = note/> In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to be an ancestor of the ] King James I.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Palmer |first=J. Foster |title=The Celt in Power: Tudor and Cromwell |journal=Transactions of the Royal Historical Society |year=1886 |volume=3 |pages=343–370 |doi=10.2307/3677851}}</ref> (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 ] in his ''Stuartide'', also changed history by portraying Banquo as a noble man, not a murderer, probably for the same reasons.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Maskell |first=D. W. |title=The Transformation of History into Epic: The 'Stuartide' (1611) of Jean de Schelandre |journal=The Modern Language Review |year=1971 |volume=66 |issue=1 |pages=53–65 |jstor=3722467 }}</ref> 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.<ref name = note>{{cite journal |last=Nagarajan |first=S. |title=A Note on Banquo |journal=Shakespeare Quarterly |year=1956 |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=371–376 |jstor=2866356 | doi = 10.2307/2866356 }}</ref> |
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Other scholars maintain that a strong argument can be made for associating the tragedy with the ] of 1605.<ref name="Harold Bloom p. 41"/> As presented by Harold Bloom in 2008: "cholars cite the existence of several topical references in ''Macbeth'' to the events of that year, namely the execution of the Rev. Henry Garnett for his alleged complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, as referenced in the porter's scene."<ref name="Harold Bloom p. 41"/> |
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==Date and text== |
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''Macbeth'' cannot be dated precisely but it is usually dated as contemporaneous to the other canonical tragedies (''King Lear'', ''Hamlet'', and ''Othello'').<ref>{{Harvnb|Wells|Taylor|Jowett|Montgomery|2005|loc=909, 1153}}</ref> Some scholars have placed the original writing of the play as early as 1599.<ref name="Harold Bloom p. 41"/> As the play is widely seen to celebrate King James' ancestors and the ] accession to the throne in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from ]),<ref>{{cite book |last=Braunmuller |title=Macbeth |location=Cambridge |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1997 |pages=2–3 |url=http://www.cambridge.org/servlet/file/store6/item2395545/version1/item_9780521294553_excerpt.pdf |isbn=0-521-29455-X }}</ref> most scholars believe that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603 and suggest 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 ] because of possible internal allusions to the 1605 plot and its ensuing trials.<ref>Brooke (2008, 59–64)</ref> In fact, there are a great deal of allusions and possible pieces of evidence alluding to the Plot, and, for this reason, a great number of critics agree that "Macbeth" was written in the year 1606.<ref name="Wills, Garry 1995">Wills, Garry. Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth. New York: Oxford UP, 1995. Print.</ref><ref>Crawford, Robert. "Review: NON-FICTION: Signifying Nothing: The Whole Truth about Macbeth is Not enough for Robert Crawford: Macbeth, A True Story by Fiona Watson 320pp, Quercus, Pounds 20." The Guardian: 8. Mar 13, 2010. ProQuest.Web. 16 Mar. 2015.</ref><ref>Muir, Kenneth. Shakespeare. 1st ed. ed. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 1985. Web.</ref><ref>Taylor, Gary and Jowett, John. Shakespeare Reshaped, 1606-1623. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993. 85. Print.</ref> Lady Macbeth's instructions to her husband, "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" (1.5.74–5), 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 .<ref>{{cite book |first=Henry Neill |last=Paul |title= The Royal Play of Macbeth: When, Why, and How It Was Written by Shakespeare |year=1950 |location=New York |publisher= Macmillan |page=227}}</ref> |
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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 ], who used the alias "Farmer", with "equivocator" referring to Garnet's defence of ].<ref>{{cite book |first=Frank |last=Kermode |chapter=Macbeth |title=The Riverside Shakespeare |location=Boston |publisher=Houghton Mifflin |year=1974 |page=1308 |isbn=0-395-04402-2 }} For details on Garnet, see {{cite journal |first=Perez |last=Zagorin |title=The Historical Significance of Lying and Dissimulation—Truth-Telling, Lying, and Self-Deception |journal=] |year=1996 |volume=63 |issue=3 |pages=863–912 }}</ref><ref>Braunmuller (1997) pp. 5–8.</ref> 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."<ref>Rogers, H. L. "An English Tailor and Father Garnet's Straw". ''Review of English Studies'' '''16''': 61 (February 1965), 44–9; pp. 44–5.</ref> 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 ] 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.<ref>Rogers (1965) pp. 45–7.</ref> |
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When James became king of England, a feeling of uncertainty settled over the nation. James was a Scottish king and the son of ], a staunch Catholic and English traitor. In the words of critic Jonathan Gil Harris, "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."<ref>Crawford, Robert. "Review: NON-FICTION: Signifying Nothing: The Whole Truth about Macbeth is Not enough for Robert Crawford: Macbeth, A True Story by Fiona Watson 320pp, Quercus, Pounds 20." The Guardian: 8. Mar 13, 2010. ProQuest.Web. 16 Mar. 2015 .</ref> Critics argue that the content of the play is clearly a message to James, the new Scottish King of England. 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)."<ref name="Wills, Garry 1995"/> |
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The play utilizes a few key words that the audience at the time would recognize as allusions to the Plot. In one sermon in 1605, ] 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."<ref>Harris, Jonathan Gil. "The Smell of "Macbeth"." Shakespeare Quarterly 58.4 (2007): 465-86. Print.</ref> Further, the play could not have been written after this time, due to references to it seen in other works, notably ]'s '']'', which was written in 1607-1608. Lines 21-30 are a clear allusion to the scene in which Banquo's ghost visits and haunts Macbeth at the dinner table: |
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<blockquote><poem>In any place, but I will visit thee |
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With ghastly looks, and put into thy mind |
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The great offences which thou didst to me: |
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When thou art at thy table with thy friends, |
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Merry in heart, and filled with swelling wine, |
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I'll come in midst of all thy pride and mirth, |
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Invisible to all men but thyself, |
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And whisper such a sad tale in thine ear |
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Shall make thee let the cup fall from thy hand, |
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And stand as mute and pale as death itself.<ref>Beaumont, Francis. The Knight of the Burning Pestle. ed. Hattaway, Michael. Ernest Benn, 1969. 100.</ref></poem></blockquote> |
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]Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at ] in the summer of 1605 that featured three "]s" like the weird sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the weird sisters.<ref name="Kermode, 1308">Kermode, ''Riverside Shakespeare,'' p. 1308.</ref> However, A. R. Braunmuller in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605–6 arguments inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603.<ref>Braunmuller (1997), pp. 5–8</ref> 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."<ref name="Kermode, 1308"/> |
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In addition, 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''" (1.6–7). 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" (1.21–2). 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.<ref>Loomis, E.A. "The Master of the Tiger", ''Shakespeare Quarterly'', 7:4 (Winter, 1956); Brooke (2008, 59-64)</ref> |
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''Macbeth'' was first printed in the ] 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.<ref>Clark (2015, 321)</ref> Often cited as interpolation are stage cues for two songs, whose lyrics are not included in the Folio but are included in ]'s play '']'', which was written between the accepted date for ''Macbeth'' (1606) and the printing of the Folio.<ref>Clark (2015, 325)</ref> Many scholars believe these songs were editorially inserted into the Folio, though whether they were Middleton's songs or preexisting songs is not certain.<ref>Clark (2015, 326-329)</ref> It is also widely believed that the character of ], as well as some lines of the First Witch (4.1 124-31), were not part of Shakespeare's original play but were added by the Folio editors and possibly written by Middleton,<ref>Brooke (2008, 57)</ref> though "there is no completely objective proof" of such interpolation.<ref>Clark, 329-335</ref> |
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== Pronunciations == |
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The 'reconstructive movement' was concerned with the recreation of Elizabethan acting conditions, and would eventually lead to the creation of ] and similar replicas. One of the movement's offshoots was in the reconstruction of Elizabethan pronunciation: for example ]' 1951 ''Macbeth'', for which linguists from ] were employed to create a transcript of the play in Elizabethan<!-- This is the term used in the source: I don't think the slight anachronism (Elizabeth died before Macbeth was written) needs any comment or correction in the body text. --> English, then an audio recording of that transcription, from which the actors, in turn, learned their lines.<ref>O'Connor (2002, 83 and 92–93)</ref> |
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The pronunciation of many words evolves over time. In Shakespeare's day, for example, "heath" was pronounced as "heth" ("or a slightly elongated 'e' as in the modern 'get'"<ref name= "Dem">{{cite book |last= Shakespeare |first= William |authorlink= William Shakespeare |chapter= |title= The Tragedie of Macbeth: A Frankly Annotated First Folio Edition |editor= Demitra Papadinis |location= Jefferson, North Carolina |publisher= McFarland |year= 2012 |page= 31 |ISBN= 978-0-7864-6479-1}}</ref>), so it rhymed with "Macbeth" in the sentences by the Witches at the beginning of the play:<ref name= "EP">{{cite web |url= http://bloggingshakespeare.com/reviewing-shakespeare/macbeth-original-pronunciation-shakespeares-globe-sam-wanamaker-playhouse-2014/ |author= Price, Eoin |date= 2014 |title= Macbeth in Original Pronunciation (Shakespeare's Globe) @ Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, 2014 |publisher= Reviewing Shakespeare |quote= The heth / Macbeth rhyme certainly has much to recommend it and chimes well with many of other couplets, but there's something attractive too about the slight discordancy to the modern half-rhyme. |accessdate= December 3, 2014}}</ref> |
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<blockquote>'''Second Witch''': Upon the heath.<br/>'''Third Witch''': There to meet with Macbeth.</blockquote> |
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A scholar of antique pronunciation writes, "''Heath'' would have made a close (if not exact) rhyme with the "-eth" of ''Macbeth'', which was pronounced with a short 'i' as in 'it'."<ref name= "Dem" /> |
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In the theatre programme notes, "much was made of how OP performance reintroduces lost rhymes such as the final couplet: 'So thanks to all at once, and each to one, / Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone'" (5.11.40-1) where 'one' sounds like 'own'. The Witches, the play's great purveyors of rhyme, benefited most in this regard. So, 'babe' (4.1.30) sounded like 'bab' and rhymed with 'drab' (4.1.31)..."<ref name= "EP" /> |
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Eoin Price wrote, "I found the OP rendition of Banquo's brilliant question 'Or have we eaten on the insane root / That takes the ''raison'' prisoner?' unduly amusing"; and he adds, |
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<blockquote>:... 'fear' had two pronunciations: the standard modern pronunciation being one, and 'fair' being the other. Mostly, the actors seemed to pronounce it in a way which accords with the modern standard, but during one speech, Macbeth said 'fair'. This seems especially significant in a play determined to complicate the relationship between 'fair' and 'foul'. I wonder, then, if the punning could be extended throughout the production. Would Banquo's lines, 'Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear / Things that do sound so fair?' (1.3.49-50) be fascinatingly illuminated, or merely muddled, by this punning? Perhaps this is a possibility the cast already experimented with and chose to discard, but, for sure, an awareness of the possibility of a 'fair/fear' pun can have interesting ramifications for the play.</blockquote> |
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==Themes and motifs== |
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{{quote box|width=23em|"'''Macbeth'''<br>The ]! That is a step<br>On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap,<br>For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires;<br>Let not light see my black and deep desires.<br>The eye wink at the hand; yet let that be<br>Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see."|—''Macbeth'', Act I, Scene IV}} |
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''Macbeth'' is an anomaly among Shakespeare's tragedies in certain critical ways. It is short: more than a thousand lines shorter than '']'' and '']'', and only slightly more than half as long as '']''. 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. 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"; the comparative flatness of the characters other than Macbeth; and the oddness of Macbeth himself compared with other Shakespearean tragic heroes.{{clarify|reason=Why is he odd? Needs elaboration|date=September 2014}} |
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===As a tragedy of character=== |
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At least since the days of ] and ], 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. This opinion recurs in critical literature, and, according to Caroline Spurgeon, is supported by Shakespeare himself, who apparently intended to degrade his hero by vesting him with clothes unsuited to him and to make Macbeth look ridiculous by several ]s he applies: His garments seem either 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. When he feels as if "dressed in borrowed robes", after his new title as Thane of Cawdor, prophesied by the witches, has been confirmed by Ross (I, 3, ll. 108–109), Banquo comments: "New honours come upon him, / Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, / But with the aid of use" (I, 3, ll. 145–146). 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: "He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause / Within the belt of rule" (V, 2, ll. 14–15), while Angus, in a similar nimism, sums up what everybody thinks ever since Macbeth's accession to power: "now does he feel his title / Hang loose about him, like a giant's robe / upon a dwarfish thief" (V, 2, ll. 18–20).<ref>Caroline Spurgeon, ''Shakespeare's Imagery and What It Tells Us''. In: John Wain (ed.): ''Shakespeare. Macbeth. A Casebook''. Bristol: Western Printing Services (1968), pp. 168–177</ref> |
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Like ], 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. |
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Yet for other critics, it has not been so easy to resolve the question of Macbeth's motivation. ], 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. ] 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: "I am in blood/Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,/Returning were as tedious as go o'er." |
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While working on Russian translations of Shakespeare's works, ] compared Macbeth to ], the protagonist of '']'' by ]. 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.<ref>Boris Pasternak, ''I Remember: Sketch for an Autobiography''. Tr. Manya Harari. New York: Pantheon (1959), pp. 150–152</ref> |
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===As a tragedy of moral order=== |
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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 ], although the play's images of disorder are mostly not specific enough to support detailed intellectual readings. He may also have intended an elaborate compliment to James's belief in the ], although this hypothesis, outlined at greatest length by Henry N. Paul, is not universally accepted. As in '']'', 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. |
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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 ] on the ]. 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 ] within the medieval liturgical drama. |
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The theme of androgyny is often seen as a special aspect of the theme of disorder. Inversion of normative gender roles is most famously associated with 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 ] ] critics, such as Janet Adelman, have connected the play's treatment of gender roles to its larger theme of inverted natural order. In this light, 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. |
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===As a poetic tragedy=== |
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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 ], is clear as early as the time of ], 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. |
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===Witchcraft and evil=== |
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]]] |
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In the play, the Three Witches represent darkness, chaos, and conflict, while their role is as agents and witnesses.<ref name="Kliman14">Kliman, 14.</ref> 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."<ref name="Perkins">{{Cite book|last=Perkins |first=William |title=A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft, So Farre forth as it is revealed in the Scriptures, and manifest by true experience |publisher=Cantrell Legge, Printer to the Universitie of Cambridge |location=London |year=1618 |page=53 |url=http://digital.library.cornell.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=witch;idno=wit075 |accessdate=24 June 2009}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Coddon |first=Karin S. |title='Unreal Mockery': Unreason and the Problem of Spectacle in Macbeth |journal=ELH |year=1989 |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=485–501 |jstor=2873194 }}</ref> 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.<ref name = tempt/> The witches' spells are remarkably similar to the spells of the witch Medusa in Anthony Munday's play '']'' published in 1584, and Shakespeare may have been influenced by these. |
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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.<ref name = tempt>{{cite journal |last=Frye |first=Roland Mushat |title=Launching the Tragedy of Macbeth: Temptation, Deliberation, and Consent in Act I |journal=The Huntington Library Quarterly |year=1987 |volume=50 |issue=3 |pages=249–261 |doi= 10.2307/3817399}}</ref> |
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According to J. A. Bryant Jr., Macbeth also makes use of Biblical parallels, notably between King Duncan's murder and the murder of ]: |
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{{quote|No matter how one looks at it, whether as history or as tragedy, Macbeth is distinctively Christian. One may simply count the Biblical allusions as Richmond Noble has done; one may go further and study the parallels between Shakespeare's story and the Old Testament stories of ] and ] as Miss Jane H. Jack has done; or one may examine with W. C. Curry the progressive degeneration of Macbeth from the point of view of medieval theology.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/stream/hippolytasviewso012763mbp/hippolytasviewso012763mbp_djvu.txt |title=Full text of "Hippolyta S View Some Christian Aspects of Shakespeare S Plays" |publisher=Archive.org |date=28 August 1960 |accessdate=1 November 2009}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/hippolytasviewso012763mbp |title=Internet Archive: Free Download: Hippolyta S View Some Christian Aspects Of Shakespeare S Plays |publisher=Archive.org |accessdate=1 November 2009}}</ref>}} |
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== Superstition and "The Scottish Play" == |
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{{Main article|The Scottish Play}} |
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While many today would say that any misfortune surrounding a production is mere coincidence, actors and other theatre people often consider it bad luck to mention ''Macbeth'' by name while inside a theatre, and sometimes refer to it indirectly, for example as "]",<ref name="faires">Robert Faires, "", ''Austin Chronicle,'' 13 October 2000.</ref> or "MacBee", or when referring to the character and not the play, "Mr. and Mrs. M", or "The Scottish King". |
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This is because Shakespeare (or the play's revisers) are said to have used the spells of real witches in his text, purportedly angering the witches and causing them to curse the play.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://pretallez.com/onstage/theatre/broadway/macbeth/macbeth_curse.html |title=The Curse of 'Macbeth'. Is there an evil spell on this ill-starred play? |first=Dina |last=Tritsch |date=April 1984 |publisher=pretallez.com |accessdate=28 November 2010}}</ref> Thus, to say the name of the play inside a theatre is believed to doom the production to failure, 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''.<ref name="faires" /> |
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According to the actor Sir ], in his ] TV series '']'', <blockquote>contrary to popular myth, Shakespeare's tragedy Macbeth is not the unluckiest play as superstition likes to portray it. Exactly the opposite! The origin of the unfortunate moniker dates back to repertory theatre days when each town and village had at least one theatre to entertain the public. If a play was not doing well, it would invariably get 'pulled' and replaced with a sure-fire audience pleaser – Macbeth guaranteed full-houses. So when the weekly theatre newspaper, '']'' was published, listing what was on in each theatre in the country, it was instantly noticed what shows had NOT worked the previous week, as they had been replaced by a definite crowd-pleaser. More actors have died during performances of Hamlet than in the "Scottish play" as the profession still calls it. It is forbidden to quote from it backstage as this could cause the current play to collapse and have to be replaced, causing possible unemployment.<ref>''Great West End Theatres'' Sky Arts. 10 August 2013</ref></blockquote> |
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One particular incident that lent itself to the superstition was the ]. The cause of the riots was based on a conflict over two performances of ''Macbeth,'' and is usually ascribed to the curse.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://skeptoid.com/episodes/4222 |title=Toil and Trouble: The Curse of Macbeth |author=Dunning, Brian|date=7 September 2010 |publisher=skeptoid.com |accessdate=28 November 2010}}</ref> |
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Several methods exist to dispel the curse, depending on the actor. One, attributed to ], 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.<ref>''Babylon 5 – The Scripts of J. Michael Straczynski, Volume 6'' by ], Synthetic Labs Publishing (2006).</ref> 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 '']''. Yet another is to recite lines from '']'', thought to be a lucky play.<ref name="Garber">{{Cite book|last=Garber|first=Marjorie B.|title=Profiling Shakespeare|publisher=Routledge|year=2008|page=77|isbn=978-0-415-96446-3}}</ref> Other sources cite '']'' as being a similarly lucky play. |
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==Legacy== |
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===Performance history=== |
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====Shakespeare's day to the Interregnum==== |
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The only eyewitness account of ''Macbeth'' in Shakespeare's lifetime was recorded by ], who saw a performance at ] in 1611.<ref>Brooke (2008, 36)</ref><ref>Clark (2015, 337)</ref> 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,<ref name="Clark 2015, 324">Clark (2015, 324)</ref> of the man not of woman born, or of Birnam Wood.<ref>Brooke (2008, 36); Orgel (2002, 33)</ref> However, Clark<ref>Clark (2015, 301)</ref> observes that Forman's accounts were often inaccurate and incomplete (for instance omitting the statue scene from '']'') and his interest did not seem to be in "giving full accounts of the productions."<ref name="Clark 2015, 324"/> |
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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 as we know it from the Folio was an adaptation for indoor performance at the ] (which was operated by the King's Men from 1608) – and even speculation that it represents a specific performance before King James.<ref>Brooke (2008, 34–36); Orgel (2002, 158–161); Taylor (2002, 2)</ref> The play contains more musical ] than any other play in the canon as well as a significant use of ]s.<ref>Brooke (2008, 35–36)</ref> |
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====Restoration and eighteenth century==== |
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{{quote box|width=23em|"The chill of the grave seemed about you when you looked on her; there was the hush and damp of the charnel house at midnight ... your flesh crept and your breathing became uneasy ... the scent of blood became palpable to you."|—Sheridan Knowles on ]' sleepwalking scene<ref>Williams (2002, 119)</ref>}} |
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All theatres were closed down by the ] government on 6 September 1642. Upon the ] of the monarchy in 1660, two ] (the ] and the ]) were established, and the existing theatrical repertoire divided between them.<ref>Marsden (2002, 21).</ref> ], 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.<ref>Tatspaugh (2003, 526–527)</ref> There were, however, performances outside the patent companies: among the evasions of the Duke's Company's monopoly was a puppet version of ''Macbeth''.<ref>Lanier (2002, 28–29)</ref> |
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''Macbeth'' was a favourite of the seventeenth-century diarist ], 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 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 ], who, poor man! is sick"), and again three weeks later on 6 November 1667 (" ''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 ] and court were also present in the audience.<ref>Orgel (2002, 155)</ref> |
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The first professional performances of ''Macbeth'' in North America were probably those of ].<ref>Morrison (2002, 231–232)</ref> |
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In 1744, ] 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.<ref>Orgel (2002, 246)</ref> ] 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.<ref>Potter (2001, 188)</ref> 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.<ref>Gay (2002, 158)</ref> 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.<ref>Williams (2002, 124)</ref> |
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] first played Macbeth in 1778.<ref name="Williams 2002, 125">Williams (2002, 125)</ref> Although usually regarded as the antithesis of Garrick, Kemble nevertheless refined aspects of Garrick's portrayal into his own.<ref>Williams (2002, 124–125)</ref> However it was the "towering and majestic" ] (Kemble's sister) who became a legend in the role of Lady Macbeth.<ref>Potter (2001, 189); Williams (2002, 125–126)</ref> 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.<ref>Moody (2002, 43)</ref> 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.<ref name="Williams 2002, 125"/> Audiences seem to have found the sleepwalking scene particularly mesmerising: ] said of it that "all her gestures were involuntary and mechanical ... She glided on and off the stage almost like an apparition."<ref name="Gay 2002, 159">Gay (2002, 159)</ref> |
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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.<ref>McLuskie (2005, 256–257)</ref> |
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], 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.<ref>Williams (2002, 126)</ref> |
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====Nineteenth century==== |
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{{quote box|width=23em|"Everyone seems to think Mrs McB is a ''Monstrousness'' & ''I'' can only see she's a ''woman'' – a mistaken woman – & ''weak'' – not a Dove – of course not – ''but first of all a wife.''"|—]<ref>Gay (2002, 167)</ref>}} |
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Performances outside the patent theatres were instrumental in bringing the monopoly to an end. ], for example, produced a popular adaptation of ''Macbeth'' in 1809 at the ] 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.<ref>Holland (2007, 38–39); Moody (2002, 38–39)</ref> |
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] and ] as the Macbeths, in historically accurate costumes]] |
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In 1809, in an unsuccessful attempt to take ] upmarket, ] 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.<ref name="Lanier 2002, 37">Lanier (2002, 37)</ref> |
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] at ] 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 ].<ref>Williams (2002, 126–127)</ref> 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.<ref name="Williams 2002, 127">Williams (2002, 127)</ref> His staging was full of spectacle, including several elaborate royal processions.<ref name="Williams 2002, 127"/> |
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] playing Macbeth, from a mid-19th century performance]] |
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In 1843 the ] finally brought the patent companies' monopoly to an end.<ref>Moody (2002, 38)</ref> From that time until the end of the ], London theatre was dominated by the ]s, and the style of presentation was "pictorial" – ] stages filled with spectacular stage-pictures, often featuring complex scenery, large casts in elaborate costumes, and frequent use of ].<ref>Schoch (2002, 58–59); Williams (2002, 128)</ref> ] (son of Edmund), at London's ] from 1850 to 1859, took an antiquarian view of Shakespeare performance, setting his ''Macbeth'' in a historically accurate eleventh-century Scotland.<ref>Schoch (2002, 61–62)</ref> His leading lady, ], created a sense of the character's inner life: '']''{{'}} 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."<ref>'']'' 14 June 1853, cited by Gay (2002, 163–164)</ref> At the same time, special effects were becoming popular: for example in ]' ''Macbeth'' the witches performed behind green ], enabling them to appear and disappear using stage lighting.<ref>Schoch (2002, 64)</ref> |
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In 1849, rival performances of the play sparked the ] in ]. The popular American actor ], whose Macbeth was said to be like "the ferocious chief of a barbarous tribe"<ref>Morrison (2002, 237)</ref> played the central role at the Broadway Theatre to popular acclaim, while the "cerebral and patrician"<ref name="Lanier 2002, 37"/> English actor ], playing the same role at the ], suffered constant heckling. The existing enmity between the two men (Forrest had openly hissed Macready at a recent performance of '']'' 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.<ref>Lanier (2002, 37); Booth (1995, 311–312); Holland (2002, 202); Morrison (2002, 238)</ref><!-- Note that these sources are in disagreement about the number of casualties: Lanier says 21. --><!-- And, yes, you do need all four of these sources to get every point made in this paragraph! --> |
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] as Lady Macbeth, an 1888 production]] |
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] 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.<ref>Morrison (2002, 239); Gay (2002,162)</ref> ] 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.<ref>Gay (2002, 161–2)</ref> ], 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.<ref>Gay (2002, 164)</ref> |
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] was the most successful of the late-Victorian ]s, 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.<ref>Williams (2002, 129)</ref> (Similar criticisms were made of ] in Germany, whose performances of ''Macbeth'' had many unintentional parallels with Irving's.<ref>Williams (2002, 129–130)</ref>) Irving's leading lady was ], 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.<ref>Gay (2002, 166–167); Williams (2002, 130)</ref> |
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Late nineteenth-century European Macbeths aimed for heroic stature, but at the expense of subtlety: ] in Italy and ] in Germany were said to inspire awe, but elicited little pity.<ref>Williams (2002, 130)</ref> |
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====Twentieth century to present==== |
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{{quote box|width=23em|"And then Lady Macbeth says 'He that's coming / Must be provided for.' It's an amazing line. She's going to play hostess to Duncan at Dunsinane, and 'provide' is what gracious hostesses always do. It's a wonder of a line to play because the reverberations do the acting for you, make the audience go 'Aaaagh!'"|—]<ref>McLuskie (2005, 253)</ref>}} |
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Two developments changed the nature of ''Macbeth'' performance in the twentieth century: firstly developments in the craft of acting itself, especially the ideas of ] and ], and secondly 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.<ref>Williams (2002, 130–131)</ref> |
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], at the ] in 1923, was the first of the twentieth-century directors to costume ''Macbeth'' in ].<ref>Smallwood (2002, 102)</ref> |
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] and Edna Thomas in the ] production that came to be known as the '']'' (1936)]] |
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In 1936, a decade before his film adaptation of the play, ] directed ''Macbeth'' for the ] of the ] at the ] in Harlem, using black actors and setting the action in Haiti: with drums and ] rituals to establish the Witches scenes. The production, dubbed ''The ]'', proved inflammatory in the aftermath of the ], 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.<ref>Forsyth (2000, 284); Hawkes (2003, 577)</ref> |
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] |
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A performance which is frequently referenced as an example of the play's curse was the outdoor production directed by ] in 1953 in the ] of Bermuda, and starring ]. Using the imposing spectacle of ]'s 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.<ref>`http://www.royalgazette.com/article/20141016/ISLAND/141019781 ""In Bermuda, Shakespeare in all his glory'', by Jessie Moniz Hardy. The Royal Gazette. 16 Coctober, 2014</ref><ref></ref> |
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The critical consensus is that there have been three great Macbeths on the English-speaking stage in the twentieth century, all of them commencing at ]: ] in 1955, ] in 1976 and ] in 1999.<ref>Williams (2002, 131)</ref> Olivier's portrayal (directed by ], with ] as Lady Macbeth) was immediately hailed as a masterpiece. ] expressed the view that 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.<ref>Williams (2002, 130–131); Brooke (2008, 47–48)</ref> |
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The play caused grave difficulties for the ], especially at the (then) ]. ]'s 1967 production was (in Michael Billington's words) "an acknowledged disaster" with the use of real leaves from Birnham Wood getting unsolicited first-night laughs, and ]'s 1974 production was (Billington again) "an over-elaborate religious spectacle".<ref>Billington (2003, 599)</ref> But Nunn achieved success for the RSC in his 1976 production at the intimate ], with ] and ] in the central roles.<ref>Billington (2003, 599–600)</ref> 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,"<ref>Michael Billington, cited by Gay (2002, 169)</ref> but their relationship atrophied as the action progressed.<ref>Williams (2002, 132–134); Gay (2002, 169)</ref> |
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In Soviet-controlled Prague in 1977, faced with the illegality of working in theatres, ] adapted ''Macbeth'' into a 75-minute abridgement for five actors, suitable for "bringing a show in a suitcase to people's homes."<ref>Holland (2007, 40) and see also ]'s '']''.</ref> |
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Spectacle became unfashionable in Western theatre throughout the twentieth century. In East Asia, however, spectacular productions have achieved great success, including ]'s 1980 production with ] as Macbeth, set in the sixteenth century ].<ref>Williams (2002, 134–135)</ref> 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.<ref>Holland (2002, 207)</ref> ]'s 1980 ] production in Beijing made every effort to be unpolitical (necessary in the aftermath of the ]): yet audiences still perceived correspondences between the central character (who the director had actually modelled on ]) and ].<ref>Gillies (2002, 268)</ref> Shakespeare has often been adapted to indigenous theatre traditions, for example the ''] Macbeth'' of ] performed at the inaugural Chinese Shakespeare Festival of 1986.<ref>Gillies (2002, 270)</ref> Similarly, ]'s ''Barnam Vana'' of 1979 had adapted ''Macbeth'' to the ] tradition of ], India.<ref>Gillies (2002, 276–278)</ref> In 1997, ] created ''Stage of Blood'' merging a range of martial arts, dance and gymnastic styles from ], performed in Imphal and in England. The stage was literally a raft on a lake.<ref>Gillies (2002, 278–279)</ref> |
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The ] again achieved critical success in ]'s 1999 production at ], with ] and ] in the central roles, once again demonstrating the suitability of the play to smaller venues.<ref>Walter (2002, 1); Billington (2003, 600)</ref> 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.<ref>Billington (2003, 600)</ref> 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' prophesies) and Lady Macbeth, in plotting to kill the king. The play said little about politics, instead powerfully presenting its central characters' psychological collapse.<ref>Williams (2002, 134)</ref> |
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While the play has been translated and performed in various languages in different parts of the world, ''Media Artists'' was the first to stage its ] adaptation in ]. The adaptation by Balram and the play directed by ] have been universally acknowledged as a milestone in Punjabi theatre.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060613/ldh2.htm | title = Theatre workshop for children| publisher =] | date = 2006-06-13 }}</ref> The unique attempt involved trained theatre experts and the actors taken from rural background in ]. Punjabi folk music imbued the play with the native ethos as the English setting of the Shakespeare's play was transposed into Punjabi milieu.<ref>{{cite news | url = http://www.tribuneindia.com/2004/20040630/cth2.htm | title = Exposing Rural Punjabis to Shakespeare's Magic | author = Aditi Tandon | publisher = ] | date = 2004-06-29 }}</ref> |
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=== Screen === |
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{{main article|Macbeth on screen}} |
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==== Twentieth century ==== |
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The earliest known film ''Macbeth'' was 1905's American short ''Death Scene From Macbeth'', and short versions were produced in Italy in 1909 and France in 1910. Two notable early versions are lost: Ludwig Landmann produced a 47-minute version in Germany in 1913, and ] produced a 1916 version in America featuring the noted stage actor ].<ref>Brode (2001, 177)</ref> Tree is said to have had great difficulties adapting to the new medium, and especially in confining himself to the small number of lines in the (silent) screenplay, until an ingenious cameraman allowed him to play his entire part to an empty camera, after which a real camera shot the film.<ref>Freedman (2000, 49)</ref> |
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In 1947, ] produced an independent film of ''Macbeth'', intended for distribution to schools, most notable for the designer of its eighty-three costumes: the soon-to-be-famous ].<ref>Brode (2001, 178–179)</ref> |
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] and ] as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in Welles' 1948 film adaptation of the play.]] |
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]' 1948 '']'', in the director's words a "violently sketched charcoal drawing of a great play,"<ref>Orson Wells, cited by Rosenthal (2007, 99)</ref> was filmed in only 23 days and on a budget of just $700,000. These filming conditions allowed only a single abstract set, and eclectic costumes. Dialogue was pre-recorded, enabling the actors to perform very long individual takes, including one of over ten minutes surrounding the death of Duncan.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 98–99)</ref> Welles himself played the central character, who dominates the film, measured both by his time on screen, and by physical presence: high-angle and low-angle shots and deep-focus close-ups are used to distort his size in comparison to other characters.<ref>Guntner (2000, 124)</ref> Welles retained from his own 1936 stage production the image of a ] controlling the fate of the central character: and at the end it is the doll we see beheaded.<ref>Forsyth (2000, 284–285)</ref> The film's allegorical aspect is heightened by Welles' introduction of a non-Shakespearean character, the Holy Father (played by ]),<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 99)</ref> in opposition to the witches, speaking lines taken from Shakespeare's Ross, Angus and the Old Man.<ref>Mason (2000, 188–189)</ref> Contemporary reviews were largely negative, particularly criticising Welles' unsympathetic portrayal of the central character. ''Newsweek'' commented: "His Macbeth is a static, two-dimensional creature as capable of evil in the first scene as in the final hours of his bloody reign."<ref>Brode (2001, 183)</ref> |
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'']'' (], 1955) established the tradition of resetting the ''Macbeth'' story among 20th-century gangsters.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 100–102)</ref> Others to do so include '']'' (William Reilly, 1991),<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 110–111)</ref> '']'' (], 2003)<ref name="Rosenthal 2007, 123-124">Rosenthal (2007, 123–124)</ref> and ]'s Australian 2006 '']''.<ref name="Rosenthal 2007, 127-128">Rosenthal (2007, 127–128)</ref> |
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In 1957, ] used the ''Macbeth'' story as the basis for the "universally acclaimed"<ref>Guntner (2000, 125)</ref> '']'' (in English known as ''Throne of Blood'' or (the literal translation of its title) ''Spiderweb Castle'').<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 103)</ref> The film is a Japanese period-piece (]), drawing upon elements of ], especially in its depiction of the evil spirit who takes the part of Shakespeare's witches, and of Asaji, the Lady Macbeth character, played by ],<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 103–104)</ref> and upon ] in its depiction of Washizu, the Macbeth character, played by ].<ref>Howard (2003, 617)</ref> In a twist on Shakespeare's ending, the tyrant (having witnessed Spiderweb Forest come to Spiderweb Castle) is killed by volleys of arrows from his own archers after they come to the realization he also lied about the identity of their former master's murderer.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 105)</ref> |
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] directed ] and ] in a ] which later had a limited European theatrical release. (The three had also worked together on the earlier '']'' ].)<ref>McKernan & Terris (1994, 93)</ref> Neither of the central couple was able to adapt their stage acting style to the screen successfully, leading to their roles being described by critics as "recited" rather than "acted".<ref>Brode (2001, 185–187)</ref> |
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]'s 1971 '']'' was the director's first film after the brutal murder of his wife, ], and reflected his determination to "show violence the way it is ... if you don't show it realistically then that's immoral and harmful."<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 107–108)</ref> His film showed deaths only reported in the play, including the execution of Cawdor, and Macbeth stabbing Duncan,<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 108)</ref> and its violence was "intense and incessant."<ref>Brode (2001, 189)</ref> Made in the aftermath of ]'s youthful '']'', and financed by '']'' mogul ], Polanski's film featured a young sexy lead couple, played by ] (28) and by ] (25), who controversially performed the sleepwalking scene nude.<ref>Brode (2001, 187–189), Rosenthal (2007, 107–109)</ref> The unsettling film score, provided by the ], invoked "discord and dissonance."<ref>Sanders (2007, 147)</ref> While using Shakespeare's words, Polanski alters aspects of Shakespeare's story, turning the minor character Ross into a ruthless Machiavellian,<ref>Brode (2001, 191)</ref> and adding an epilogue to the play in which Donalbain (younger son of Duncan) arrives at the witches' lair, indicating that the cycle of violence will begin again.<ref>Guntner (2000, 126–127)</ref> |
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In 1973, the Virginia Museum Theater (VMT, now the ]), presented ''Macbeth,'' starring ]. Dubbed by the ''New York Times'' as the "'Fowler' Macbeth" after director ], it was described by Clive Barnes as "splendidly vigorous, forcefully immediate... probably the goriest Shakespearean production I have seen since Peter Brook's 'Titus Andronicus'."<ref>{{cite web|author=CLIVE BARNES Special to The New York Times |url=http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=FB071FF83C54137A93C0A81789D85F478785F9 |title=Stage - Fowler 'Macbeth' - A Vigorous Production Staged in Richmond The Cast - Article - NYTimes.com |publisher=New York Times |date=1973-02-12 |accessdate=2013-04-27}}</ref> |
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The Nunn/McKellen/Dench ] ] stage performance discussed above was adapted for TV and broadcast by ] (see '']'').<ref>Willems (2000, 36); McKernan & Terris (1994, 99)</ref> |
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William Reilly's 1991 '']'', another film to set the ''Macbeth'' story among gangsters, has been praised for its accuracy in depicting ] rituals, said to be more authentic than those in '']'' or '']''. However the film failed to please audiences or critics: Leonard Maltin found it "pretentious" and "unintentionally comic" and Daniel Rosenthal describes it as "providing the most risible chunks of modernised Shakespeare in screen history."<ref>Brode (2001, 193); Rosenthal (2007, 110)</ref> In 1992 ] produced a cel-animated ''Macbeth'' for the series '']'',<ref>Holland (2007, 43)</ref> and in 1997 Jeremy Freeston directed ] and ] in a low budget, fairly full-text, version.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 112–3)</ref> |
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In Shakespeare's script, the actor playing Banquo must enter the stage as a ghost. The major film versions have usually taken the opportunity to provide a double perspective: Banquo visible to the audience from Macbeth's perspective, but invisible from the perspective of other characters. Television versions, however, have often taken the third approach of leaving Banquo invisible to viewers, thereby portraying Banquo's ghost as merely Macbeth's delusion. This approach is taken in the 1978 ] production, ]'s 1983 version for ], and in ]'s 1997 ''Macbeth on the Estate''.<ref name="Forsyth 2000, 289-290">Forsyth (2000, 289–290)</ref> ''Macbeth on the Estate'' largely dispensed with the supernatural in favour of the drug-crime driven realism of characters living on a ] housing estate: except for the three "weird" (in the modern sense of the word) children who prophesy Macbeth's fate.<ref name="Forsyth 2000, 289-290"/> This production used Shakespeare's language, but encouraged the actors – many of whom were locals, not professionals – to speak it naturalistically.<ref>Howard (2003, 618)</ref> |
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====Twenty-first century==== |
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Twenty-first-century cinema has re-interpreted ''Macbeth'', relocating "Scotland" elsewhere: '']'' to Mumbai, '']'' to Pennsylvania, ]'s '']'' to Melbourne, and Allison L. LiCalsi's 2001 ''Macbeth: The Comedy'' to a location only differentiated from the reality of New Jersey, where it was filmed, through signifiers such as tartan, Scottish flags and bagpipes.<ref>Jess-Cooke (2006, 174–175)</ref> ]'s 2001 '']'' was set among, and starred, residents of ], a remote fishing community in Madagascar.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 114–117)</ref> ]' 2000 '']'' (in English: ''Bleeder'') set the story among Venezuelan bandits and presented a shockingly visualised horror version.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 118–120)</ref> |
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]'s '']'' reframes the ''Macbeth'' story as a comedy-thriller set in a 1975 fast-food restaurant, and features ] in the Macbeth role and ] as Pat, the Lady Macbeth character: "We're not bad people, Mac. We're just under-achievers who have to make up for lost time." ] plays vegetarian detective Ernie McDuff who (in the words of Daniel Rosenthal) " his uniquely offbeat menacing delivery to innocuous lines."<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 121–122)</ref> ''Scotland, PA'''s conceit of resetting the ''Macbeth'' story at a restaurant was followed in ]'s 2005 ] adaptation.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 122)</ref> |
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]'s 2003 '']'', filmed in ] and ] and set in the ], was produced in the ] tradition, but heavily influenced by ''Macbeth'', by ]'s 1972 '']'' and by ]'s 1994 '']''.<ref>Jess-Cooke (2006, 177–178)</ref> It deviates from the ''Macbeth'' story in making the Macbeth character (Miyan Maqbool, played by ]) a single man, lusting after the mistress (Nimmi, played by ]) of the Duncan character (Jahangir Khan, known as Abbaji, played by ]).<ref name="Rosenthal 2007, 123-124"/> Another deviation is the comparative delay in the murder: Shakespeare's protagonists murder Duncan early in the play, but more than half of the film has passed by the time Nimmi and Miyan kill Abbaji.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 124)</ref> |
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In 2004 an "eccentric" Swedish/Norwegian film, based on ]'s Ice Globe Theatre production of ''Macbeth'', was said by critic Daniel Rosenthal to owe "more to co-director ]'s background in natural history documentaries than to Shakespeare."<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 125–126)</ref> More conventional adaptations of 21st-century stage productions to television include ]'s ] production filmed in 2001 with ] and ] in the central roles,<ref>Walter (2002, 65)</ref> and ]'s ] '']'' televised in 2010 with ] and ] as the tragic couple. The cast of the latter felt that the history of their stage performance (moving from a ] at Chichester to a ] in London to a ] in Brooklyn) made it easier for them to "re-scale", yet again, their performances for the cameras.<ref>Interview with ] on DVD of ]</ref> |
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In 2006, ] directed a Shakespearean-language, extremely violent '']'' set in the Melbourne underworld. ] played Macbeth. ] played Lady Macbeth and shared the screenplay credits with Wright.<ref name="Rosenthal 2007, 127-128"/> The director considered her portrayal of Lady Macbeth to be the most sympathetic he had ever seen.<ref>Interview with ] in "Making of Documentary" on DVD of ]</ref> In spite of the high level of violence and nudity (Macbeth has sex with the three naked schoolgirl witches as they prophesy his fate), intended to appeal to the young audiences that had flocked to '']'', the film flopped at the box office.<ref>Rosenthal (2007, 127)</ref> |
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In 2014, '']'' wove a 10 episode arc placing its characters in the world of Macbeth. The adaptation uses students and a modern-day setting to loosely parallel Shakespeare's play. It starred ], ], ] and ] and embarked on a ] plotline. |
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]'s feature-length adaptation '']'', starring ] and ], was released in October 2015. |
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Also in 2015, Brazilian film ''A Floresta que se Move'' (''The Moving Forest'') premiered at the ].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ffm-montreal.org/en/636-en_the-moving-forest.html | author= | title=A Floresta que se Move / The Moving Forest| work=Montreal World Film Festival webpage | accessdate=11 October 2015}}</ref> Directed by Vinícius Coimbra and starred by ] and ], the film uses a modern-day setting, replacing the throne of Scotland with the presidency of a high-ranked bank.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.peliculacriativa.com.br/2015/08/ana-paula-arosio-volta-ao-cinema-em-a-floresta-que-se-move-de-vinicius-coimbra.html| author=Lynn Colling | title=Ana Paula Arósio volta ao cinema em 'A Floresta que se Move', filme dirigido por Vinícius Coimbra| work=Película Criativa | language=Portuguese| accessdate=11 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://cultura.estadao.com.br/noticias/cinema,ana-paula-arosio-volta-as-telas-em-a-floresta-que-se-move,1577970| author=Flavia Guerra | title=Ana Paula Arósio volta às telas em 'A Floresta que se Move' | work=O Estado de São Paulo | language=Portuguese| accessdate=11 October 2015}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://telatela.cartacapital.com.br/ana-paula-arosio-e-lady-macbeth-em-a-floresta-que-se-move/| author=Flavia Guerra | title=Ana Paula Arósio é Lady Macbeth em 'A Floresta que se Move' | work=Carta Capital| language=Portuguese| accessdate=11 October 2015}}</ref> |
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===Other media=== |
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====Literature==== |
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There have been numerous literary adaptations and spin-offs from ''Macbeth''. Russian Novelist ] told a variation of the story from Lady Macbeth's point of view in '']'', which itself became a number of films<ref>Brode (2001, 192)</ref> and ] by ].<ref>Sanders (2007, 156)</ref> ]'s 1911 ''The Rehearsal'' fictionalises ]'s inept rehearsals for ''Macbeth's'' premiere.<ref>Lanier (2002, 119)</ref> Gu Wuwei's 1916 play ''The Usurper of State Power'' adapted both ''Macbeth'' and ''Hamlet'' as a parody of contemporary events in China.<ref>Gillies (2002, 267)</ref> The play has been used as a background for detective fiction (as in ]'s 1976 ''Bullets for Macbeth'')<ref>Osborne (2007, 129)</ref> and, in the case of ]'s last detective novel ], the play takes centre stage as the rehearsal, production and run of a 'flawless' production is described in absorbing detail (so much so that her biographer describes the novel as effectively Marsh's third production of the play).<ref>Margaret Lewis 'Ngaio March: A Life'</ref> But the play was also used as the basis of ]'s parody of the whodunit genre ''The Macbeth Murder Mystery'', in which the protagonist reads ''Macbeth'' applying the conventions of detective stories, and concludes that it must have been Macduff who murdered Duncan.<ref>Lanier (2002, 85)</ref> Comics and graphic novels have utilised the play, or have dramatised the circumstances of its inception: ] himself wrote the play for Shakespeare in the course of one night, in the 1947 ''Shakespeare's Ghost Writer''.<ref>Lanier (2002, 136–137)</ref> A cyberpunk version of MacBeth titled ''Mac'' appears in the collection ''Sound & Fury: Shakespeare Goes Punk.<ref></ref> |
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Macbeth has been adapted into plays dealing with the political and cultural concerns of many nations. ]'s '']'' satirised ''Macbeth'' as a meaningless succession of treachery and slaughter.<ref>Hortmann (2002, 219)</ref> ]'s ''A'are Akogun'', first performed in Nigeria in 1968, mixed the English and ] languages.<ref>Banham (2002, 292)</ref> ]'s 1970 play '']'' adapts ''Macbeth'' to Zulu culture, and was said by '']'' to be "more authentic than any modern ''Macbeth''" in presenting a world in which a man's fighting ability is central to his identity.<ref>Banham (2002, 286–287), citing '']'' 8 August 1997</ref> ] adapted ''Macbeth'' as a battle to take over a powerful corporation in Ghana in his 1972 ''Mambo'' or ''Let's Play Games, My Husband''.<ref>Banham (2002, 296)</ref> ]'s ''Zeneral Macbeff'', first performed in 1982, adapted the story to the local ] and to the ] political situation.<ref>Banham (2002, 289–292)</ref> (The same author later translated ''Macbeth'' itself into Mauritian creole, as ''Trazedji Makbess''.)<ref>Banham (2002, 289)</ref> And in 2000, Chuck Mike and the Nigerian Performance Studio Workshop produced ''Mukbutu'' as a direct commentary on the fragile nature of Nigerian democracy at the time.<ref>Banham (2002, 297)</ref> |
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====Music and audio==== |
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] as it appears in ]]] |
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''Macbeth'' is, with '']'', one of the two most-performed Shakespeare plays on ], with 20 productions between 1923 and 2005.<ref>Greenhalgh (2007, 186 and footnote 39 on 197)</ref> |
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The extant version of ''Macbeth'', in the ], contains dancing and music, including the song "Come Away Hecate" which exists in two collections of lute music (both c.1630, one of them being ]) arranged by ].<ref>Brooke (2008, 225)</ref> And, from the Restoration onwards, incidental music has frequently been composed for the play: including works by ] in the eighteenth century.<ref>Sanders (2007, 32)</ref> ]'s use of dance in the witches' scenes was inherited by ], which in turn influenced ] to incorporate a ballet around the witches' cauldron into his opera '']''.<ref>Sanders (2007, 60)</ref> Verdi's first Shakespeare-influenced opera, with libretto by ], incorporated a number of striking arias for Lady Macbeth, giving her a prominence in the early part of the play which contrasts with the character's increasing isolation as the action continues: she ceases to sing duets and her sleepwalking confession is starkly contrasted with the "supported grief" of Macduff in the preceding scene.<ref>Sanders (2007, 83 & 112–116)</ref> Other music influenced by the play includes ]'s 1890 symphonic poem '']''.<ref>Sanders (2007, 16)</ref> ] and ] incorporated themes depicting the female characters from ''Macbeth'' in the 1957 Shakespearean jazz suite '']'': the weird sisters juxtaposed with Iago (from '']''), and ''Lady Mac'' represented by ragtime piano because, as Ellington put it, "we suspect there was a little ragtime in her soul".<ref>Sanders (2007, 17 & 20)</ref> Another Jazz collaboration to create hybrids of Shakespeare plays was that of ] with ], who in Laine's 1964 ''Shakespeare and All That Jazz'' juxtaposed Titania's instructions to her fairies from '']'' with the witches' chant from ''Macbeth''.<ref>''Macbeth'' 1.1.10–11; ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' 3.1.154–166); Sanders (2007, 22–23)</ref> In 2000, ] produced their heavy metal concept-album retelling '']''.<ref>Lanier (2002, 72)</ref> |
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====Visual arts==== |
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The play has inspired numerous works of art. In 1750 and 1760 respectively, the painters ] and ] portrayed Macbeth and Banquo meeting the Three Witches in a scenic landscape, both likely having been inspired by ] 1653–4 painting ''Landscape in a Storm''. While Wootton's extended visualization was ultimately more significant, Zuccarelli's allegorical version became available to a much wider constituency, through its 1767 exhibition with the ] and its subsequent engraving by ] in 1770.<ref>Sillars (2006, 1–2, 77–79)</ref> The scene in which Lady Macbeth seizes the daggers, as performed by ] and ], was a touchstone throughout ]'s career, including works in 1766, 1774 and 1812.<ref name="Orgel 2007, 74">Orgel (2007, 74)</ref> The same performance was the subject of ]'s painting of the Macbeths in 1768.<ref>Orgel (2002, 247–249)</ref> In 1786, ] announced his intention to found his ]. His chief innovation was to see the works of Shakespeare as history, rather than contemporary, so instead of including the (then fashionable) works depicting the great actors of the day on stage in modern dress, he commissioned works depicting the ''action'' of the plays.<ref>Orgel (2007, 75)</ref> However the most notable works in the collection disregard this historicising principle: such as ]'s depiction of the naked and heroic Macbeth encountering the witches.<ref name="Orgel 2007, 76">Orgel (2007, 76)</ref> ]'s paintings were also influenced by Shakespeare, including his ''Pity'', inspired by Macbeth's "Pity, like a naked new-born babe, striding the blast."<ref name="Macbeth 1 2007">''Macbeth'' 1.7.21–22; Orgel (2007, 77)</ref> ]' triumph in the role of Lady Macbeth led ] to depict her as ''The Muse of Tragedy''.<ref name="Gay 2002, 159"/> |
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<gallery> |
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File:Macbeth and Banquo Meeting the Weird Sisters JW.jpg|]'s 1750 ''Macbeth and Banquo meeting the Weird Sisters.''<ref>Sillars (2006, 158)</ref> |
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File:Macbeth and the Witches.jpg|]'s 1760 rendition of ''Macbeth and the Witches.''<ref>Sillars (2006, 77)</ref> |
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File:Zoffany-Garrick and Pritchard in Macbeth.jpg|]'s depiction of ] and ] in ''Macbeth''.<ref>Orgel (2002, 248)</ref> |
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File:Fuseli Macbeth 1766.jpg|]'s 1766 depiction of ] and ], with the daggers.<ref>Orgel (2007, 74); Orgel (2002, 246–247)</ref> |
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Image:Johann Heinrich Füssli - Lady Macbeth with the Daggers - WGA8338.jpg|]'s later (1812) reworking of ] and ], with the daggers.<ref name="Orgel 2007, 74"/> |
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Image:FuseliMacbethBoydell.jpg|James Caldwell's engraving, after ], of Macbeth's encounter with the witches.<ref name="Orgel 2007, 76"/> |
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File:Pity by William Blake 1795.jpg|'']'' by ], based on Macbeth's "Pity, like a naked new-born babe, striding the blast."<ref name="Macbeth 1 2007"/> |
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File:Mrs Siddons by Joshua Reynolds.jpg|] depicted ] as ''The Muse of Tragedy'', largely due to her triumph in the role of Lady Macbeth.<ref name="Gay 2002, 159"/> |
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File:Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth.jpg|]'s painting of ], in a gown decorated with green beetle wings.<ref>Schoch (2002,59)</ref> |
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</gallery> |
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==Notes== |
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===Citations=== |
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Unless otherwise specified, all citations of ''Macbeth'' refer to Muir (1984), and of other works of Shakespeare refer to Wells and Taylor (2005). |
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{{Reflist|30em}} |
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{{Refend}} |
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==External links== |
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{{wikibooks|Introduction to Shakespeare|The Tragedy of Macbeth|The Tragedy of Macbeth}} |
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{{Wikisource|The Tragedy of Macbeth}} |
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{{Wikiquote}} |
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{{Commons category|Macbeth}} |
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* – From the Designing Shakespeare resource |
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* at the British Library |
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* |
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* directed by ] starring Sir ] |
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* – annotated HTML version of ''Macbeth.'' |
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* – searchable, annotated HTML version of ''Macbeth.'' |
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* {{librivox book | title=Macbeth | author=William Shakespeare}} |
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* |
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* |
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* '''' - full annotated text aligned to Common Core Standards |
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* by Steven Greenblatt |
|
* by Steven Greenblatt |
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|
