Chicago Shakespeare Theater: Macbeth adapted and directed by David H. Bell A Look Back at Macbeth in Performance Through its 400-year history, Macbeth has remained one of Shakespeare’s most enduring and popular plays. Half the length of Hamlet, it is the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedies. Macbeth maintains what some scholars have called “an intensity of tragedy,” which never lets up from the play’s dark beginning to its ambiguous conclusion. Macbeth is also a play whose stage history has been shrouded in mystery and superstition. So strong is the belief among actors that the play carries a magic of its own that taboos still exist today against speaking the name “Macbeth” in the theater (outside the play’s text itself). Those who break the rules must perform time-honored rituals to undo the curse: leave the room, turn around three times, spit, knock on the door three times and beg to be readmitted. The performance history of this play reveals a series of bad fortunes that could be viewed as being cursed. In its first production outside England in 1672, the Dutch actor playing Macbeth was having an affair with his Lady Macbeth—who happened to be the wife of the actor playing Duncan.

One evening, the murder scene was particularly bloody, and Duncan did not return for his curtain call. Macbeth served a life sentence for his all-too-realistic murder. When Lawrence Olivier played the title role in 1937, he narrowly escaped death as a heavy weight swung from the fly loft above, crushing the chair where he had been seated until moments before. A 1942 production directed by and starring John Gielgud had four fatalities during its run, including two of the witches and Duncan: the set was quickly repainted and used for light comedy—whose lead actor then died suddenly. When Stanislavsky, the great Russian director, mounted an elaborate production, the actor playing Macbeth forgot his lines during a dress rehearsal, and signaled to the prompter several times, but with no success. Finally, he went down to the prompt box and found the prompter dead, clutching his script. Stanislavsky cancelled the entire run immediately. The first documented performance for which any written record still exists appears in 1611, but we know that Macbeth was performed by 1607 when references to it in other plays appeared.

Scholars are fairly certain that Macbeth was written and first performed in 1606—the year that Father Garnet, a Jesuit priest on trial for conspiracy in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, used “equivocation” to protect himself in his famous trial. The first published text of Macbeth appeared in 1623 with the first Folio—17 years after it was first performed and seven years after the playwright’s death. Like many of the other texts compiled by Heminge and Condell for the first Folio, Macbeth's text was based upon the “prompt copy” used by Shakespeare and his actors in actual performance. A few passages in the Folio’s texts are attributed to contemporary playwright Thomas Middleton, who was appealing to the special interest in witchcraft among his Jacobean audience. The witch named Hecate is, according to scholars, entirely Middleton’s creation, as are the songs of the witches in 3.5 and 4.1 In England, Early Modern theater was eyed with suspicion by public authorities, who feared not only the spread of the plague among the gathered crowds, but also its influence upon an impressionable population.

But to religious extremists, the theater’s pageantry was viewed as sacrilegious, an unnecessary evil that should be outlawed. It was banned in 1642 following Cromwell’s overthrow of King Charles I (the son of King James I). When theater was once again legal 18 years later after the restoration of the monarchy, Shakespeare, dead for nearly two generations, was considered old-fashioned—and ripe for adaptation. William Davenant (Shakespeare’s godson, who also claimed to be his godfather’s illegitimate son) adapted Macbeth for his Restoration audiences. The songs and dances of the witches assumed far greater prominence. Davenant’s adaptation made sense out of what Shakespeare refused to. No longer did the audience see the world from Macbeth’s point of view. Macduff became the play’s hero and Macbeth its irrefutable villain, motivated by unbridled ambition. For nearly a century, Davenant’s adaptation held the stage, and Shakespeare’s Macbeth disappeared entirely from production.

It has been suggested that the ambiguity of Shakespeare’s own text appealed more to an audience who, before the outbreak of civil war, was still wrestling with their own answers to the questions the play raises about absolute power, about violence, and about loyalty. It was not until 1744, approximately 150 years after Shakespeare first wrote Macbeth, that his play returned to the stage in the production by the famous actor and director of London’s theater, David Garrick. But Garrick, too, added lines that made Macbeth a less ambiguous character than originally drawn by Shakespeare. The 1800s were marked by lavish Victorian productions of Shakespeare, and Macbeth was no exception. It was not until the early 1930s that a modern-dress production was staged in Birmingham, England. In 1936, Orson Welles staged such an all-black production of Macbeth—a “Voodoo” Macbeth, where the king ruled over a nineteenth-century colonial Haiti. The most prevalent interpretation of Shakespeare’s play portrays a royal couple who act alone, motivated by their own internal psychologies, with one or the other of the partners controlling the action.

Another approach to Macbeth's text in performance places the human world against a powerful supernatural sphere in which Macbeth’s Weird Sisters dwell. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, as well as their counterparts in a human and corrupt society, are portrayed as insignificant players in a world controlled by Fate and evil forces. A third interpretation of Shakespeare’s text in performance understands Macbeth’s tragedy as familial and intimate. The Macbeths are governed by their relationship with one another and with those near to them. Trevor Nunn’s celebrated 1976 production by England’s Royal Shakespeare Company starred Ian McKellan and Judi Dench as the tragic couple who lose each other along the way. First staged in the RSC’s most intimate space and on a very limited budget, the action took place within a small chalk circle, in which the couple moved in a counter-clockwise direction, signaling the play’s demonic associations. Macbeth is said by some to be the Shakespeare play that reads most like a film script. Akira Kurosawa’s famous film, Throne of Blood, explores a fourth interpretation, with human society as the determining and overriding force. The Macbeths act—but in response to their world shaping their behavior.

Kurosawa widens his scope through the use of hundreds of supernumeraries to embrace an entire political and social realm of violence and counter-violence. Society and human history are the root cause of tragedy in this sociological interpretation of Shakespeare’s text. Shakespeare’s play has also inspired several television and film adaptations, including Ken Hughes’s gangster film, entitled Joe Macbeth (1955), in which a Tarot card-reader tells Joe that he will first become Lord of the Castle and later, King of the City. In 1991, writer-director William Reilly returned to the gangster genre in his modern-day retelling, Men of Respect. The Weird Sisters are portrayed as gypsies watching a TV cooking show featuring a recipe for lamb’s head stew, and Lady Macbeth frantically attempts with a can of bleach to make her bloodied hands guiltless. In 1997, the co-founder of the English Shakespeare Company, Michael Bogdanov (who that same year guest-directed CST’s production of Timon of Athens at the Ruth Page Theatre), directed the play with residents of a government-subsidized housing project in Birmingham; the documentary was aired on the BBC.

Macbeth has been staged by Chicago Shakespeare Theater as a full-length production only once before, in 1992. Directed by the Czechoslovakian director, Roman Polak, the production was one of the first that the young company staged. Polak conducted the entire rehearsal process with his all-Chicago cast through the use of a translator, and the production was woven together by a series of visual images. Macbeth (played by Kevin Gudahl) and Banquo, returning from the battlefield covered in filth, stripped to loin clothes to shower in a rainstorm before returning to home and civilization. It was the company’s first “water effect”—of many to follow. Polak covered his other-worldly witches in white gauze from head to toe, and cast his leading couple as young, virile, impulsive lovers seduced by their passions. In 2005, Chicago Shakespeare Theater staged a world premiere of an adaptation based on Shakespeare’s play, entitled Kabuki Lady Macbeth. Conceived and directed by Master of Zen Arts Shozo Sato, and written by New York playwright Karen Sunde, this retelling focused on the journey of Lady Macbeth, portrayed as the force behind Macbeth’s downfall.

Sato told the story through the 400-year-old Japanese theater tradition of Kabuki, which utilizes traditional Japanese dress, vocalization patterns, and the sound of the wooden “ki” to punctuate the story’s forward drive. Performed in the 200-seat theater Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare, the production was an intimate, cross-cultural experience for both the performers and their audience. Then in 2007, Chicago Shakespeare Theater in collaboration with one of Italy’s oldest marionette theaters, Compagnia Marionettistica Carlo Colla e Figli, created a new production, Marionette Macbeth, combining the 300-year-old artistry of Colla e Figli with the voices of Chicago Shakespeare Theater actors. With more than 100 three-foot-tall, hand-carved puppets, the story of Macbeth was enacted by this troupe of Milanese master puppeteers. The production toured subsequently to The New Victory Theater in New York City. – Contributed by the CST Education Department Project MUSE - Macbeth (review) Tara E. Lynn Macbeth Presented by the Actors from the London Stage at the Clarence Brown Theatre on the campus of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

October 12–15, 2007. With Will Ashcroft (Banquo, Lennox, Seyward, Son of Macduff, Scottish Doctor, Porter), Charlotte Allam (Malcolm, Caithness, Wife of Macduff, First Witch, Murderer), Chris Donnelly (Macbeth, Bloody Captain, Old Man, English Doctor, Murderer), Brigid Zengeni (Donalbain, Ross, Menteth, Fleance, Lady Macbeth, Third Witch), and Dan Winter (Duncan, Macduff, Angus, Second Witch, Murderer). [End Page 77] In the satisfyingly gut wrenching ending of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Macduff carries the titled villain’s head onto the stage. Of late, several American productions have “enhanced” the Folio stage directions by having Macduff subsequently toss the head across the stage in disdain. During this maneuver, it is customary to use a burlap sack filled with all manner of materials (small watermelons and tomatoes are favorites) as the prop.

Some audiences have come to expect the thud-splat of Macbeth’s head as part of their catharsis, allowing us to share Macduff ’s triumphant revenge and reminding us of the fact that overreaching arch-villains do not, in fact, always succeed. Therefore, it was with some sadness and horror that I watched and heard the sack representing Macbeth’s head bounce across the stage and roll to a stop during a recent performance of Shakespeare’s Scottish Play. In no way did the ball inside the sack sound, look, or act like what one might expect from a decapitated head. If this had been a collegiate performance, I might have excused and even laughed at the gaffe (as many of the audience members around me did). Instead, I was watching the professional troupe, Actors from the London Stage perform what is arguably one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays and undermine a crucial emotional moment with a bouncing ball prop. That said, I hasten to point out that the overall performance was very good. But I begin with this minor misstep because I think it instigates an important discussion. As a professional Shakespearean, I have certain expectations of what Shakespeare should be.

The four full rows of undergraduate students behind me did not murmur aloud as I did; in truth, they probably had no idea what I found so annoying as to snort in derision at that point in the performance. Unfortunately, the difference in their reactions and mine is just one example of what happens to all of us as we advance further in our studies. As we develop intricate, multifaceted lenses through which to view early modern theatre, our experience of Shakespearean productions often suffers because they cannot possibly live up to our lofty, idealized, quintessential performance. As academics, the arroyo between criticism and mere enjoyment as an audience member is a problematic one to attempt to traverse and/or to fill. The gloss of academic elitism, though, must sometimes be torn asunder to allow new acolytes a view of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as something more than mere consecrated words on a page. The AFTLS performance of Macbeth at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville was part of such an attempt. In the spring of 2001, an interdisciplinary group of faculty members, led by history professor Dr.

Robert Bast, applied for a UT Presidential [End Page 78] grant and formed the Medieval and Renaissance Curriculum and Outreach Project, or MARCO. Subsequently, MARCO won a prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities Challenge Grant of three million dollars in 2003 for its academic and community outreach programs. Since its formal acceptance as a separate Institute within the university in 2004, the faculty of the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies has won a number of major research fellowships. Most recently, Marco and University of Tennessee chancellor Loren Crabtree declared Fall 2007 the “Renaissance semester” and planned a wide span of symposia, courses, seminars, and performances for the campus and the public throughout the semester. These events included the annual Renaissance Faire; public lectures by scholars such as A.R.

Braunmuller, Elizabeth Clark, Lester Smith, Kathryn Salzer, and Jay Rubenstein; the annual Marco Symposium, entitled “Saints and Citizens: Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance;” four performances by Artists in Residence the Boston Camerata, an early-music ensemble under the direction of Joel Cohen; and a McClung Museum exhibit entitled, “Sacred Beauty: A Millennium of Art, 600–1600.” In this stimulating context, the Actors from the London Stage arrived on campus for Shakespeare Week, a time during the Renaissance semester devoted exclusively to the study and appreciation of the Bard. Basic lighting changes, a few sound effects, and instrumental interludes were the only assistance these five superb actors had in creating the eerie, deadly, and dark world of Macbeth’s Scotland. The production was designed to focus the attention on the language and on the actors who must embody their characters and the action of the play without a great deal of environmental support. These actors were up to the challenge, even though Macbeth in particular is a difficult play in which to diminish spectacle because of its supernatural elements.

For those in the audience who had studied Macbeth only once or twice previously, this was a challenging performance. The actors each portrayed multiple roles to play all twenty-nine parts. The same actor sometimes played multiple characters simultaneously within the same scene, and the minute changes in costume, such as adding a headband and changing posture, did little to alleviate the confusion of who was who. I applaud the effort to let genuine Shakespeare speak for himself unsullied by modern stage techniques, but it came at some cost to the audience. Though the doubling, tripling, and quadrupling could be distracting, it also provided moments of staging genius. I especially appreciated the moment when Brigid Zengeni ducked out of the robes of Lady Macbeth [End Page 79] and into the stately walk of Ross and back again within thirty seconds: Chris Donnelly as Macbeth held Lady Macbeth’s robe by the shoulders, spread in place as a literal spot holder and physical representation of Lady Macbeth while Zengeni spoke her lines as Ross. The ingenuity involved in effecting this character change allowed the audience access to the true spirit of the early modern stage. Yet, the multiple-casting also presents the crux of my criticism of this production.

If AFTLS is intended to expose new audiences to the joy of Shakespeare, then choices that alienate that kind of audience are perplexing. Many of the students around me struggled to keep up with the action of the play, not because of the language but because of the confusion about who was speaking. Several audience members around me, both students and older patrons, had to compare notes during intermission to make sure they understood what was going on and who was who. Perhaps if the costuming had been uniform, based on a certain time period or other typology, it would have been easier to distinguish between prince, king, thane, etc. But other than the matching tartans worn at times by Macbeth and his wife, the patchwork costuming only furthered the confusion inherently created by doubling. Simultaneously, the scholar in me appreciated the creativity and theatricality of the doubling. To present this play in a way that emphasized the nature of the original performances pleased the portion of the audience previously familiar with Macbeth and Renaissance drama.

Using the actor portraying Macbeth as one of Banquo’s murderers is traditional, while using the same woman who portrays the wife of Macduff (Charlotte Allam) to play Malcolm, a murderer, and witch was a nice new twist. I realize it is impossible to please both experts in the field who have witnessed numerous productions and the novice student who has never been inside a theatre. Shakespeare and his colleagues likewise struggled to satisfy the gentry, merchants, and the groundlings. But AFTLS made production choices that alienated both their stated intended audience (audience members new to Shakespeare) and enthusiasts. On the other hand, there were several moments during which AFTLS displayed the brilliance and ingenuity of Shakespeare’s theatre for its entire audience. Will Ashcroft’s performance as the Porter was outstanding. Though comedy in Macbeth is hard to find, Ashcroft’s Porter had the audience guffawing. Knock-knock jokes may be low brow, but the Porter’s bawdy drunkenness is a lift in an otherwise dark play. Ashcroft obviously understood this and used his comedic interlude to its fullest extent.

His performance especially emphasized the gruesome irony of [End Page 80] timing in Macduff ’s arrival just after death has come to Duncan’s chambers in 2.2–2.3. Though Chris Donnelly’s Macbeth lacked the consistent depth and emotional range I have come to expect from the role, I did welcome his version of the banquet scene. This is the first staging of this scene I have experienced which underscored not only the tragedy of a mind coming unhinged, but also the dark humor this tragedy provokes. Donnelly played Macbeth as if the King was aware that he was beginning to lose his mind and was at once intrigued, horrified, and amused at the prospect. The joining of the banquet tables at a 90-degree angle to the audience allowed the faces of the other characters to be seen more clearly, especially that of Lady Macbeth in her frantic attempts to reassure the nobles of their King’s sanity while simultaneously being angry, frustrated, and worried about her husband’s behavior. The cleverness of Donnelly’s performance here was that he made me laugh at Macbeth in this scene but then made me extremely uncomfortable and somewhat ashamed for having done so.

Dan Winter’s portrayal of Macduff emphasized Macduff ’s quiet grief intermingled with rage. Winter did not allow his character to forget who he was in the torments of revenge; instead, his Macduff represented the honor and kinship of a loyal thane and the passionate patriotism of a proper Scot. Brigid Zengeni’s Lady Macbeth wholly captured the audience’s imagination. Unlike the androgynous or overly-sexualized representations usually associated with the character of Lady Macbeth, Zengeni’s Lady Macbeth is a woman deeply in love with her husband who believes that her ambition is warranted. While she was cruel to her husband because of his wavering ability to do what it takes to become king, Zengeni’s Lady Macbeth also showed a compassion for her husband. Her portrayal of Lady Macbeth underscored why her insanity and death are the defeat of Macbeth and why the crown and his life mean so little to him once she is gone. Overall, this production had many positive attributes. As part of the University of Tennessee Marco Renaissance semester, the AFTLS Macbeth was an essential aspect of the overall effort to expand the boundaries of interest in Shakespeare.

I appreciate AFTLS’s mission and agree with their optimistic view of theatre audiences. I, too, want to believe that Shakespeare’s language is so transcendent that it reaches through intricate staging maneuvers without the need for dazzling graphics, flying backdrops, and other visual machinery to guide the audience from point A to point B. However, I also realize that any production of Shakespeare [End Page 81] struggles to walk the line between appeasing the experts and making the play accessible to everyone. Sometimes this is a battle that cannot be won and a production has to choose one approach. I felt that AFTLS tried to have it both ways and alienated all segments of their audience because of it. Perhaps worst of all, they confirmed the previous notions held by a majority of their intended audience of novice theatre-goers—namely, that Shakespeare is baffling. Tara E. Lynn Macbeth | Theatre review | Stage | The Guardian Share on Messenger Close This is an archetypal Cheek By Jowl production: spare, disciplined, purged of gore and gratuitous spectacle.

But, while it reflects the taste and style of Declan Donnellan and designer Nick Ormerod, and exemplifies Macbeth's desire to "cut short all intermission", it lacks the tonal variety and narrative suspense that directors such as Rupert Goold and Greg Doran have lately brought to the play. Clearly the production is based on Freud's insight that Macbeth and his Lady are part of a single consciousness, and that, after the murder, his fears are fulfilled through her. Donnellan, however, takes this idea of their inseparability even further. Will Keen's Macbeth is sexually excited and aroused by Anastasia Hille's Lady Macbeth as a stimulus to assassination. Even death cannot part them: after Lady Macbeth's demise, Hille remains on stage with Keen placing a protective hand on her head as he tells us that life's but a walking shadow. The idea of the Macbeths as a single, indissoluble psychic entity is well executed by the two leading players. Keen is a highly watchable actor full of muscular intensity.

Even if he over-illustrates Macbeth's images, pointing his hands skywards as he talks of "heaven's cherubim" and misses the character's savage irony, he has the right haunted look to him. Hille is an equally good, edgy Lady Macbeth, taunting and teasing her husband into action, and later becoming the physical embodiment of his guilt. Some aspects of the staging also please: the panic in the aftermath of Duncan's killing is well done, and the visions in the witches' cavern are neatly evoked, with the whole cast circling the stage in the spectral gloom created by Judith Greenwood's lighting. But the production irritates as much as it delights. The absence of props, especially, becames counter-productive: if the real daggers Macbeth brings from the murder chamber are as invisible as the hallucinatory one that draws him to it, it cancels the effect. And, while it may be visually unifying to put all the actors into the same black, subfusc garb, it subverts individuality, reducing Banquo and Macduff to part of a choreographic pattern.

Virtually the only actors to emerge distinctively from the background are David Collings, as a mysteriously blind Duncan, and Kelly Hotten, who doubles as Lady Macduff and an extravagantly louche Porter. I don't doubt the company's talent: I just feel that they, as much as Donnellan and Ormerod themselves, are imprisoned within Cheek By Jowl's house style. Macbeth - All The Tropes Macbeth If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me. "By the pricking of my thumbs, Something wicked this way comes..." — The Weird Sisters , Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth is a 1606 play written by William Shakespeare . It was written at the express request of King James I/VI of England and Scotland, who asked Shakespeare to present a new play to honor his visitor, the King of Denmark. The play takes place in the Scottish Highlands. Fresh from putting down a rebellion against King Duncan, Lord Macbeth meets three witches who relate a series of prophecies, one of them being that he will rule Scotland. When one of the other seemingly unlikely predictions comes true, his scheming and heartless wife convinces him to murder Duncan.

Both are driven mad with guilt; while Lady Macbeth copes by sleepwalking and then killing herself , Macbeth himself copes by extending his power, especially after the witches predict that " No Man of Woman Born " shall slay him. After being visited by the ghost of one of his victims, Macbeth is overthrown and killed by Macduff, who was "from his mother's womb untimely ripped" - in other words, delivered via crude caesarean section from his mother's dead or dying body. Many of the inconsistencies in Macbeth come from the fact that Macbeth was a real person who was featured in Holinshead's Chronicles, a best-selling popular history of Shakespeare's time. Holinshead played fast and light with the facts in many cases, though - for instance, he includes legendary or wholly fictional characters such as Fleance, who was supposedly an ancestor of the Scottish royal family.

(In the play as produced now, Fleance disappears in Act Three: in the original 1606 presentation, he was brought back on stage after the play in a " dumb show " that explained he was the ancestor of the Stuarts .) Holinshead also refers to Lady Macbeth as "burning with an unquenchable desire to bear the name of a queen". In reality he had no historical justification for this - the only thing that's actually known about Lady Macbeth is that she existed (and that her first name was Gruoch, and that Macbeth was her second husband) - but Shakespeare turned that one sentence into one of his best-known female characters. Shakespeare also takes liberties with the facts, although in his case his changes are justifiable as they improve the dramatic tension and the flow of the action ; after all, he was writing a play, not a history. For instance, he makes Duncan a wise, old good king instead of a young wastrel, he has Macbeth kill him while sleeping instead of in a fair fight , and he compresses the action into two seasons when the real Macbeth ruled for 17 years (and successfully).

Another source of the inconsistencies is that Shakespeare wanted to get in all kinds of things that he thought King James would like - witches, ghosts, the legitimacy of the Stuart line, the divine right of kings (something James was for, to put it mildly), and the portrayal of his Scottish ancestors as noble and warrior-like . The fact that Shakespeare snuck in the trope that "power corrupts, but absolute power corrupts absolutely" - possibly a criticism of James's desire for absolute power - was not noticed until after Shakespeare had died, and may not even be noticed these days by readers looking for the blood and guts . And yet, even considering all this, the man wrote a play that four hundred years later people still pay good money to see. Old Shaky was a genius, people. Superstitious actors refer to this as " The Scottish Play " (or, occasionally, "The Tartans"). The head role is "The King" or "Mackers" anywhere outside the play itself. And even though the script calls for it, sometimes things still happen, though they are usually less injurious. Some of the wackier ones talk about The Scottish Restaurant .

Notable adaptations/inspired media Orson Welles ' 1936 Harlem stage adaptation set in Haiti with an all-black cast was considered one of the best stage productions in history. Welles also made a film version in 1948, where he played the title role. Roman Polanski 's 1971 film version, memorable for its explicit violence (allegedly influenced by the murder of Polanski's wife and unborn child by the Manson Family ) and for Lady Macbeth's nude sleepwalking scene. This is notable for being produced by Playboy Productions, as part of a short-lived attempt to create a mainstream film arm. From a Jack to a King- Bob Carlton musical, with a lot of Sixties songs. It's one of the four adapted-to-modern-times stories from the 2006 BBC mini-series Shakespeare Re-Told . They changed the setting to a plush Glaswegian restaurant. Duncan is the owner, who carries the laurels off the actual chef, Macbeth (played by James McAvoy ). Scotland, PA , a dark comedy also set in a restaurant, this one in 1970s Pennsylvania.

A character in Gargoyles , who surprises the audience by being based more on the historical Macbeth than the better-known Shakespeare version. Word of God mentions that he was amused by the play, and suggests that he and Shakespeare may have been drinking buddies (though Shakespeare wouldn't have known his friend was the actual Macbeth). Throne of Blood , Akira Kurosawa 's take on the story, set in feudal Japan. Wyrd Sisters from Discworld , which references and parodies Macbeth throughout and opens with a spoof of the famous witches' cauldron scene in which the response to "When shall we three meet again?" is "Well, I can do next Tuesday." The Weird Sisters, three witches who form a rock band in Harry Potter , are named after the nickname given to the three witches in Act 1 of Macbeth. Another of the more famous lines, "Double, Double, Toil and Trouble" (from the same monologue that named Eye of Newt , was also the name of an early (by which we mean Full House -era) Olsen Twins movie. One of several Shakespeare plays adapted into a Graphic Novel recently. Available in original Shakespearean, modern text, and a paraphrased version.

Mac Homer, Rick Miller's one-man show, which casts Simpsons characters in the roles. While largely following the play's basic story, many liberties, fourth wall breaks and lampshades unsurprisingly occur for comedic effect. A 2006 Australian film starring Sam Worthington, with a Setting Update to the Melbourne ganglands . It sticks to the play fairly well, but adds a few silent scenes, and suggests that Lady Macbeth acted out of grief of a dead child. And she's also a cocaine addict. Punchdrunk and Emursive produced a loose adaptation of The Scottish Play mixed with elements of Hitchcock, styled in the late 1930s: Sleep No More. Characters are lifted from The Scottish Play and mingle with ones from Hitchcock's Rebecca. Bernard Herrmann's soundtracks are heard throughout the immersive play. A 2010 PBS production with a Setting Update to the Russian Revolution, starring Patrick Stewart . An audio novelization by A.J. Hartley and David Hewson, narrated by Alan Cumming. It features deep analysis of several characters, portraying both Macbeth and his wife as tragic figures.

Tropes used in Macbeth include: Age Lift : When Patrick Stewart played the role recently, the portrayal of the character was changed into that of an aging general with a young trophy wife, rather than the vigorous thirty-something (sometimes forty-something) warrior he is portrayed as in most film and stage productions of the last century. All Witches Have Cats : One of the witches has a cat named Greymalkin. Karma Houdini : The Murderers who do in Banquo and Macduff's family. In the 2006 version, there's a silent scene where Macduff and Malcolm kill them before attacking Macbeth. Kick the Dog : The witches have a lengthy discussion of all the petty, cruel things they've been doing in their free time. Klingon Promotion : How Macbeth becomes thane of Cawdor, and later king. Lady Macbeth : Macbeth is keen on becoming king from the beginning, but it is his wife who persuades him to murder Duncan. Last-Name Basis : Lady Macbeth's first name is never stated. This may be because the historical Lady Macbeth had what most non-Scots would consider to be an Embarrassing First Name - Gruoch.

Stages of plot development in Macbeth Macbeth: Stages of Plot Development Wilbur Lucius Cross. New York: Globe School Book Co. The various literary forms whose subject-matter is fictitious incident, differ from one another in the manner of presentation. The epic poem was originally a piece to be recited; it implied a rhapsodist and an audience. The novel is addressed to the silent reader. In the drama, a story is unfolded before our eyes: events, though really of the past, are represented as taking place now, and the characters become the actors whom we see. From these different ways of telling a story follow certain corollaries in respect to plot. Slight inconsistencies in structure are not easily discernible in the epic and in the novel; for when the end is reached, we have forgotten the numerous details of the beginning. But in the drama, which we follow scene by scene on the stage, anything awry is detected at once, and almost as easily as a defect in the figure or in the reasoning of a geometrical proposition, which we grasp at a glance.

Though you have read Macbeth much as you would read any other piece of literature, � for the habit of reading has confounded all forms, � you have probably kept in imagination the stage and the actors coming and going. How carefully the play is put together you cannot fail to notice, if you think of it in contrast with some of the novels with which you are familiar. The sequence of its incidents possesses the rigidity of logic. 1 Moreover, the plot of a drama is simpler than that of other literary kinds. The dramatist, in the two or three hours granted him, must select the most important incidents � called dramatic moments � in the career of his hero and bring them to the front, leaving to his audience to fill in by his suggestions what takes place in the intervals. Thus the reign of Macbeth, according to the chronology followed by Shakespeare, covered seventeen years. Shakespeare, in making a drama out of it, brushed aside many events, confining himself to those which bore some relation to the assassination of Duncan; and even of these, he could not present all.

The main dramatic moments of the play are Macbeth's temptation by the witches, his subsequent meeting with his wife, the murder of Duncan, the murder of Ban quo, the appearance of the ghost, the slaughter of Lady Macduff and her son, and the death grapple between Macbeth and Macduff. What comes between them is in the way of explaining how these events happen. The simpler the plot, the more effective it is on the stage. It was Shakespeare's custom, as in The Merchant of Venice, to weave together deftly two or more stories, and to carry along with them scenes of low comedy to please the rabble in the yard. Macbeth here differs from the rest. It has but one plot, and interest is focused on a few characters. It contains but one comic scene � the Porter at the gate. For introducing this scene, Shakespeare has often been praised, on the ground that it furnishes a relief to the horror of the assassination. This is undoubtedly its effect on critics and philosophers; and yet it is, I think, nothing more than the vulgar interlude demanded by the Elizabethan audience. But for it, the drama preserves throughout perfect unity of tone. Without it, the knocking would be equally impressive.

Because of this simplicity and unity of plot, the play is, of all Shakespeare's tragedies, the most rapid in its movement. Macbeth is tempted to the murder of Duncan, and with a bound Shakespeare brings him to the deed. Banquo must be put out of the way; the hint is followed by the plan and its execution. Macbeth is told that the thane of Fife has fled to England; and he at once resolves on the murder of Macduff's kin. In the next scene, the assassins are on the stage. The retribution is equally swift. Macbeth has no sooner gained the throne than he is afflicted with terrible dreams that shake him nightly. He is soon besieged in his castle, and a few minutes later Macduff enters, bearing the head of the usurper. The drama is the work of genius at a white heat, and as such it should be compared with the subtle elaboration of Hamlet. For studying more in detail the action of a play, it is convenient to divide it into five logical sections, which do not correspond to the five acts; namely, the introduction, the rising action, the climax, the falling action, and the catastrophe. The introduction explains the situation.

In Macbeth it consists of the first two scenes. The first scene brings us at once into the mystical atmosphere which is to pervade the entire play. The second scene describes the brave deeds of Macbeth, the man who is to yield to supernatural solicitings. The rising action begins with the next scene and extends to the third scene of the third act. Macbeth, returning from his victories, is tempted to try for the throne, and in the attainment of this aim he is spurred on by the witches and Lady Macbeth. At length he accomplishes his main purpose. The climax is the turning point in the play; that is, the place where the reaction sets in against the hero. It is sometimes called "the dramatic center." In this play it occurs in the third scene of the third act, where Fleance escapes. Macbeth has thus not fully gained what he was striving for. Distracted by fears and hallucinations, he loses (III, iv) his self-control; and at this point we know he is doomed. Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad. The falling action runs with little interruption from the banquet to the end of the play.

Characters that in the first scenes were kept in the background, now come to the front, � Malcolm and Macduff, in whom is embodied the retribution. One of the most noticeable things about the falling action in Macbeth is Shakespeare's careful preparation for it. Many a drama and many a novel have been utterly spoiled by improbable or impossible occurrences. But says Schiller, "A dexterous use of accident in art, as well as in life, often brings about what is excellent." So skillfully has Shakespeare employed chance in the first half of the play, that perhaps we did not notice the incidents. Macbeth murders Duncan. What more natural than that Malcolm should flee to England for protection and aid? Banquo is killed. What more natural than that one of the murderers in his fright should put out the torch, and that Fleance, from whom is to proceed a line of kings, should conceal himself in the darkness? The first accident prepares the way for the English invasion; the second frustrates all of Macbeth's plans for holding the throne. The one works outwardly: the other inwardly and psychologically; and both together make for Macbeth's ruin. The catastrophe is the tragic end.

Macbeth, like Romeo and Juliet, has a double catastrophe, � the death of Lady Macbeth and the fall of Macbeth. In the former case there is no violence. The woman who planned the murder of Duncan, breaks down under the strain of remorse, walks in her sleep, and dies. Macbeth falls in mortal combat with Macduff, the man whom he has most nearly wronged. The drama has now played itself nearly out. Malcolm is proclaimed king, and Scotland is once more in repose. The structure thus outlined may be represented by diagram : � Notes 1 And yet this is not true of every detail. What scenes or parts of scenes contribute nothing to the action ? Why, then, are they introduced? Perhaps, too, there are real inconsistencies in the statements of different characters. � See I, ii, 52-66; I, iii, 72-75 and 108-ll6. How to cite this article: Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed. Wilbur Lucius Cross. New York: Globe School Book Co., 1900. Shakespeare Online. 30 Sept. 2010. < >.

______________ Scene Suggestions for Staging Macbeth ACT I. Scene I. Suggestion of Scene. A moorland of unspeakable desolation, near Forres, Scotland. The declining sun is obscured by thick clouds. There is but light enough to reveal the stretches of wet heather and a pool of dark water, with a clump of whins at its edge. The cross lightning splits the sky, and the thunder follows, peal on peal. Into this tumult of nature come three weird women, "in strange and wild apparell, resembling creatures of elder world." They come mysteriously from the air, as if born from the fury of the elements; they hold hands, and circle about in a strange dance, adding their unearthly, monotonous cries to the loud voices of the sky. Between volleys of thunder we hear them speak their short, abrupt lines.

No sooner is the word "Macbeth" pronounced than the long-drawn cry of a cat is heard across the moorland; the first witch waves her hand, and cries, "I come, Graymalkin." The frogs call in their quavering voices from the distant bogs; "Paddock calls," says the second witch, thus signifying, like her sister, her connection with the invisible world. Again they circle, and utter in concert their ominous couplet; a peal of thunder follows, and the weird women are gone. Scene II. Suggestion of Scene. A military camp near Forres. In the foreground at the left is the king's tent; before its entrance two spears are stuck into the ground, and at one side stands a rude chair. About the rest of the stage, the soldiers are seated on the ground in little groups, playing games. Others stand, talking earnestly together. They are clad in ancient Highland costume - the bonnet, the belted plaid, perhaps a short coat, the sporran, and stockings reaching above the calf of the leg, leaving the knee bare.

An officer wearing a shirt of ring mail, and carrying a battle-ax over his shoulder, stands near the king's tent. A soldier, fully armed, paces to and fro on guard. The quiet of the scene is suddenly broken by the blare of a trumpet. The soldiers spring to their feet, seize their arms - battle-axes, spears, claymores, dirks, and small, round targets covered with bull's hide and studded with heavy nails. Loud words of command are heard; the soldiers form lines, as if expecting attack. The king, his sons Malcolm and Donalbain, accompanied by Lennox and others, come hurriedly out of the tent. Over his Highland costume the king wears a long robe; his gray hair hangs down over his shoulders. The alarm seems causeless, for there enter only four men, of Duncan's army, carrying a wounded sargeant, whom Malcolm at once recognizes, and who raises himself on his elbow, and with difficulty addresses his king. Scene III. Suggestion of Scene. The same as that of Scene I. The storm is over, and the obscured sun has sunk low towards his setting.

As the three sisters engage in their weird conversation, the sound of a drum is heard near by on the moorland, and the loud voices of officers giving commands. A line of soldiers passes across the stage for a few minutes, when Macbeth and Banquo, clad in helmets and mail, and carrying battle-axes, enter, walking beside their troops. As they reach the center of the stage, the clouds part, and the sun shines in one blaze of parting glory. Macbeth pauses to observe, and Banquo stops near him. The soldiers pass on; the two generals remain behind. Macbeth takes off his helmet, shakes the rain drops from it, strikes his shirt of mail to relieve its netted links of the water: then, turning to the front, looks up at the sky, and utters his first line, - "So foul and fair a day I have not seen." Weary of the long march, Banquo asks how far it is to Forres, but suddenly perceiving the weird women, puts his hand on his companion's shoulder, directs his attention to them, and asks, "What are these, etc.?" Macbeth has now met the strange creatures whose fatal influence over him has already begun. Scene IV.

Suggestion of Scene. A cold and somewhat bare room in the castle at Forres. The rough stone walls are blackened with the smoke which rises from a reredos in the middle of the room. Near at hand sits the king in a great state chair, wearing robe and crown; about him, clad in their ancient Highland costumes, are his sons and other attendants. Scene V. Suggestion of Scene. A great room in Macbeth's castle at Inverness. At the center in the rear is a great door in the thick, massive walls, opening into a hall that runs from left to right. After coming from this hallway and advancing a few paces, one must descend two steps to the main level of the room. To the right and rear, opening on the higher level of the room, is a small door leading to a passage; and farther forward, on the same side, is a larger door leading to Lady Macbeth's bed chamber. On the left, near the front, is a large door, approached by two steps. Over it hangs an antique lantern of iron work. High above is a small barred window.

A stone bench, with a high back, and arms, stands hear the front; to the left of it, and a trifle forward, is a small table of massive stone. Save for these things, the room is empty; the walls are bare, and the whole place has an air of danger and desolation. Lady Macbeth, clad in a long belted robe, and a mantle fastened at the breast with a golden brooch, her hair concealed in a close-fitting linen cap, is discovered sitting on the stone bench, reading a letter. (This stage setting is used by Madame Modjeska, and will be used in several scenes of the play.) Scene VI. Suggestion of Scene. In the background the massive gate and walls of the castle at Inverness. Before it is a deep moat, spanned by the drawbridge, which has been let down by means of its heavy chains. The sound of hautboys is heard, and several mounted soldiers appear. They halt and await the king, who follows on horseback with his sons and thanes. These dismount and assist the king to descend from his horse.

As the soldiers lead the animals away, Duncan talks a moment to Banquo; when Lady Macbeth, not the fierce spirit of the previous scene, but the sweet hostess, appears in the gate to welcome her unsuspecting guest. Scene VII. Suggestion of Scene. The same as Scene V. The room is but dimly lighted by a feeble flame in the antique lantern over the big door at the left. Through the wide portal at the back one sees attendants passing through the hall ; some carry torches, others play on hautboys; others, servants from the kitchen, carry great dishes loaded with viands, and flasks filled with wine. From the distant banquet hall come shouts of revelry, loud bursts of drunken laughter, and hoarse voices bawling snatches of songs. Suddenly heavy doors shut with a loud bang and the squeak of rusty hinges; the noise of the feast is shut out; the silence of death falls upon the room; the lamp flickers fitfully. In the door at the rear, Macbeth appears. He advances to the door at the left, which opens into a hall leading to the king's apartments.

There he lingers doubtfully a moment, then turns back to the middle of the stage, where he speaks. ACT II. Scene I. Suggestion of Scene. The same as Scenes V and VII of Act I. Banquo and Fleance enter, the latter carrying a torch. The father rests his hand affectionately on the son's shoulder, and as they pause, looks up through the small barred window into the starless night sky. Scene II. Suggestion of Scene. The same scene continues. Lady Macbeth enters through the great door at the rear. She is clad in white; her hair hangs in a flowing mass, and is bound about the forehead with a silver band. Some actors use lightning and thunder in this scene and the preceding, but this matter should not be overdone: some distant, ominous rumbling and a flash or two of fire in the small window high in the wall at the left may be effective, especially in the interval between Macbeth's exit and Lady Macbeth's entrance. As she comes toward the front, telling the effect the drink has had upon her, the hoot of an owl' is heard; she starts violently, but soon recovers herself. The scene is quiet, but the most intense excitement prevails.

Scene III. Suggestion of Scene. The previous scene continues. The guilty two disappear; the knocking continues. At the small door at the right and back appears the porter, staggering from sleepiness and drink; he yawns, stretches himself unsteadily, thereby running the risk of dropping the antique lantern he carries in one hand, and the bunch of great keys in the other. He takes a maudlin pleasure in imagining himself the porter of the gate of hell; at every knock from without he bows ironically to an imaginary arrival in that lower dismal region, announces the station of the unfortunate, and hints at the cause of his downfall. At the end, he goes out the gxc~t door at the center and rear, and turns to the left, and after a moment he ^s heard drawing bolts, dragging chains, and turning a key in a great lock. Then there is the tramp of feet and the sound of voices. Macduff and Lennox, followed by the sleepy porter, enter. Scene IV. Suggestion of Scene. In his book, "Shakespeare the Boy," Dr.

Rolfe says, "It is not likely that he (Shakespeare) was ever in Scotland, and when he described the castle of Macbeth the picture in his mind's eye was doubtless Warwick or Kenilworth and more likely the former than the latter, for 'This castle has a pleasant seat,' etc." The quotation is from Scene VI of Act I; but we prefer to use the suggestion here rather than there, because it is more suitable here that the castle should be seen at a distance: in the former scene, Lady Macbeth meets the king, and she would not be likely to advance farther than the outer gate. Then, instead of Macbeth's stronghold at Inverness, fancy Warwick Castle, which, doubtless, Shakespeare saw many times when a boy. It stands by the Avon. At present a stone bridge spans the grass-grown hollow that was once the moat; but formerly there was no passage to the castle except the drawbridge, over which one passed to the barbican, a great square structure, with heavy battlemented towers, in which there are narrow slits of windows.

Behind the barbican are the outer walls, and behind these, higher walls and higher towers; one called Caesar's Tower, from the old tradition that Caesar built it; another Guy's Tower, from the renowned Guy of Warwick. On each side of the barbican a few large trees relieve the coldness of the heavy masonry. Over all is the gloom of a day of ominous darkness. ACT III. Scene I. Suggestion of Scene. The Throne Room of the castle. The walls are wainscoted to the height of a man's head; above, the bare stone appears. At the rear, on a dais, are two royal chairs, and high over them is a canopy. On either side, against the wall, are the arms of Scotland. At the left is a table, on which are an inkhorn and quills, together with some parchment and a large open book. By the table is a high-backed, rude chair. Banquo is discovered standing with clasped hands, looking upon the throne, meditating. His words are interrupted by the sound of trumpets, after which Macbeth and his queen, in crowns and robes, enter, followed by the court.

The royal pair seat themselves on the throne, and the attendants range themselves on either side. Scene II. Suggestion of Scene. The same as the preceding. After Macbeth goes away, a servant enters, bearing the queen's robe of state; he stops, and bows as she enters. Scene III. Suggestion of Scene. A lonely road in the forest. In the last "streaks of day" the mass of trees in the background appears dark and impenetrable, while in the foreground and the left is a road, which, in the center of the stage, turns toward the right and rear, and becomes lost in the gloom of the wood. As the two murderers skulk behind the trees, the third comes stealthily in from the left; and a moment later Banquo and Fleance, the latter carrying a torch, come down the forest road at the right. Scene IV. Suggestion of Scene. The scene is usually set thus: - In the rear the double-chaired throne. At right and left two long tables, one extending from near the throne, diagonally to the left and front of the stage; the other extending from near the throne, diagonally to the right and front of the stage.

At the latter table, near the front, is the chair in which the ghost is supposed to appear. For a reason that will appear as the scene progresses, the following suggestion may be an improvement: - At the right and front of the stage stands the double-chaired throne, facing the left. A little farther back, occupying a large portion of the stage, is a long table set with bowls and dishes; here and there an ancient lamp flickers feebly. About the table are the chairs of the guests, and at each end a large chair with high back. At the left of the stage, near the end of the table, a fire burns on an open hearth. As the fire is lower than the level of the table, the top of the latter is in shadow, and particularly the opposite end is wrapt in a gloom that is emphasized by the feeble flames of the antique lamps. Shadows dance upon the stone walls, and help provide the weirdness so necessary to the scene. Several servants are in attendance. The royal procession enters; the king leads the queen to the throne, but himself remains among his guests. Scene V. Suggestion of Scene. The same as the first scene of the play.

The time, let us suppose, is night; and the moonshine streams through the dark fog that rises from the heath. At the end of the scene, Hecate mounts into the air, and vanishes. The witches, too, vanish thus, but in another direction. Scene VI. Suggestion of Scene. Suppose the scene to be within the castle gate, which is seen in the center and rear - a massive piece of masonry. A wide passage leads through the tower of which it is a part; at the farther end is seen the iron grating that protects the castle from sudden attack; through it are seen the road and the grass plot beyond. By the gate stands a soldier on guard, keenly observing Lennox and a lord conversing in low tones in the foreground. ACT IV. Scene I. Suggestion of Scene. A cavern in the solid rock, whose strata are revealed in rough layers in walls and roof. From the crevices glistening drops of water creep, hang a moment, then trickle down or fall upon the wet floor, splashing themselves into spray.

At the right stands a great cauldron, from beneath which green and blue flames dart upward, and seem to lick up the foam that overflows from the "hell-broth" boiling and bubbling within. A faint, uncanny light is thrown about the rocky chamber, the walls of which recede toward the rear and disappear in impenetrable blackness. Suddenly the three weird women appear, as if through the solid earth above, while a peal of thunder comes crashing down from the upper world. They pause about the cauldron, utter their short speeches, then begin their incantations, the first witch first, standing behind the cauldron and facing the audience. As she speaks, she takes, one by one, the hellish ingredients from a pouch, and drops them into the brew, from which a blue, yellow, or green flame spurts fiercely up. When she has finished, the three circle about the cauldron, stirring it with their long staves, and reciting the couplet in concert. Then the second witch has her turn, facing the audience like the first; then the third; the second again, and the charmed liquor is done.

Macbeth enters from the left - enters boldly, and defiantly makes his demand. As the weird three reply, they point their long fingers at him, and renew, for a brief moment, their incantations. After which the three apparitions, announced by peals of thunder, rise in their turn out of the cauldron, utter their deceptive speeches, and vanish. When Macbeth demands further knowledge of his unhappy future, the cauldron suddenly sinks, a ghostly light appears in the background, and "eight kings, the last with a glass in his hand, Banquo's ghost following," appear one by one, slowly filing past. This done, Macbeth suddenly finds himself alone, and distressed at heart. Scene II. Suggestion of Scene. A rough-walled room in an ancient castle. At the left a great bed, by which is a chair. In the middle of the room is a table with several chairs about it; upon the latter are thrown carelessly some articles of clothing - a woman's robes and a child's tartans.

Lady Macduff, weeping and wringing her hands, sits by the table; her little son stands by her, trying in his childish way to give her comfort, while Ross stands near at hand, speaking and trying to control his emotion. Scene III. Suggestion of Scene. The palace of Edward the Confessor stood in Westminster, where the Parliament buildings now stand. One portion of this palace was the old House of Lords, in the cellar of which was placed the gunpowder in the famous plot of Guy Fawkes. This room had long before been the kitchen of King Edward. The building was pulled down in 1823. The scene is before the great door of the palace. Two soldiers stand on guard. Malcolm and Macduff are seen descending the steps. They pause near the front of the stage, and the scene begins. ACT V. Scene I. Suggestion of Scene. Modjeska uses for this scene the same stage setting used in the murder of Duncan, and we follow her in this, ignoring, for the sake of effect, the fact that the murder was committed at Inverness rather than Dunsinane. The gaunt, bare room is obscured in the gloom of night.

At the right the doctor and the gentlewoman talk in low tones until, in the great door at the back, the white-robed figure of the unhappy queen appears, when they move back into the deeper shadows. Lady Macbeth carries a taper, which illumines her face, making it the one bright object in the surrounding darkness. Her hair hangs loosely over her shoulders and down her back. Her eyes are open, but they have the steady, vacant stare of one who is asleep. Her face is ghastly white, drawn in lines of remorse and deadly fear. She pauses before she descends the two steps that lead down to the main level of the room, and seems to listen; true to the habit of persons in great terror, she holds her breath until she can hold it no longer, then expels it with force, and one knows that her heart is beating with the quickness of madness. All the while she rubs the hand that holds the candle, as if she would remove something from it. Slowly advancing, her heavy breathing continuing and her breast heaving, she approaches the stone table, sets the light upon it, stoops, and seems to dip up water from an "air-drawn" basin, and wash her hands.

Then a groan of despair is heard, and there come, in a low, remorseful tone, the words, "Yet here's a spot." Scene II. Suggestion of Scene. The open country, heather-grown and hilly. The Scottish soldiers, clad in their native war costumes (see Suggestion of Scene, Act I, Scene II) throng about their officers, and rend the air with their shouts when they learn that the English power is near. At the end of the scene, they hastily form ranks, and move forward at a swinging pace, singing as they go. Scene III. Suggestion of Scene. As this act goes very rapidly, the frequent change of scene indicated in the stage directions is impracticable. Besides this, the matter of expense deters modern managers from making elaborate settings for so many scenes. Scenes III, V, VI, VII, and VIII (if they are all played) are, therefore, all counted as one, and this is usually represented as a terrace of Macbeth's castle - a broad space, with a tower rising at the right and rear, from which extends a battlemented wall to the extreme left. Beyond this may be seen the distant hills. Scene IV.

Suggestion of Scene. The open country. A wooded hill in the right distance. The soldiers appear at the left, and march diagonally toward the right, shouting and singing. At Malcolm's command to hew down boughs to carry before them, they pause, cry out a loyal reply and march onward. Scene V. Suggestion of Scene. The same as Scene III. Macbeth rushes in, shouting out his orders; within the tower is heard, for a moment, the preparation for battle; then silence, and "a cry of women." Scene VI. Suggestion of Scene. Before the castle - according to the stage direction. However, if the scene is played at all, the setting is the terrace of the castle, the same as in the case of several other scenes of the act. Scene VII. Suggestion of Scene. The terrace of the castle. Scene VIII. Suggestion of Scene. The terrace of the castle. Macbeth rushes in holding his sword by the point, hilt down, and is about to fall upon it, when he changes his mind and concludes to fight further. On all sides are heard the shouts of victory. _____ How to cite this article: Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. Ed.

Cyrus Lauron Hooper. Chicago: Ainsworth & company, 1902. Shakespeare Online. 30 Sept. 2011. < >. _____ The Tragedy of MacBeth | William Shakespeare | Lit2Go ETC The Tragedy of MacBeth by William Shakespeare Macbeth is among the best known of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as his shortest surviving tragedy. It is frequently performed at professional and community theatres around the world. The play, loosely based upon the historical account of King Macbeth of Scotland by Raphael Holinshed and the Scottish philosopher Hector Boece, is often seen as an archetypal tale of the dangers of the lust for power and betrayal of friends. It has frequently been adapted. In the theatrical world, many superstitions are associated with “Macbeth,” all connected with the belief that the play is somehow “cursed.” Many actors will not mention the name of the play aloud, referring to it as “the Scottish Play”. Source: Richard Grant White, ed. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (New York: Sully and Kleinteich) Macduff confronts Macbeth in the castle.

Macbeth's death is celebrated as the new king of Scotland is declared. Year Published: 1607

Question: In the Shakespeare play ‘Macbeth’, which character carries Macbeth’s head on stage?
Answer: Macduff