Macbeth Intro Information
Topics to be covered:
- Shakespeare’s Time
- Shakespeare’s Characters/ Theatre
- Some Historical Background
- Crazy Superstitions
•Dominant Renaissance World Views
• Great Chain of Being
• Belief structure from middle ages
• Came from Ptolemaic system with earth at the center
• Hierarchical system with God and angels above, man in
the middle, and animals, plants, minerals on the
bottom.
• Within each species, same hierarchy, with King on the
top, then nobles, moneyed middle-class, then peasants
•Dominant Renaissance World Views
• Great Chain of Being (cont)
• System of Order, corresponding with belief in
predestination, God has plan for world (FATE)
• Order can be thrown into chaos if hierarchy not
adhered to, if subjects rebel against monarch, sons
against fathers. ORDER MUST BE RESTORED
• Suggests everyone has purpose or role in life, should
use reason to find and fulfill purpose (FATE)
Ladies, still not a good time for us
(unless, of course, you happened to be Queen Elizabeth I)
Highest position most women could attain was becoming
the wife of a wealthy/ powerful man OR, better yet, his
widow
– Education restricted to being literate and entertaining
– Ambition was masculine, NOT feminine
Could attend theatre but not perform in it
“Strong” women were not trusted and were feared (even
Queen Liz had to depend on her “feminine charms” to
enforce some of her power in England and abroad).
•Characters often found in Shakespeare plays
(As we read, try to fit the main characters into these categories)
• the Fair
• innocence and idealism
• belief and trust
• ideal character
• remembered past
• the Foul
• experience and cynicism
• suspicion and doubt
• malcontent, deceiver
• experienced present
•Characters
• Primary
• dynamic, change
• complex, are revealed
• Protagonist
• Antagonist
• Secondary
• static, don’t change
• simpler, stereotyped
• Reflective, reveal
something about main
characters
•Staging
• No set design -- actors must establish setting,
time
• Few props -- actors must bring on throne, table,
chair, then take them off stage again
• Stage has trap door, three entrances, balcony
area
•Staging
• If a character dies, Shakespeare must find a way to get
the body off the stage
• Shakespeare must invent reason for characters to exit
the stage
• The stage is a fixed place, so certain areas can be
associated with a character
• No stage directions, dialogue dictates when characters
enter/ exit
• Unlike the Greeks, Shakespeare’s all about murder/
death/ etc. taking place on stage in front of the
audience
Was there really a Macbeth? And King Duncan?
Yes! Like all of his “history plays,” Shakespeare based
his play on true history. (The whole witch thing is up
for debate).
Shakespeare borrowed heavily from Raphael
Holinshed's Chronicles of England, Scotland and
Ireland (1577) (He did alter some facts/ details and
combined stories for dramatic purposes)
Shakespeare also altered the facts to meet the needs of
his royal audience, King James I.
– King James I was heavily interested in witchcraft and
demonology. He even wrote a book about it.
– King James I also was a strong supporter of the “divine right
of kings”
– King James I was a descendant of Kin Duncan.
The Real Facts of Macbeth, Gruoch and “good” King
Duncan
Facts that Shakespeare altered for the sake of appeasing
James I:
The Scottish Play
vs.
Real History
- Duncan is a beloved, elderly king
- Macbeth kills the sleeping Duncan
- Macbeth ruled for a very short time
- Macbeth was a tyrant, easily overthrown
- Macbeth was younger than Duncan
- Lady Macbeth urges Macbeth to kill
- Witches and ghosts abound and
greatly affected the plot
- Duncan died at 36 and was king
during a period of great unrest
- Macbeth killed Duncan on the
battlefield
- Macbeth ruled for 17 years
- Macbeth was widely considered
a kind and strong king
- Macbeth was a few years older
- Grouch ( Lady MB) had nothing
to do with the killing
- No proof of supernatural
influences
Fun Macbeth Superstition Facts
(Around/in a theatre you should refer to this as “The Scottish Play”)
*
First performance, in 1606, Dear Will himself was forced to play Lady Macbeth when Hal Berridge,
the boy designated to play the lady with a peculiar notion of hospitality, became inexplicably
feverish and died. Moreover, the bloody play so displeased King James I that he banned it for five
years.
When performed in Amsterdam in 1672, the actor playing Macbeth substituted a real dagger for
the blunted stage one and with it killed Duncan in full view of the entranced audience.
As Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience in 1775; Sybil
Thorndike was almost strangled by a burly actor in 1926; Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the
rostrum in 1948, falling down 15 feet.
During its 1849 performance at New York's Astor Place, a riot broke out in which 31 people were
trampled to death.
In 1937, when Laurence Olivier took on the role of Macbeth, a 25 pound stage weight crashed
within an inch of him, and his sword which broke onstage flew into the audience and hit a man
who later suffered a heart attack.
In 1934, British actor Malcolm Keen turned mute onstage, and his replacement, Alister Sim, like
Hal Berridge before him, developed a high fever and had to be hospitalized.
In the 1942 Macbeth production headed by John Gielgud, three actors -- Duncan and two witches
-- died, and the costume and set designer committed suicide amidst his devilish Macbeth
creations.
The indestructible Charlton Heston, in an outdoor production in Bermuda in 1953, suffered severe
burns in his groin and leg area from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.
An actor's strike felled Rip Torn's 1970 production in New York City; two fires and seven robberies
plagued the 1971 version starring David Leary; in the 1981 production at Lincoln Center, J.
Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening.
Some more practical facts about
Macbeth Superstitions
The play is very dark, both figuratively and literally. Accidents were
bound to happen.
Macbeth was often the last performance of traveling theatre
companies in the 19th century because it was a popular, and usually
profitable, play and could bring in big bucks. Unfortunately, many of
these companies were already too far in debt to be saved by one
good production.
The fight scenes require broadswords, not the wimpy little epees
used in most Shakespeare plays. Again, accidents are bound to
happen.
Shakespeare, in an effort to be authentic, may have accidentally
included some real curses in those he created for the Weird Sisters.
Ok, that fact is not super practical but it is fun.