AUDIENCE GUIDE
Table of Contents
What is “In the Raw”? ...................................................................................................................................................................... 2
And What Is Up With That Curse? .............................................................................................................................................. 2
Character and Location Breakdown .......................................................................................................................................... 3
Interview with the Director, Elizabeth Swain ........................................................................................................................ 3
Macbeth and the Gunpowder Plot............................................................................................................................................... 5
Other Adaptations ............................................................................................................................................................................. 6
Shakespeare’s Influence on Language....................................................................................................................................... 7
Discussion Questions ....................................................................................................................................................................... 7
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What is “In the Raw”?
This production of Macbeth will be done in the ‘raw,’ with no show-specific technical support. That means that
the stage will be mostly bare; no lighting, sound, or production design and definitely no period-piece costumes.
All of the focus in this production is on the actors, text, and story. The experience is guided by director
Elizabeth Swain’s classical theatre expertise: “The audience, I hope, will become engaged in a deeper way. My
experience of such cut down productions is that the play becomes very clear, yet more is left to the imagination
of the audience.”
And What Is Up With That Curse?
You may have heard people in the halls of the Theatre Arts building talking about “The Scottish Play,”
“Mackers,” or “McBee.” They are all honoring a long-held theatrical superstition that saying “Macbeth” inside a
theatre will lead to disaster. In our contemporary world of site-specific performance art, where any place could
be a “theatre,” some theatrical professionals have removed the word from their vocabulary completely!
What Started the Superstition?
There are many theories as to the origins of the superstition:
• The original production used a cauldron stolen from actual witches, and the Coven cursed the play
• Real spells are cast in the witches’ scenes, conjuring dangerous spirits
• An actor died in the original production because a real dagger was used instead of a prop dagger,
cursing future productions
• Shakespeare himself cursed the show so that no one else would direct it
Whatever the origins of the “curse” may be, in contemporary times the superstition is typically observed by not
saying “Macbeth” unless you are directly quoting the show during a rehearsal or performance.
What If Someone Messes Up?
As many theories there are as to the origins, there are even more
theories of how to “undo” the curse if Macbeth’s name is invoked.
These remedies vary by theatre company, and can include:
• stepping outside the theatre
• turning around three times
• spitting over one's left shoulder
• swearing
• reciting a line from another of Shakespeare's plays
• hopping up and down on one foot
Some production groups insist that the offender may not reenter the
theatre until invited to do so, and instead of turning around three times,
some theatres make offenders run around the entire outside of the
theatre three times.
Sources:
http://www.intrepidtheatre.org/
http://dictionary.tdf.org/scottish-play/
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Character and Location Breakdown
People
Macbeth: Thane of Glamis, fought for Duncan against the Norwegian army as a general
Lady Macbeth: Macbeth’s wife
Duncan: King of Scotland
Malcolm: King Duncan’s eldest son
Donalbain: King Duncan’s younger son
Banquo: a Thane, fought alongside Macbeth
against the Norwegian army
Fleance: Banquo’s son
Macduff: Thane of Fife
Lady Macduff: Macduff’s wife
Lennox, Ross, Menteith, Angus, Caithness: Thanes
Siward: Earl of Northumberland, Malcom’s uncle
Young Siward: Siward’s son
Additional servants, doctors, witches, and people of
the heath
Thane: a Scottish feudal lord who holds land in
exchange for military service for the king
Places
Forres: Scottish castle where the King resides.
Inverness: A castle where Macbeth lives before he
becomes king.
Fife: A castle where Macduff and his family live.
Dunsinane Hill: A hill on which Macbeth has a
castle
Birnam Wood: A forest near Dunsinane Hill.
Glamis, Cawdor: Scottish villages
Image Source: http://www.shakespearethenovels.co.uk/?p=651
Interview with the Director, Elizabeth Swain
Caitlin Swan: Can you explain the vision or concept with which you’re approaching the project?
Elizabeth Swain: I’m going to say first of all, I am not a concept director. I take it absolutely from the text, and
the text dictates to me anything that happens…. When I realized what “Shakespeare in the Raw” really meant,
I thought, ‘Okay, my raw material really is my actors. And the space… So the production is constantly evolving.
I say, “Okay, we’re in the heath. We need the heath: it’s wild, it’s cold, it’s dark, it’s windy.” And suddenly actors
are making noises. And so if you want to use the word concept, everything is coming from the actors. They’re
making a soundscape… We’re letting the needs of the text tell us what we have to do, and that is resulting in
these wonderful students coming up with wonderful ideas about how to do it. Bu the most important thing is to
tell the story of this man and his wife, what happens to them, and what they do.
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CS: Is it set in a specific time period? By pulling from
actors’ own wardrobes, is that setting it in contemporary
times?
ES: I think it more or less does… It’s going to be very
black, because everybody’s got black jeans and black tops
in today’s world. So it will be sort of today’s world, but I
think some of the things that we’re doing won’t remove it to
any other specific time; so I think it is a strange
contemporary world, one that we’re not necessarily familiar
with, but maybe some of us will recognize.
CS: Did you modify the text at all to make it more
contemporary?
ES: Absolutely not. I’m just a total Shakespeare purist. I
mean, I’ve cut a quarter of the text, so it’s a shorter play,
but I didn’t change anything. I felt also, given the
circumstances, a lot of the things that happen in the play
can’t be staged. And so the text is shorter, but it is
completely Shakespeare’s text.
CS: What was your approach to cutting the script?
ES: Taking out things that I know are hard for an audience
to understand… I cut out the Hecate scenes because we
don’t think Hecate was written by Shakespeare anyway, so
stuff like that is gone… The only significant character that’s
really been cut out is Old Seyward. He is mentioned as
Macbeth’s Director, Elizabeth Swain
bringing his English army to support Malcolm at the end,
but I don’t think it killed the story to not see him. So actually Act V zooms by – the battle sequences – because
those would be the hardest to stage without technical support.
CS: What was the hardest cut you had to make?
ES: I don’t think there was one, because the story had to stay intact… there are some scenes, because I feel
they’re well-known – like most of the stuff between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – the murder scene, that whole
sequence – I couldn’t touch that. I could not touch any of his famous soliloquies. Wasn’t going to touch that. I
don’t think there was a cut that was difficult. What I was doing was before rehearsal I would sit down with the
text and I would say [pretends to read a script] “…okay, that can go.” But then I would put it away, and then
begin again. I’d go back and a bit more would go.
CS: How has the “stripped down” design affected the rehearsal process?
ES: The decision that every actor would be onstage throughout, because they had to be there for whatever we
may come up with. We found we have a few musicians in the group, so that’s helping. We have inventive
people who can make good sounds. We have inventive people who are good physically. So stuff like that.
They’re all there. If you have a smaller part in a play, often you don’t come to many rehearsals. You never feel
exactly part of it. So I think what has happened is we’ve got this incredible feeling of camaraderie and
ensemble. It’s a real collaboration.
CS: What do you hope audience members take away from the show?
ES: Integrity matters. This is a man who didn’t need to do what he did. And his ambition, together with his
wife’s, leads him to make a terrible choice. And once that choice is made, the hole is dug and there’s no way
out. He has to keep going, and the hole gets deeper and deeper and deeper, and I really think that is the
lesson, that there are consequences to decisions you make, and you won’t escape them. If it’s a bad decision
you won’t escape the consequences…. And the nature of ambition. If that means you stomp on others to get
ahead, is that the way you want to go? Because Mackers has that wonderful speech about all the things he
hoped he’d have in his old age, like troupes of friends, that he doesn’t have. The consequences of bad
choices is the big issue for me. And the nature of evil.
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Macbeth and the Gunpowder Plot
What is the Gunpowder Plot?
The event in British history known as the Gunpowder Plot was an attempt on
November 5th, 1605 to assassinate King James I by blowing up Parliament. The
plot was orchestrated by a group of Roman Catholics, led by Guy Fawkes and
Robert Catesby, who felt persecuted by the Protestant monarchy. The plot was
discovered and all the plotters arrested before the plan could be carried out.
How is it connected to Shakespeare?
Although there is little evidence that Shakespeare was directly involved in the Plot, some historians have
suggested that he was at the very least aware of it. Shakespeare’s father is widely assumed to have been a
secret Catholic, and he was good friends with Robert Catesby’s father. Additionally, the conspirators’ main
meeting place was the Mermaid Tavern, which was often frequented by Shakespeare and owned by one of his
close friends.
How does Macbeth reference the Gunpowder Plot?
Macbeth was written shortly after the Gunpowder Plot, and many historians believe that it was, at least in part,
an attempt to ensure King James that Shakespeare was loyal to him. The plot of Macbeth has similar themes –
overthrowing a King, treason, and the terrible consequences that befall his assassins. Shakespeare writes that
the descendants of his character Banquo will become kings; King James was believed to be the descendant of
a Scottish leader named Banquho. Also, when Lady Macbeth tells her husband to “look like the innocent
flower, but be the serpent under it,” Shakespeare may be referencing a medal James had made to
commemorate his survival of the plot.
Shakespeare also references the theme of equivocation, which was connected at the time to a priest named
Henry Garnet, who was executed as a plot collaborator; he had heard confession from several of the plotters,
but had chosen not to break the privacy of confession to warn the king. When Garnet stood trial, he was
criticized for equivocating – using vague terms to imply certain meanings without directly lying.
A porter directly references the term in Act 2 Scene 3: “Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both
the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake, yet could not equivocate to
heaven. Oh, come in, equivocator.” Macbeth also meets his downfall due to the witches’ equivocation, when
they tell him that “none of woman born” shall harm him but fail to explain that Macduff, based on their
definition, was not “born of woman.”
If you are interested in learning more, Equivocation by Bill Cain is an excellent play that explores what
Shakespeare may have been going through as he was writing Macbeth.
Witches and Jesuits, a book about the topic written by Garry Wills, is also a great source!
Sources:
http://blog.shakespearesglobe.com/post/101835213683/the-gunpowder-plot-and-shakespeares-macbeth
http://www.shakespeare-online.com/biography/gunpowderplot.html
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Other Adaptations
Like most of Shakespeare’s plays, Macbeth has been adapted many times – some more faithfully than others!
Here are just a few of the adaptations from over the years.
Macbeth (1948)
One of the oldest adaptations still available to view
Starring Orson Welles and Jeanette Nolan
Watch a scene here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xarceJVx9a4
Throne of Blood (1957)
Set in feudal Japan, using elements from Japanese Noh drama
Directed by famous filmmaker Akira Kurosawa
Watch the trailer (with subtitles) here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PoYzsDVyFRU
Scotland, PA (2001)
Modernized version of Macbeth, set in a fast-food restaurant in 1975.
Starring James Legros, Maura Tierney, and Christopher Walken
Watch the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiF-ftELdv0
Macbeth (2015)
Highly cinematic telling of the story using the original Shakespeare
Starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard
Watch the trailer here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oyFAn5IaFS0
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Shakespeare’s Influence on Language
The Bard is credited for inventing over 1700 words still in common use today. He played with
language, using nouns as verbs, adding prefixes or suffixes to modify meaning, and even creating
brand-new words or phrases. Here are some words and phrases Shakespeare is credited for creating
that saw their first use in Macbeth:
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Assassination
Barefaced
Be-all and the end-all
To champion
Come what come may ("come
what may”)
To cow
Dauntless
To drug
Fitful
To impede
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Knock knock! Who's there?
Milk of human kindness
Multitudinous
One fell swoop
Something wicked this way comes
A sorry sight
Sound and fury
Stealthy
Unreal
Vulnerable
What's done is done
Source: http://www.pathguy.com/shakeswo.html
Discussion Questions
1. Some scholars argue the three witches are incarnations of Fate, and that Macbeth is fated to make
the choices he does. Do you believe in fate? How much agency does one have against fate?
2. Why do you think Macbeth made the choices he did? Is he to blame for his actions, or was it the
fault of outside forces?
3. Who do you think is more ambitious: Macbeth or Lady Macbeth? Why? How do they express their
ambition(s)?
4. This guide shares a few adaptations of The Scottish Play, but there are countless other references
to Macbeth in popular media. What are some other films, TV shows, and music that take inspiration
from the play? How do they reference it?
5. The “stripped down” production design of this performance allowed the actors to focus solely on the
text in rehearsals. How did it affect your experience as an audience member?
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