into a great passion of fear and fury, uttering many words about his murder, by which, when they heard that Banquo was murdered, they suspected Macbeth. Then Macdove fled to England to the king’s son, and so they raised an army and came into Scotland, and at Dunston Anys overthrew Macbeth. In the meantime, while Macdove was in England, Macbeth slew Macdove’s wife and children, and after, in the battle, Macdove slew Macbeth. Observe also how Macbeth’s queen did rise in the night in her sleep and walk, and talked and confessed all, and the doctor noted her words.
Whatever the relationship of Forman’s report to the play as it was first performed, there is evidence of the text being cut and adapted from the earliest times. Two early theater promptbooks survive, one based on a copy of the 1623 Folio belonging to the University of Padua, and the other, known as the “Smock Alley” promptbook, on the play as it was performed in Dublin after the 1660s.
Despite being one of the most frequently performed of all Shakespeare’s plays, few modern productions include Hecate or the music and songs, although Restoration and many later adaptations featuredspectacular visual effects. Samuel Pepys records his view of the play in his diary in 1667 as “one of the best plays for a stage, and variety of dancing and music, that ever I saw.” Though alien to modern sensibilities, the idea that
Macbeth
was above all notable for its singing and dancing was commonplace in the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theater.
Although we know little of the play’s original performance, it is assumed that Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian with the King’s Men, played the title role. The main part has been played by the dramatic giants of succeeding ages from Thomas Betterton to David Garrick, John Philip Kemble to Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready to Henry Irving, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier to Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, and Antony Sher. Approaches to the role vary: Macbeth can be anything from an essentially noble character overcome by ambition to an inherently evil tyrant. The success or failure of productions is generally dependent upon the sheer energy and charisma of the actor taking the central role—it has always been a star vehicle for leading actors. As for Lady Macbeth, though the part would originally have been played by a young male apprentice, it has—together with Cleopatra—become one of the western theater repertoire’s leading roles for mature actresses.
Sir William Davenant’s adaptation staged at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1663–64 sought to refine the play to suit the tastes of Restoration audiences by expanding the role of Lady Macduff and making the Macduffs a moral counterbalance to the Macbeths. Davenant eliminated the Porter and added music, singing, and dancing for the three witches, and gave Macbeth a final moral: “Farewell vain World, and what’s more vain in it, Ambition.” The performance of Thomas Betterton and his wife, Mary Saunderson, as the Macbeths was widely admired and the adaptation remained popular for eighty years until David Garrick announced his intention to present
Macbeth
“as written by Shakespeare” at Drury Lane on 7 January 1744.
Garrick was a new type of actor for a new age. He tried to clear away much of the Restoration baggage—no more flying witches—and to restore the majority of Shakespeare’s text, although there was still no Porter, Malcolm was less complex and self-accusatory,and the actor included a dying speech for himself. The key to Garrick’s performance was his attempt to create a complex, imaginative unity from the powerful and contradictory elements of the character:
Through all the soliloquies of anxious reflections in the first act; amidst the pangs of guilty apprehension, and pungent remorse, in the second; through all the distracted terror of the third; all the impetuous curiosity of the fourth, and all the desperation of the fifth,
Whatever the relationship of Forman’s report to the play as it was first performed, there is evidence of the text being cut and adapted from the earliest times. Two early theater promptbooks survive, one based on a copy of the 1623 Folio belonging to the University of Padua, and the other, known as the “Smock Alley” promptbook, on the play as it was performed in Dublin after the 1660s.
Despite being one of the most frequently performed of all Shakespeare’s plays, few modern productions include Hecate or the music and songs, although Restoration and many later adaptations featuredspectacular visual effects. Samuel Pepys records his view of the play in his diary in 1667 as “one of the best plays for a stage, and variety of dancing and music, that ever I saw.” Though alien to modern sensibilities, the idea that
Macbeth
was above all notable for its singing and dancing was commonplace in the late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century theater.
Although we know little of the play’s original performance, it is assumed that Richard Burbage, the leading tragedian with the King’s Men, played the title role. The main part has been played by the dramatic giants of succeeding ages from Thomas Betterton to David Garrick, John Philip Kemble to Edmund Kean, William Charles Macready to Henry Irving, John Gielgud and Laurence Olivier to Anthony Hopkins, Ian McKellen, and Antony Sher. Approaches to the role vary: Macbeth can be anything from an essentially noble character overcome by ambition to an inherently evil tyrant. The success or failure of productions is generally dependent upon the sheer energy and charisma of the actor taking the central role—it has always been a star vehicle for leading actors. As for Lady Macbeth, though the part would originally have been played by a young male apprentice, it has—together with Cleopatra—become one of the western theater repertoire’s leading roles for mature actresses.
Sir William Davenant’s adaptation staged at Lincoln’s Inn Fields in 1663–64 sought to refine the play to suit the tastes of Restoration audiences by expanding the role of Lady Macduff and making the Macduffs a moral counterbalance to the Macbeths. Davenant eliminated the Porter and added music, singing, and dancing for the three witches, and gave Macbeth a final moral: “Farewell vain World, and what’s more vain in it, Ambition.” The performance of Thomas Betterton and his wife, Mary Saunderson, as the Macbeths was widely admired and the adaptation remained popular for eighty years until David Garrick announced his intention to present
Macbeth
“as written by Shakespeare” at Drury Lane on 7 January 1744.
Garrick was a new type of actor for a new age. He tried to clear away much of the Restoration baggage—no more flying witches—and to restore the majority of Shakespeare’s text, although there was still no Porter, Malcolm was less complex and self-accusatory,and the actor included a dying speech for himself. The key to Garrick’s performance was his attempt to create a complex, imaginative unity from the powerful and contradictory elements of the character:
Through all the soliloquies of anxious reflections in the first act; amidst the pangs of guilty apprehension, and pungent remorse, in the second; through all the distracted terror of the third; all the impetuous curiosity of the fourth, and all the desperation of the fifth,
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