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Macbeth ’s children

Macbeth ’s children. Ancestral sources. Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (first pub. 1577; expanded 1587) – 2-volume collaborative work charting histories of England, Scotland and Ireland

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Macbeth ’s children

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  1. Macbeth’s children

  2. Ancestral sources Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (first pub. 1577; expanded 1587) – 2-volume collaborative work charting histories of England, Scotland and Ireland George Buchanan’s Rerum Scoticarum Historia (The History of Scotland, 1582) – influential, unreliable; one of its arguments is that the people should resist and overthrow tyrants William Shakespeare’s Richard III (c.1592-3)

  3. Ancestral stories: Holinshed • Holinshed: For the pricke of conscience (as it chanceth ever in tyrants, and such as attain to any estate by unrighteous means) caused him ever to fear, lest he should be served of the same cup as he had ministered to his predecessor. • Cf. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredience of our poison’d chalice To our own lips (1.7.10-12)

  4. Ancestral stories: George Buchanan’s Rerum Scoticarum Historia • The appointment [of Malcolm as Duncan’s heir] highly incensed Macbeth, who thought it an obstacle thrown in the way of his ambition […] as the command of Cumberland was always considered the next step to the crown • Cf. The Prince of Cumberland! That is a step, On which I must fall down, or else o’erleap, For in my way it lies (1.4.48-50)

  5. Ancestral stories: folklore • Shakespeare also absorbed some popular beliefs about witchcraft as outlined in James I’s Daemonologie (written in 1597 when he was King James VI of Scotland) • e.g. witches can ‘foretell what commonweales shall flourish or decay; what persons shall be fortunate or unfortunate, what side shall winne in anie battell’

  6. Adaptive strategies: fusion It must have been immediately obvious to him that he would have to depart from historical facts: he could not have James’s [reputed] ancestor [Banquo] conspiring with Macbeth to murder Duncan. He hit on the brilliant idea of fusing the account of the murder of Duncan by Macbeth, Banquo, and others, with the account of Donwald’s murder of King Duff. The fusion was made easier by the fact that both Donwald and Macbeth had ambitious wives, and that witchcraft was an element in both stories. (Kenneth Muir, The Sources of Shakespeare’s Plays, p.209)

  7. Adaptive strategies: variation, elision, addition • Condenses battles at beginning and end of play • Macbeth’s ten years of good rule eliminated • Macduff goes to England after murder of his family • Nothing in Holinshed to suggest Lady M’s ‘unsex me’ speech, sleep-walking or death • Adds Porter

  8. Adaptive strategy: obfuscation LADY MACBETH: I have given suck… MACDUFF: He has no children… MACBETH: Upon my head they placed a fruitless crown And put a barren sceptre in my gripe, Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal hand No son of mine succeeding…

  9. Shakespeare would have read that Lady Macbeth (there named Gruoch) had a son, Lulach, from her previous marriage to Macbeth’s cousin, Gillacomgain (whom Macbeth apparently murdered; cf. Claudius/Hamlet). According to Holinshed, Macbeth adopted his stepson Lulach and made him his heir – the young man even reigned as king for a few months after Macbeth’s death.

  10. Middleton’s Additions Widely believed that Thomas Middleton (1580- 1627) added scenes and passages to a (missing) version of text by Shakespeare c1616 (nb.the death of the author) Probably added two songs, referred to only by their opening phrases (‘Come away, come away &c.’ [3.5.36] and ‘Blacke Spirits &c. [4.1.43], both of which can be found in full in Middleton’s tragicomedy The Witch Middleton also prob added the Hecate material surrounding these songs in 3.5 and 4.1 Gary Taylor estimates that Middleton contributed 11% of the text we have and ‘may’ have cut one quarter or more of the ‘original’

  11. Inga-Stina Ewbank points to discrepancy between – on one hand - Simon Forman’s account of ‘three women fairies or nymphs’ in 1611, Holinshed’s ‘some nymphs or fairies’ (as well as accompanying woodcut of young well-dressed women in 1577 History of Scotland – see below) AND – on the other hand - what the Middleton editors think is Middleton’s chief contribution to Macbeth, i.e. the witchiness of the witches (see The Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, Oxford, 2010, p.1165ff.)

  12. 1616-2016 Adaptive Strategies‘The first test of any work of art is survival’ – George Orwell

  13. 1. Spectacle Sir William Davenant ( 1663/4) The Tragedy of Macbeth, alter’d by Sir William Davenant; being drest in all its Finery, as new Cloath’s, new Scenes, Machines, as flying for the Witches; with all the singing and dancing in it…it being all excellently perform’d being in the nature of an Opera, it Recompenc’d double the Expence; it proves still [1708] a lasting Play. John Downes, Roscius Anglicanus (1708)

  14. 2. Scottification Charles Macklin 1773, London Macbeth (2015) dir. Justin Kurzel

  15. 3. MacMafias Joe MacBeth (1955) dir. Ken Hughes Maqbool (2003) dir. Vishal Bhardwaj Mickey G (2007) dir. Tom Magill

  16. 4. Domestification Macbeth on the Estate (1997), dir. Penny Woolcock Scotland PA (2002), dir. Billy Morrissette Shakespeare Retold (2005), dir. Mark Brozel (celebrity chef Duncan Doherty; Joe Macbeth as sous chef; Ella Macbeth as the Maitre d’; Peter Macduff as head waiter)

  17. Plot is relocated to ‘Duncan’s’, a greasy spoon diner in 1970s Pennsylvania, in which childhood sweethearts Mac and Pat’s dreams of bigger things lead them to murder their boss Duncan in a deep-fat fryer. (A new musical version of Scotland, PA, will open Off-Broadway in the near future, an offspring of an offspring of Shakespeare’s play.)

  18. Adapting Macbeth 2017-18

  19. Montana Shakespeare in the Parks 2017 tour

  20. National Theatre, opens next Monday

  21. Introduction/preview with Rufus Norris https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs0YVGdenZi5VNXofY1y6uQ

  22. Principles of the Adaptation • anything that pops the audience out of the experience needs to go or be changed • where possible, everything should signify at least doubly (cf. ‘Double, double, toil and trouble’ – a line we cut…)

  23. Adaptive Challenge 1: Environment and Scale Current received wisdom is that Macbeth is a play that thrives best in small spaces and in intimate relationship with audience Most ‘successful’ modern UK productions have been in small theatres e.g. 1976 Dir. Trevor Nunn; McKellen/Dench, The Other Place, Stratford-on-Avon 1999 Dir. Greg Doran; Sher/Walter, Swan Theatre, Stratford-on-Avon (cap. 450) 2007 Dir. Rupert Goold; Stewart/Fleetwood, The Minerva Theatre, Chichester (cap.310)

  24. The Olivier Theatre, National Theatre, London (capacity: 1,150)

  25. Adaptive Challenge 1: Environment and Scale Design solutions – e.g. modular downstage spaces create illusion of intimacy Technical solutions – e.g. actors wear mics to create vocal intimacy Immersive solution – e.g. don’t have an interval / don’t allow the crowd to disperse and then re-gather (cf. Macduff: Cut short all intermission, 4.3.235) [nb at late stage in rehearsals, shortly after this lecture, it was decided to have an interval after all!]

  26. Adaptive Challenge 2: Length and Tempo Uncut Macbeth = c.18300 words = c2h15m (without interval) playing time (one of Shakespeare’s shortest plays) [Based on pace of c.135 words per minute as established at Oregon Shakespeare Festival by dramaturg Scott Kaiser] Longest playing time without interval that most audiences will bear = c.2hr

  27. Adaptive Challenge 2: Length and Tempo Cut for this production needed to be c1h45m to allow for wordless sequences, music, battles, etc So, 18300 words > 14200 words, or a reduction of approx 22% of the text…

  28. Act 3, Scene 5: Witches and Hecate • Act 3, Scene 6: Lennox and a Lord • Act 4, Scene 3 [‘England Scene’]: radically shortened and cuts nearly all of Malcolm’s ‘temptation’ of Macduff; gets as quickly as poss to Ross’s entrance and news of Macduff family slaughter 2000 words in Shakespeare (i.e. 15mins) 1150 words in NT (i.e. 9mins) • i.e. 40% cut

  29. Internal pruning • Enter Ross and Angus. ROSS The King hath happily received, Macbeth, The news of thy success, and, when he reads Thy personal venture in the rebels’ fight, His wonders and his praises do contend Which should be thine or his. Silenced with that, In viewing o’er the rest o’ th’ selfsame day He finds thee in the stout Norweyan ranks, Nothing afeard of what thyself didst make, Strange images of death. As thick as tale Came post with post, and every one did bear Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defense, And poured them down before him. ANGUS We are sent To give thee from our royal master thanks, Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee. ROSS And for an earnest of a greater honor, He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor, In which addition, hail, most worthy thane, For it is thine. BANQUO What, can the devil speak true? ROSS The King hath happily receiv’d, Macbeth, The news of thy success. LENOX We are sent, To give thee from our royal master thanks; Only to herald thee into his sight, Not pay thee. ROSS And, for an earnest of a greater honour, He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor: In which addition, hail, most worthy Thane, For it is thine. BANQUO What! Can the devil speak true? (1.3.87-105)

  30. Adaptive Challenge 2: Tempo SON Thou liest, thou shag-hair’d villain. 1 MURDERER What, you egg? [stabshim] Young fry of treachery! SON He has killed me, mother! Run away, I pray you! [Dies] Exit Lady Macduff, crying ‘Murder!’ And pursued by the Murderers. [4.3] MALCOLM Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our bosoms empty. MACDUFF Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn, New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland…

  31. Adaptive Challenge 2: Tempo SON Thou liest, thou shag-hair’d villain. 1 MURDERER What, you egg? [stabshim] Young fry of treachery! SON He has killed me, mother! Run away, I pray you! [Dies] Exit Lady Macduff, crying ‘Murder!’ And pursued by the Murderers. [4.3] MALCOLM Let us seek out some desolate shade, and there Weep our bosoms empty. MACDUFF Let us rather Hold fast the mortal sword, and like good men Bestride our downfall birthdom. Each new morn, New widows howl, new orphans cry; new sorrows Strike heaven on the face, that it resounds As if it felt with Scotland…

  32. Adaptive Challenge 3a: Streamline dramatis personae • CUT DONALBAIN • CUT YOUNG SIWARD • CUT HECATE • CUT ANGUS, MENTEITH, CAITHNESS (MOSTLY SUBSUMED INTO ROSS)

  33. Adaptive Challenge 3b: give remaining ‘supporting’ characters a greater journey through play Bloody Captain of 1.2 > Macduff (he therefore becomes the ‘good and hardy soldier’ who has prevented Malcolm from being taken captive) ‘random’ servants + Seyton + Porter = 1 character Created ‘new’ scene (2.4) for Lady Macduff and Macduff so that we meet her before the scene in which she is murdered (4.2)

  34. Enter Macduff. [to Ross and Old Man] ROSS Here comes the good Macduff.—How goes the world, sir, now? MACDUFF Why, see you not? ROSSIs ’t known who did this more than bloody deed? MACDUFFThose that Macbeth hath slain. ROSS Alas the day, What good could they pretend? MACDUFF They were suborned. Malcolm and Donalbain, the King’s two sons, Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them Suspicion of the deed. ROSS ’Gainst nature still! Thriftless ambition, that will ravin up Thine own lives’ means. Then ’tis most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. MACDUFF He is already named and gone to Scone To be invested. ROSS Where is Duncan’s body? MACDUFF Carried to Colmekill, The sacred storehouse of his predecessors And guardian of their bones. ROSS Will you to Scone? MACDUFF No, cousin, I’ll to Fife. ROSS Well, I will thither. MACDUFFWell, may you see things well done there. Adieu, Lest our old robes sit easier than our new. ROSS Farewell, father. OLD MAN God’s benison go with you and with those That would make good of bad and friends of foes. All exit. [Act 2, Scene 4]

  35. LADY MACDUFF My Lord Macduff. How goes the world, Sir, now? MACDUFF Why, see you not? LADY MACDUFF Is’t known, who did this more than bloody deed? MACDUFF Those that Macbeth hath slain. LADY MACDUFF Alas, the day! What good could they pretend? MACDUFF They were suborn’d. Malcolm, the King’s own son, Is stol’n away and fled; which puts upon him Suspicion of the deed. LADY MACDUFF ’Gainst nature still: Thriftless Ambition, that will raven up Thine own life’s means! - Then ‘tis most like The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth. MACDUFF He is already nam’d, and gone to Scone To be invested. LADY MACDUFF Will you to Scone? MACDUFF I will thither. LADY MACDUFF Well, may you see things well done there: - adieu! – God’s benison go with you; and with those That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

  36. Adaptive challenge 4: minimise unhelpful obscurity CAPTAIN [MACDUFF in this version]: The merciless Macdonald […] from the Western Isles, Of kerns and gallowglasses is supplied > Of desperate mercenaries is supplied ‘kerns and gallowglasses’ (found in Holinshed) = Irish guerrilla-style foot-soldiers and more heavily-armed Scottish soldiers [‘mercenaries’ is a word Shakespeare used in Henry V) *** MACBETH: By Sinel’smy father’s death, I know I am thane of Glamis, But how of Cawdor? (1.3.71-2)

  37. LADY MACBETH: I have drugged their possets That death and nature do contend about them, Whether they live, or die. (2.2.7-9) ‘possets’ = made with hot milk and ale or wine to induce sleep Alternatives: last drinks / nightcaps / night-cups (Cf. ‘men-children’, ‘mouth-honour’, ‘half-world’, ‘firm-set’ and ‘faith-breach’ [post-lecture PS: ended up sticking with ‘possets’!]

  38. RSC £5 tickets Try: https://cultureunstained.org/fossilfreetix/ Cinemas: 11 April 2018 National Theatre Cinemas: 10 May (revision!)

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