An Introduction to William Shakespeare

Shakespeare’s Early Life Born April 1564 in Stratford Upon Avon in England Educated at Stratford Grammar School where he would have studied Latin and the Roman playwrights Learned business as an apprentice for his father

Middle Life Married Anne Hathaway at age 18 She was eight years his senior and pregnant when they married They had three children (Susanna, Judith and Hamnet (twins))

Move to London Moved to London to pursue an acting career Friends in the city helped him financially and professionally, and he advanced quickly By 1594, he was part owner of the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, one of the most successful theater companies in London He was their chief playwright In 1599 the Globe Theatre was built and this is where audiences first saw Shakespeare’s plays

King James I Renamed Shakespeare’s acting troupe “The King’s Men” Believed in the supernatural and interested in witchcraft Religious and believed in the existence of supernatural “evil” Commissioned a translation of the Bible from Latin to English Much of the supernatural themes in Shakespeare’s plays influenced by King James I

The Globe Built around a roofless courtyard The sun was the only lighting therefore performances were given only during the day Surrounding the courtyard were three levels of galleries with benches where wealthier playgoers sat For only a penny (1/10 of a weekly salary), a “groundling” could stand in the courtyard, or the pit, and watch Held 2,000 to 3,000 people tightly packed In 1613, the globe burnt to the ground during a performance of Henry VIII

The Globe Only men and boys were allowed onstage Young boy’s whose voices had not changed play women’s roles It would have been considered indecent for a woman to appear onstage

The Globe Stage- the platform that extended into the pit Dressing & storage in galleries behind and above stage Second level gallery & upper stage- setting for famous R&J balcony scene Trap door in stage for ghosts

The Globe

The Globe

Staging No scenery The setting was introduced by dialogue in plays Plenty of props used Very elaborate costuming

Shakespeare’s Work Wrote 34 plays Tragedies Comedies Histories Also wrote 154 Sonnets

Late Life Around 1610, Shakespeare retired to Stratford He was a prosperous middle-class man with the second largest house in the town Here, he continued to write plays On April 23, 1616 (his birthday, if scholars are correct) Shakespeare died

Trinity Church

a.k.a. the Scottish Play, the Scottish Tragedy, the Scottish Business, the Comedy of Glamis, the Unmentionable, or That Play   In 1604 Will Shakespeare in his zeal to please King James I, an authority on demonology, cast caution and imagination aside and for the opening scene of Macbeth's Act IV when he reproduced a 17th century black-magic ritual, a sort of how-to to budding witches. Without changing an ingredient, he provided his audience with step-by-step instructions in the furtive art of spell casting: Round around the cauldron go; In the poison'd entrails throw. Toad, that under cold stone Days and nights has thirty-one Swelter'd venum sleeping got. Boil thou first i' the charmed pot… The ritual's practitioners were not amused by this detailed public exposure of their witchcraft, and it is said that as punishment they cast an everlasting spell on the play, turning it into the most ill-starred of all theatrical productions. The superstition seems to have arisen, in part, from the play's depiction of witchcraft, still a vital (though contested) belief in 1606, when the play was first performed. Macbeth was believed to flirt dangerously with the Powers of Evil, bringing catastrophe down upon productions over the succeeding centuries. The Curse of Macbeth

Here are some of the gory particulars: • 1st performance,1606 -- Shakespeare 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. • London, 1703 -- on the day the production opened, England was hit with one of the most violent storms in its history. • 1775 -- As Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience. • New York’s Astor Place, 1849 -- a riot broke out when a crowd of more than 10,000 New Yorkers gathered to protest the appearance of British actor William Charles Macready, who was engaged in a bitter public feud with an American actor, Edwin Forrest. The protest escalated into a riot, leading the militia to fire into the crowd. Twenty-three people were killed, 36 were wounded, and hundreds were injured. • April 9, 1865 -- Abraham Lincoln chose to take Macbeth with him on board the River Queen on the Potomac River. The president was reading passages, which happened to follow the scene in which Duncan is assassinated, aloud to a party of friends. Within a week, Lincoln himself was dead by a murderer's hand.

• Royal Court Theatre, London, 1928 -- during the first modern-dress production at the, a large set fell down, injuring some members of the cast seriously, and a fire broke out in the dress circle. 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. • 1934 -- four actors played Macbeth in a single week. • 1936 -- Orson Welles produced his "voodoo Macbeth," set in 19th-century Haiti. His cast included some African drummers and a genuine witch doctor who were not happy when critic Percy Hammond blasted the show. It is rumored that they placed a curse on him. Hammond died within a couple of weeks. • 1937 -- 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 addition, the director and the actress playing Lady Macduff were involved in a car accident on the way to the theatre, and the proprietor of the theatre died of a heart attack during the dress rehearsal. 1937 -- Macbeth had to be postponed for three days after a change in directorsand because Lilian Boylis (the role of Lady Macbeth) died on the day of final dress rehearsal. Her portrait was hung in the theatre. When another production of the play was having its opening (1954), the portrait fell from the wall.

• 1942 – during a 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. • 1947 -- actor Harold Norman was stabbed in the swordfight that ends the play and died as a result of his wounds. His ghost is said to haunt the Colliseum Theatre in Oldham, where the fatal blow was struck. Supposedly, his spirit appears on Thursdays, the day he was killed. • 1971 -- two fires and seven robberies plagued the version starring David Leary • Lincoln Center, NY, 1981 -- J. Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening. • St. Paul, Minnesota -- the actor playing Macbeth dropped dead of heart failure during the first scene of Act III. • New York City, 1988 -- the production starring Glenda Jackson and Christopher Plummer is supposed to have gone through 3 directors, 5 Macduff’s, 6 cast changes, 6 stage managers, 2 set designers, 2 lighting designers, 26 bouts of flu, torn ligaments, and groin injuries. (The numbers vary in some reports.) • New York City, 1998 -- in the Off-Broadway production starring Alec Baldwin and Angela Bassett, Baldwin somehow sliced open the hand of his Macduff.

AVOIDING THE CURSE The superstition is not so much about doing the play as about naming it. You are not supposed to mention the title in a theatre. If you do happen to speak the unspeakable title while in a theatre, you are supposed to take immediate action to dispel the curse lest it bring ruin on whatever production is up or about to go up. • The most familiar way is for the person who spoke the offending word to leave the room, turn around three times to the right, spit on the ground or over each shoulder, then knock on the door of the room and ask for permission to re-enter it. • Variations involve leaving the theatre completely to perform the ritual and saying the foulest word you can think of before knocking and asking for permission to re-enter. • Some say you can also banish the evils brought on by the curse simply by yelling a stream of obscenities or mumbling the phrase "Thrice around the circle bound, Evil sink into the ground." • Or you can turn to Will himself for assistance and cleanse the air with a quotation from Hamlet: Angels and Ministers of Grace defend us! Be thou a spirit of health or goblin damn’d, Being with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell, Be thy intents wicked or charitable, Thou comest in such a questionable shape that I will speak to thee.