Understanding lady macbeth Questions to Consider

What is it like to live in an all male world? RSC Director Dominick Cooke talks about the male world of the play. RSC Director Dominick Cooke talks abou the set for 1.5.

What motivates Lady Macbeth What motivates Lady Macbeth? Let’s Look to the women who have played her on stage.

How have actors chosen to play lady macbeth? Critic Russ McDonald writes about 19th century actor Sarah Siddons: ”To Siddons, the need to summon evil powers, those “murdering ministers” solicited in her great soliloquy, indicates that Lady Macbeth’s wickedness is not inherent but a result of opportunity and ambition, ambition not so much for herself, but for her “naturally benevolent husband.”

How have actors chosen to play lady macbeth? 19th century critics wrote about Ellen Terry: ”The new Lady Macbeth is beyond all doubt a strangely impressive, subtle, and equisite creature…But we cannot trace this thirst for power in Miss Terry’s passionate, sensous, and finely strung Lady Macbeth.”

How have actors chosen to play lady macbeth? Royal Shakespeare Company Director Michael Boyd says: "Judi Dench's Lady Macbeth was no painted Gorgon but a startled novice dabbling in satanic powers.” Gorgon = terrifying female creature in Greek mythology, like Medusa Novice = a beginner

How have actors chosen to play lady macbeth? Kate Fleetwood: 'In the first half of the play. I certainly played Lady Macbeth -- having talked a lot about it with Patrick and Rupert -- that she starts from a strength. I know there are detractors from that theory, that why would she summon the spirits [if that's the case]? And I think she dares, she dares herself to summon the spirits. That was my point of view -- I can understand not having that point of view, but for me and in this production, this particular production, she had to dare it in herself...”

Do the spirits possess Lady macbeth? “Come you spirits…unsex me” “Make thick my blood…stop…remorse” “Come thick night…that my keen knife see not the wound it makes” (1.5.47-59). “Take my milk for gall”

How does Lady Macbeth persuade her husband in 1.7? “Art thou afeard?/To be the same in thine own act and valor/ As thou art in desire” “What beast was ‘t, then/ That made you break thy enterprise to me? “When you durst do it then you were a man;/And to be so much more the man” “I would, while it was smiling in my face…dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you/Have done this”

Does Lady Macbeth think ahead? Macbeth: “If we should fail-” Lady: “We fail?/ But screw your courage to the sticking place/ And we’ll not fail” (1.7.68-71).

YOU DECIDE: What kind of woman is Lady Macbeth? How will she be affected by regicide, the murder of the king Stay tuned for Act II.