1. -An Introduction- By Julie Faulkner
Macbeth
-An Introduction-
By Julie Faulkner
Underlined portions are what I require students to write down for lecture notes.

2. Essential Questions for Macbeth Unit:
Can we achieve our ambitions without stripping our virtues or who we are?
What is left if we strip our morality?
Should we work to change our flawed existence or accept the hand that fortune has dealt us?
Is how we treat each other important?
What are the risks/advantages of power?

3. Macbeth: An Introduction
Macbeth is among the best-known of William Shakespeare’s plays.
Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy.
Believed to have been written between 1603 and 1606.
Set in Scotland in the Middle Ages 11th century

4. Macbeth: An Introduction
Often regarded as archetypal, the play tells of the dangers of the lust for power and the betrayal of friends.

5. Holinshed’s Chronicles
Raphael Holinshed (d. 1580) was an English chronicler.
He was given the ambitious project of chronicling British history from the time of the Great Flood (approx BC) to Queen Elizabeth (reigning ).

6. Holinshed’s Chronicles
“‘We care about Holinshed's Chronicles because Shakespeare read them’ was the 1968 verdict of Stephen Booth, who, along with his academic contemporaries and predecessors, felt this great work was of little intellectual value, a vestige of erratic medieval historiography. Its importance for several of Shakespeare's plays - it underpins all the conventional English history plays, as well as King Lear, Macbeth and Cymbeline - has long been understood, but until late in the twentieth century it was overlooked as an object of serious study”.
-Jenny Alder, Information Assistant,
Foyle Special Collections Library, King’s College London

7. The Gunpowder Plot - 1605 Another key inspiration for Macbeth
The plot was an attempt by a cell of Catholic conspirators led by Guy Fawkes to assassinate the King along with the entire government of England.
Through the late summer and early autumn of 1605, the conspirators smuggled barrels of gunpowder into a cellar beneath the Parliament, and planned to detonate the gunpowder on 5 November, 1605, as the King addressed Parliament.

8. Gunpowder – cont.
The plot was discovered and destroyed on November 4th, just hours before James' scheduled appearance before Parliament.

9. The Real Macbeth King of Scotland (1040–57)
Was a military commander for Duncan I
In 1040, Macbeth killed Duncan in battle and seized the throne.
(Right: portrait of Macbeth)

10. “The Scottish Play”
There are many superstitions centered on the belief that the play is somehow “cursed.”

11. “The Scottish Play” Explanation #1
Shakespeare is said to have used the spells of real witches in his text, purportedly angering the witches and causing them to curse the play.

12. “The Scottish Play” Explanation #2
Struggling theatres or companies would often put on this popular 'blockbuster' in an effort to save their flagging fortunes.
Therefore, the last play performed before a theatre shut down was often Macbeth, and thus the growth of the idea that it was an 'unlucky' play.

13. “The Scottish Play” Results of the Curse
A large mythology has built up surrounding this superstition, with countless stories of accidents, misfortunes and even deaths, all mysteriously taking place during runs of Macbeth (or by actors who had uttered the name).

14. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
Here are some of the gory particulars: Beginning with its first performance, in 1606, Dear Will 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.

15. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
When performed in Amsterdam in 1672, the actor playing Macbeth substituted a real dagger for the blunted stage one and with it killed Duncan in full view of the entranced audience.

16. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
As Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience in 1775; Sybil Thorndike was almost strangled by a burly actor in 1926; Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the rostrum in 1948, falling down 15 feet.

17. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
During its 1849 performance at New York's Astor Place, a riot broke out in which 31 people were trampled to death.

18. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
In 1937, when 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.

19. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
In 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.

20. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
In the 1942 Macbeth 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.

21. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
The indestructible Charlton Heston, in an outdoor production in Bermuda in 1953, suffered severe burns in his groin and leg area from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.

22. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
An actor's strike felled Rip Torn's 1970 production in New York City; two fires and seven robberies plagued the 1971 version starring David Leary; in the 1981 production at Lincoln Center, J. Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening.

23. “The Scottish Play”: A Chronology of Misfortunes
Even brave and talented actors like Glenda Jackson to Ian McKellen don’t refer to this haunted play by name, but instead call it “That Scottish Play” or simply “That Play”; everyone, it seems, will get the message, in a flash.

24. How to break/avoid the curse
“The Scottish Play”
How to break/avoid the curse
Many actors will not mention the name of the play aloud, referring to it instead as "The Scottish play.”
One is to immediately leave the building the stage is in with the person who uttered the name, walk around it three times, spit over their left shoulders, say an obscenity then wait to be invited back into the building.
Another popular "ritual" is to leave the room, knock three times, be invited in, and then quote a line from Hamlet.

25. The Main Characters
The Witches or Weird Sisters (Urðr or Wyrd - Weird) means "fate" or simply "future.” Modeled after the three Norse fates in mythology.
Macbeth and Lady Macbeth
Banquo (Macbeth’s BFF)
King Duncan and sons Malcolm and Donnalbain
Warrior MacDuff

26. Poster advertising a performance at The University of Texas at Austin
What are your thoughts on the mood of this poster? What techniques are used to evoke this mood?

27. Works Cited
Fact Monster Encyclopedia The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6th ed. Copyright © 2007, Columbia University Press. All rights reserved.
Tritsch, Dina. “The Curse of Macbeth: Is there an evil spell on this ill-starred play?” Showbill (April 1984)
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia