Performance Options and Pedagogy: Macbeth

Editor's Note: Since "Shakespeare Performed" consists largely of reviews of films or stage productions, the two essays that follow warrant a brief prefatory comment. Both authors do deal in part with stage or screen versions of Macbeth and 1 Henry IV, but David Worster links a series of performance-related questions (e.g., about the murder of Banquo or the body of Young Siward) to both classroom teaching and textual-editorial choices, whereas Derek Peat uses a moment in a recent RSC production (Prince Hal's throwing the bottle of sack) as a point of departure for an exploration of Falstaff. As a result, both authors stretch the boundaries for items to be considered in this category in ways that may be of interest to readers and would-be contributors.

—Alan C. Dessen

I

I BEGIN CLASS WITH A SCENE from the middle of the play. A king confers with a blood-smeared murderer. A queen nervously calls him back to the feast. "Sweet remembrancer!" he cries (3.4.36). ¹ Unobtrusively, a ghost enters and takes a seat at the table. Moments later, the king spies the apparition: "Which of you have done this?" (l. 48). He stares, terrified, until it disappears. Nervously, again, his queen reminds him of the surrounding audience: "My worthy Lord, / Your noble friends do lack you" (ll. 82-83). Shaken but determined, the king attempts to recover, but it is no use. The ghost reappears. The king gibbers with fear: "Hence, horrible shadow! / Unreal mock'ry, hence!" (ll. 105-6). And again, as the ghost disappears a second time, he attempts to rally his diminishing courage: "Why, so;—being gone, / I am a man again" (ll. 106-7). Angrily, the queen dismisses the guests. After a brief and disturbing exchange between husband and wife, the scene ends with the foreboding "We are yet but young in deed" (l. 143). The banquet swims in blood, but we have not yet supped full of horror.

Thus Act 3, scene 4, of Macbeth unfolds according to most modern editions. After we read the scene aloud, I distribute the text as it appears in the First Folio (1623). My question is: "what differences do you see?" Many students notice almost immediately the stage directions. Arden editor Kenneth Muir brings the murderer to the door, no further. Macbeth goes to the door to meet him. They confer discreetly. The Folio makes no such stipulation: the murderer enters; moments later, he leaves. "What possibilities does the Folio leave open?" I ask my students. More carelessness? Indiscretion? How far into the room does the murderer come? Whose attention does he get other than the king's? Who else spies the bloody face? "If you were the director, how would you stage the first thirty lines of this scene?" Some students want the murderer to come all the way into the room: Macbeth is anxious, careless. In this play, murder never waits long at the door; it strides to centerstage. Others prefer the Muir direction: they like a more gradual disintegration of Macbeth's self-control. A bloody face at the door is indiscreet enough at this early point in the action.

And then there is the ghost. When does it enter? According to Muir, it appears at Macbeth's line "Were the grac'd person of our Banquo present" (3.4.40). As Muir argues, it is as if Macbeth has summoned the spirit to the stage. But according to the Folio, it is four lines earlier, just before Macbeth's line (ostensibly to his wife): "Sweet Remembrancer" (TLN 1300). ² We can see the delicious irony of this phrase now, describing as it does both queen and apparition—she, a reminder of who and where Macbeth is; it, an animated memento of his bloody deeds. Many of my students then notice what the Folio omits. While Muir (and every other modern editor I've checked) clearly specifies for the ghost an entrance, an exit, and a second...