Great shakespeare, one of my favourites (Macbeth - William Shakespeare)

Member Name: darren55

Product:	Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Date:	22/10/09 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Macbeths slide to his death

Disadvantages: The language I guess

Macbeth or the Scottish play is a play by William Shakespeare, its one of his tragedies and also one of his later plays written around 1605.

Macbeth as a play is one of the more satisfying plays as it transfers well into film and TV adaptations, it has many elements which gives a director chance to show his hand at dramatic licence.

Macbeth is a play set in Scotland in and around the 11th century, it has a superb flowing plot in which the reader/viewer is drawn into the story adn led along by Shakespeare towards a shocking and exciting finish. This play out of all of his is closest in some ways to an episode of Columbo, (except that there's no shambling mac wearing detective) I draw this allusion due to the fact that the play is a solo piece in many ways from the point of view of MacBeth himself. Macbeth sparks a set of events which spiral very quickly out of control, in attempts to gain control he only makes things worse and he thinks he's going to be ok but at the end is ultimately let down.

So how does the play start?

Well Shakespeare is a very clever man in this play because he gives the props for MacBeths actions, in the prompts we as viewers know that ultimately things will go badly for him but we don't know how.

The play starts with MacBeth returning back with his friend Banquo from a battle to supress an uprising against King Duncan of Scotland. Macbeth meets three witches (the witches have been long debated over whether they are pure shakespeare or added as a stage ploy by a director after the play was first staged - personally I hope they are Shakespeares work because they are work of genius). The witches annouce Macbeth as thane (lord) of glamis, cawdor and king thereafter, Macbeth thinks nothing of it as yes he's thane of glamis but he knows the thane of cawdor and he's very much alive. Cut to meeting the king and we find out that Cawdor was part of the uprising has been killed and the king pleased with Macbeths actions gives him the thane of Cawdor. With that act, the kernel of ambition appears in Macbeths mind.

Also Banquo is told he won't be king but his line will breed kings by the witches.

These two facts are the core of the play.

the play then moves forward at shocking pace, Duncan is slayed by Macbeth in his home betraying the ancient practice of safe refuge. His wife is the central driver in this and her character has long been analysed, shes cold, calculating, driving and ambitious. Lady MacBeth (I don't think we ever find out her first name) eggs Macbeth on to kill the king, he under her thrawl does the deed and the characters are now changed for ever.

This play draws you in, it starts quickly and each act has a definitive moment, there is the killing of Duncan, Banquo's ghost, lady macbeth losing her mind, the witches reappear and appear to give MacBeth reassuring predictions. However, as the audience suspects these predictions are predictably very specific and seem to be unbreakable but are also predictably easy to break.

I did MacBeth as a 13 year old at school, and considering I've only sporadically read it since this play has left a whole list of lines which I can still remember.

"Is this a dagger I see before me?" - on the way to killing Duncan

"All the sea, cannot wash the sin away from my hands" - trying to wash the blood from his hands.

"MacBeth doth murder sleep" Said by one of Duncans sons

"When I was born my mother was untimely ripped" MacDuff revealing MacBeths final doom.

"I'll not play the Roman fool" When his enemies surround the castle he'll not commit suicide.

"Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow" - Classic poetry, amongst the last things MacBeth says lamenting on how things have unfolded.

The play moves at a cracking pace, central characters disappear for a while such as Banquo in scene 2, Lady MacBeth from Acts 2 and 3, before her rather tragic ending and MacDuff for all the Acts from 2nd to four before being the means behind MacBeths demise.

This play has it all, battles, intrigues, genuinely novel characters, betrayal, love, envy, ambition and madness.

and Banquos ghost, classic tension with a hint of humour through out.

Summary: Brilliance throughout