not bubbling but doubling (Macbeth - William Shakespeare)

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Product:	Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Date:	18/12/01 (100 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Worth Re-reads, Great Spectacle, Gets you through exams

Disadvantages: Needs effort

Macbeth. What a title. So good, it was the only thing we used on our advertising when we took this play to the Edinburgh Fringe. Sold an awful lot of tickets before we had so much as a review.

Anyway, what's it all about then? Fierce warrior fights for his king, meets some weird girls who tell him he's going to be king, kills the king, goes mad, gets killed. And his wifes pretty batty too. Oh, and there are witches.

Or, the play was first produced in early 1606, which is pretty soon after the gunpowder plot narrowly failed to blow up Parliament. Considering that the play focuses on the ultimate destruction of one who seeks to achieve power through assasination, and the torment it heaps on him, it is hard not to see this as a condemnation of the attempt of November 1605.

The witches, by the way, are pretty much borrowed/stolen from Thomas Middleton - read his play "The Witch" and see how much Shakespeare lifted straight from it. Not just a nifty writer - he was a great publicist too - the clamour about the witches after Middleton's play ensured that inserting them into Macbeth got a few decent crowds in. But just one thing - witches were strongly believed in at the time, and their powers genuinely believed in. They did NOT comically say, "Hubble, bubble toil and trouble". They dramatically conjured and produced dangerous events. The reference to the trip to Aleppo was based on an event at the time, where a ship called the Tiger went missing in strange circumstances. The witches claim responibility in order to show that they are dangerous. And what they actually say is, "Double, double toil and trouble". A nasty prospect considering how much blood has already been shed.

Summary: