A Sinister Macbeth: the Macklin Production of 1733

A sinister Macbeth: The Macklin production of 1733 The Harvard community has made this article openly available. Please share how this access benefits you. Your story matters Citation Kinservik, Matthew J. 1995. A sinister Macbeth: The Macklin production of 1733. Harvard Library Bulletin 6 (1), Spring 1995: 51-76. Citable link http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:42665374 Terms of Use This article was downloaded from Harvard University’s DASH repository, and is made available under the terms and conditions applicable to Other Posted Material, as set forth at http:// nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:dash.current.terms-of- use#LAA 51 A Sinister Macbeth: The Macklin Production of I 77 3 Matthew]. Kinservik hades Macklin's production of Macbethat Covent Garden in 1773 was a criti- C cal success, a commercial failure, and the occasion of a riot by theatergoers. Most of the attention devoted to this production has focused on the riot that re- sulted from a dispute between Macklin and William "Gentleman" Smith over who should play Macbeth. The merits and limitations of the production had little to do with the riot and have been ignored by scholars. This neglect is unfortunate be- cause Macklin's Macbeth is an important part of the history of Shakespearean production in the eighteenth century. Macklin took an innovative approach to Macbeth's character, one that challenged the standard interpretation and expanded the range of choices in Macbeth production. Macklin was seventy-four years old when he staged his Macbeth, older than most MATTHEW J. KINSERVIK, a doc- people when they retire from the stage. He continued to do innovative work well toral student at Pennsylvania into his eighties. His Man of the World, one of the finest eighteenth-century satiric State University, is working on theatrical censorship and plays, was not staged until 1781-and Macklin played the demanding lead role. satire in eighteenth-century Indeed, he had not established himself as a major performer until he was in his England. forties, when he unveiled his revolutionary interpretation of Shylock in 1741. Later that same year, David Garrick (1717-79) changed the theatre forever with his Ri- chard III, a role for which some suggest Macklin helped him prepare. The two men were close friends until the failed actors' rebellion of 1743 left each deeply suspicious and resentful of the other. Macklin' s first success as a playwright came in his sixtieth year, when his Love a la Mode (1759) was a surprise, and enduring, hit. His contributions to satiric drama alone make him an important figure for our un- derstanding of the eighteenth-century stage; and his reinterpretations of major Shakespeare plays constitute an entirely different-and as yet not fully appreci- ated-contribution to the English dramatic tradition. When Macklin approached Macbeth in 1773, Garrick's interpretation was the standard. First staged in 1744, Garrick's Macbeth was itself an innovative production. Employing a text purged of many of Sir William Davenant's seventeenth- century additions and featuring a major reassessment of Macbeth's character, it told the story of a good man gone bad. Tempted to his fate by a cunning wife and the enticing prophecies of the witches, Garrick's Macbeth is buffeted by the conflict- ing forces of ambition and remorse. Despite his crimes, he remains fundamentally I would like to thank Robert D. Hume and John T. Harwood for their helpful comments and suggestions. 52 HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN good-a point Garrick emphasized by adding a repentant death speech he wrote especially for the production. 1 This interpretation closely agrees with mid-eighteenth-century Macbethcriticism, some ofit clearly influenced by Garrick's performance. For nearly thirty years, English theatergoers and readers encountered the same Macbeth, and he was Garrick. Even when other actors such as Spranger Barry, Henry Mossop, and Smith played the role, they tended to imitate him. 2 Not until the Macklin production was Garrick's interpretation seriously re- thought. Macklin's Macbethfeatured new sets, new costumes, and a new conception of Macbeth's character. Garrick's Macbeth was led into criminality by others; Macklin's possessed it on his own. An innately evil Macbeth was an original concept in 1773, much different from the print commentaries on the play and the prior stage productions. Although Garrick had not performed the role since 1768, he remained the standard against which newcomers to the role were judged. Whether Macklin thought he could out-shine Garrick, we cannot know. But he was aware that his Macbeth differed radically from Garrick's, and he was eager to make his darker vision of Macbeth a credible alternative to the standard interpretation. Thanks to three pages of manuscript notes by Macklin, we can reconstruct his Macbethwith a degree of specificity remarkable for a production that was performed only six nights. These notes, preserved in the Harvard Theatre Collection, are fully and accurately reproduced here for the first time (figure 1).3 To learn how much of Macklin's ideas were actually staged, however, we must look to reviews and reac- tions in contemporary newspapers. In issues dating from October to December 1773, I have found 252 entries relating to the production-an astonishingly high number for the time. 4 Although many entries have to do with the theatre distur- bances and ensuing riot, others provide significant detail and commentary about Figure1. Oppositeand following pages: the production itsel( By comparing Macklin's notes with eighteenth-century Macklin's notes on Macbeth. Cour- tesy of the Haivard TheatreCollection. Macbeth criticism and with Garrick's interpretation, we can judge the extent to which Macklin's conception departed from the status quo. The newspaper reac- tions tell us what Macklin's contemporaries thought of his production. Taken to- gether, we get a surprisingly full picture of Macklin's Macbeth, its impact on eighteenth-century theatre, and its legacy for future productions. MACKLIN's IDEAS FOR Macbeth Macklin had long been concerned with Shakespearean criticism and production. When The Merchantof Venicewas revived at Drury Lane in 1741, Macklin's tri- umph in the role of Shylock established him as one of the major actors of his time. 'Tis done! the scene of life will quickly close. 3 Macklin' s Macbethnotes are bound into Harvard's extra- Ambition's vain, delusive dreams are fled, illustrated James T. Kirkman, Memoirsof the Life of Macklin And now I wake co darkness, guilt and horror. (London: Lack.ington, 1799), vol. 2. At the end of them, I cannot bear it! Let me shake it off.- Macklin has written unrelated notes for future produc- 'Twa' not be; my soul is clogged with blood. tions. William W. Appleton includes excerpts from the I cannot rise1 I dare not ask for mercy. notes in Charles Macklin: An Actor's Life (Cambridge, It is too late, hell drags me down. I sink, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). Denis Donoghue I sink-Oh!-my soul is lost forever! reproduces chem inaccurately in a virtually incomprehen- Oh! (Dies.) sible transcription in "Macklin's Shylock and Macbeth," The Plays ofDavid Garrick,ed. Harry William Pedicord Studies: An Irish QuarterlyReview ofLetters, Philosophy& and Frederick Louis Bergmann, vol. 3, Garrick'sAdapta- Science43 (1954): 421-30. tions ofShakespeare, 1744-1756 (Carbondale, Ill.: South- • The newspapers I consulted are The GeneralEvening Post, ern Illinois University Press, 1981), 72. The St.James's Chronicle,Lloyd's Evening Post, The London 2 See Dennis Bartholomeusz, Macbethand the Players(Lon- Chronicle,The Macaroni,and The Morning Chronicle. don: Cambridge University Press, 1969), 82. A Sinister Macbeth 53 54 HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN A Sinister Macbeth 55 4'4/i4''•7; ·,.,; # ·... · ..... ···. ..,.,,,.~ .,... .. ....... ·. .· ....···..,,J ..~·., ~•· :····.·.·. .. v ·t..'f" :', :~. ~. #Ci~.,. ,.;.t_ HARVARD LIBRARY BULLETIN This performance foreshadowed his approach to other Shakespearean characters. The first eighteenth-century actor to work from Shakespeare's text as opposed to Lansdowne's adaptation, The Jew ef Venice (1701), Macklin played Shylock as a tragic, fiercely dignified character, rather than as a comic buffoon. Radically de- parting from the prevailing declamatory style of acting, Macklin chose a restrained approach. Furthermore, his Shylock wore a costume that paid close attention to historical detail. These same elements characterized his production of Othello at the Little Haymarket in 1744. Macklin had been giving acting lessons that season, and on 6 February his troupe of students inaugurated a short (and technically illegal) season with Othello. Macklin's performance as Iago featured his chaste style and a new costume; Othello (played by Samuel Foote!) was dressed "after the manner of his country." 5 Ten years later, Macklin briefly retired from the stage and opened a tavern and public lecture forum called "The British Inquisition." He advertised that his lec- tures would consider how Shakespeare's "capital Characters have been acted here- tofore, are acted, and ought to be acted." 6 When he approached Macbeth twenty years afier that, he returned to the same concerns that shaped his earlier approaches to Shakespeare: a revisionist interpretation of dramatic character, the restoration of Shakespeare's text, and historical accuracy in costumes. In this sense, his Macbethis the fullest realization of a Shakespearean agenda that he had been pursuing for more than thirty years. Macklin's Macbethnotes are private and personal jottings. Kalmin A. Burnim calls them "rambling and often incoherent. "7 In a more accurate assessment, Dennis Bartholomeusz considers them "impulsive fresh thoughts. " 8 The notes show Macklin to be intensely concerned with all aspects of the production, as well as developing a unifying concept for it. As Appleton observes, they reveal an actor anticipating "the function of the director in the modern theatre." 9 Macklin's thoughts are recorded in no particular order, but in most cases are clearly separated by bold lines; they run in two columns from top to bottom, like a newspaper.

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