Study Guide Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth Study Guide Macbeth by William Shakespeare Directed by Alan Stanford Cast Macbeth: David Whalen Lady Macbeth: Gayle Pazerski Also featuring: Justin R.G. Holcomb, Patrick Jordan, James FitzGerald, Martin Giles, J. Alex Noble, Karen Baum, Erin Whitcomb, Lily Davis, Cassidy Adkins, Amy Wooler, Luke Hafferty, Dylan Marquis Myers, Tom Driscoll, Alex Knell, David Bielewicz, John Henry Steelman, Julian Ludwig Scenic design by Michael Essad Costume design by Michael Montgomery Lighting design by Cat Wilson Sound design by Liz Atkinson Study Guide Prepared by Kristen L. Olson, Ph.D. © 2014 Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre Education and Enrichment Program Sponsors: ARAD, First National Bank of Pennsylvania, Henry C. Frick Educational Fund of the Buhl Foundation, Highmark Blue Cross Blue Shield, Levin Furniture, Maher Duessel, McKinney Charitable Foundation through PNC Charitable Trust Grant Review Committee, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, PPG Foundation, Ryan Memorial Foundation, United Concordia Companies, Inc., UPMC Health Plan and generous individual donors. Additional sponsorship from the National Endowment for the Arts for previous productions of Shakespeare. Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre (PICT) is one of 40 professional theater companies selected to participate in Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest, bringing the finest productions of Shakespeare to thousands of middle and high school students in communities across the United States. This is the eleventh year of Shakespeare in American Communities, the largest tour of Shakespeare educational productions in American history. 2 Greeting to Teachers: Our aim in assembling this guide is to help you integrate your class’ experience of the PICT production with your existing classroom activities. PICT’s “3 ACTS” program combines Pre-Performance Activities, Attendance at the Student Matinees, and Post-Performance Activities including assessment of student writing. PICT’s goal with our “3 ACTS” approach is to encourage students in the analysis and interpretation of great literature, providing students another audience for their writing, and teachers additional support for multiple educational initiatives. In addition to the English class, Macbeth has cross-curricular implications in psychology, philosophy & religious studies, theatre arts, music, and social studies. We offer these suggestions to supplement your own vision in the classroom. We encourage you to freely adapt any of the exercises offered here to fit your particular needs and those of your students. We also invite you to send your students’ writing to us for feedback. Each student will receive a personal response to his or her written work. We do not give grades, leaving that to your discretion. These essays make a nice contribution to a student’s personal writing portfolio! All suggested writing activities are founded on the PA Core Standards in English Language Arts and take into account the Literacy Framework of Pennsylvania as well as the guidelines as proffered by the National Council of Teachers of English. The PA Core Standards include: 1.2 Reading Informational Text 1.3 Reading Literature 1.4 Writing 1.5 Speaking and Listening We’re delighted to have you join us this season. 3 Plot Summary Act 1 Three witches stand on a gloomy heath, anticipating an encounter with the noble warrior Macbeth. They utter an enigmatic contradiction: “Fair is foul, and foul is fair.” The action shifts to a battle. The elderly Scottish king, Duncan, asks a soldier fresh from the battlefield how the fight is progressing. He is especially anxious for news of his young son Malcolm. The soldier reports that Scotland’s generals, Macbeth and Banquo, have defeated enemy troops led by Macdonwald, a traitor to Duncan. Macbeth has killed Macdonwald, displaying his severed head on the castle battlements, and Malcolm has been rescued from capture. A nobleman, the Thane of Ross, enters from another part of the battle with more good news: another enemy army has been defeated, and its leader, the Thane of Cawdor, another traitor to Duncan, has been captured. Duncan declares that Cawdor will be put to death and that Macbeth will assume the title of Thane of Cawdor in gratitude for his leadership and loyalty. Unaware of these developments, Macbeth and Banquo make their way back to Duncan’s court. The witches appear out of the darkness, and greet Macbeth by name. They call him Thane of Glamis, his current title, but also Thane of Cawdor, and foretell that he will become king and that Banquo will become the father of kings. The witches then vanish, leaving Macbeth and Banquo to puzzle through their predictions. Before the men get very far, they are met by Ross and another nobleman, Angus, who inform them of Duncan’s orders and that (voila!) Macbeth has been named Thane of Cawdor. Macbeth is fascinated by the witches’ accuracy, wondering what power they have and how their other predictions might come true. Banquo warns him that evil forces can use knowledge to exploit humans’ weaknesses: “instruments of darkness tell us truths…to betray us in deepest consequence” (1.3.133-35), but Macbeth remains preoccupied with the witches’ words. When they arrive at court, the king thanks Banquo and Macbeth for their loyalty. With his kingdom secure, he announces his plan to pass the throne to his son. He is confident that Malcom will be a strong king with the support and protection of the loyal thanes. Macbeth thanks Duncan for the title of Cawdor, and earnestly reiterates his loyalty, while silently noting that Malcolm now stands in the way of the witches’ prediction. Plans are made for Duncan to visit Macbeth’s home, a great honor, and Macbeth goes to prepare for the arrival of the king’s entourage. Macbeth is preceded by his letter to his wife telling her of his ascension to Thane of Cawdor. In it, he also shares his encounter with the witches. As their prophecy did for Macbeth, the letter awakens in Lady Macbeth a glimpse of a future in which they become the country’s rulers. When Lady Macbeth learns that Duncan will be in their home that night, she conceives a plan to make that vision a reality, by murdering the king. Macbeth initially refuses, reasoning that Duncan is a good and virtuous ruler who has placed his trust in Macbeth, perhaps no more so than tonight, when he sleeps under Macbeth’s protection. Macbeth is also loyal to his wife, and wants to provide for her everything that he can. He further sees in her the potential to be a strong queen, and to raise sons with the same virtues of strength and courage. He also knows he would be a good king, and is eager to lead the country. Macbeth concludes that he must wait, however; that his own ambition is not sufficient reason for killing the king. Lady Macbeth views this change of heart as a lack of courage, and accuses him of failing in his duty to her and to the country in the most fundamental ways. She resolves to carry out the murder herself. She plans to let Duncan’s guards become drunk, and as they sleep, fatally stab the king and smear his blood on the guards so that they appear responsible for his death. Macbeth still hesitates, but then agrees to the plan. 4 Act 2 Late that night, Banquo and his son Fleance are walking through the dark corridors of Macbeth’s castle. Banquo has been haunted in his sleep by thoughts of the witches. When Macbeth encounters them, he tells his friend to dismiss those thoughts, like he has done—words of comfort, but also a lie. Left alone, Macbeth sees a foreboding vision of a dagger floating in the air. It seems so real that he reaches for it, but concludes that his mind is simply unsettled. He firms his resolve just as he hears a bell, Lady Macbeth’s signal that the guards are asleep. Moments later, we see Lady Macbeth standing alone while Macbeth carries out the murder in the next room. She hears a scream and fears the plan has failed. Macbeth rushes out, badly shaken, his hands covered in blood. Lady Macbeth comforts him, but then notices that he still has the daggers in his hands. Furious, she rushes back into the room to stage the crime scene. Macbeth hears knocking at the castle door. The two are nervous, since their hands are figuratively and literally covered in blood, but Lady Macbeth insists that all will be well once they firm their resolve again: “A little water clears us of the deed. … Be not lost so poorly in your thoughts” (2.2.78-83). Macbeth cannot suppress his emotions, however. His response to Lady Macbeth reveals that he knows the action cannot be undone, and that he’ll never be able to reconcile it with his own sense of himself: “To know my deed, ’twere best not know myself” (2.2.84). The serious mood of the previous scenes is balanced by the comic entrance of the Porter. Dramatically, the audience needs a break at this point; things will turn dark and intense again quite quickly. The knocking that sent fear through Macbeth and Lady Macbeth is, to the Porter, simply a huge nuisance. It isn’t all a joke, however, since the Porter does compare his job to that of his counterpart posted at the gates of Hell. In one sense, the doors of Macbeth’s home have become portals to the darkest elements in human experience: murder and betrayal. In Dante’s Inferno, for instance, the lowest part of Hell is reserved for people who’ve betrayed those closest to them.

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