1 00:01:07,948 --> 00:01:09,279 Welcome to Stratford upon Avon... 2 00:01:09,616 --> 00:01:11,516 the hometown of William Shakespeare. 3 00:01:11,618 --> 00:01:13,950 It was in this small market town that Shakespeare was born... 4 00:01:14,287 --> 00:01:16,619 and it was here that he retired at the end of his life... 5 00:01:16,957 --> 00:01:18,515 to die, on St George's Day... 6 00:01:18,625 --> 00:01:21,287 a day that was coincidentally his own birthday. 7 00:01:21,962 --> 00:01:24,294 As you might expect, Stratford is now at the very center... 8 00:01:24,631 --> 00:01:27,623 of what you might call, the "Shakespeare Industry". 9 00:01:27,968 --> 00:01:30,300 The Royal Shakespeare Company has its headquarters here. 10 00:01:30,637 --> 00:01:32,298 The world renowned Shakespeare Center... 11 00:01:32,639 --> 00:01:35,870 is custodian of countless irreplaceable Shakespearean documents... 12 00:01:35,976 --> 00:01:38,206 and the Shakespeare Institute is one of the leading centers... 13 00:01:38,311 --> 00:01:40,643 for the study of Shakespeare, in the world. 14 00:01:40,981 --> 00:01:43,973 We shall be drawing upon the resources of all three of those institutions... 15 00:01:44,317 --> 00:01:46,217 to bring you what we hope will be, a useful... 16 00:01:46,319 --> 00:01:48,651 and valuable insight into the work of the man... 17 00:01:48,822 --> 00:01:53,486 who has been justifiably described as the greatest playwright of all time. 18 00:01:54,327 --> 00:01:56,887 Macbeth is the story of a Thane of Scotland... 19 00:01:56,997 --> 00:01:59,898 who allows himself to be persuaded by a combination of natural... 20 00:02:00,000 --> 00:02:01,592 and supernatural forces... 21 00:02:01,935 --> 00:02:04,927 to murder the King in order to gain the throne for himself. 22 00:02:05,272 --> 00:02:07,502 This sets in motion a frenetic series of events... 23 00:02:07,607 --> 00:02:10,940 which culminates in the death of everything which is dear to Macbeth... 24 00:02:11,278 --> 00:02:14,270 and finally leads to his own unhappy end. 25 00:02:14,614 --> 00:02:17,174 This is the work of a playwright at the height of his powers. 26 00:02:17,284 --> 00:02:19,844 It was written comparatively late in Shakespeare's career... 27 00:02:19,953 --> 00:02:21,614 and he had by this time, largely abandoned... 28 00:02:21,788 --> 00:02:25,121 the more formal verse of earlier plays like Richard II. 29 00:02:25,959 --> 00:02:28,519 The writing style has evolved into a mature style... 30 00:02:28,628 --> 00:02:30,960 which is less structured and more expressive. 31 00:02:31,298 --> 00:02:33,960 In fact, by the time Macbeth was written in 1606... 32 00:02:34,301 --> 00:02:37,202 rhyming couplets were used by Shakespeare very infrequently... 33 00:02:37,304 --> 00:02:39,636 and then only to mark the end of a scene. 34 00:02:40,640 --> 00:02:42,870 I was fortunate enough to play the role of Banquo... 35 00:02:42,976 --> 00:02:44,637 in the film you are about to see... 36 00:02:44,978 --> 00:02:47,970 so in a small way, I feel qualified to pose a few questions... 37 00:02:48,315 --> 00:02:50,647 concerning a man I feel I know very well. 38 00:02:50,817 --> 00:02:52,375 I say man, rather than character... 39 00:02:52,486 --> 00:02:54,477 because it is a mark of Shakespeare's genius... 40 00:02:54,654 --> 00:02:56,645 that his creations come to life so completely... 41 00:02:56,990 --> 00:02:59,652 that we do feel we know them almost personally. 42 00:03:00,660 --> 00:03:03,254 To lead us off on "Macbeth", with it's theme of the supernatural... 43 00:03:03,430 --> 00:03:06,422 we asked Dr. Robert Smallwood of the Shakespeare Center... 44 00:03:06,600 --> 00:03:09,501 and Professor Stanley Wells of the Shakespeare Institute... 45 00:03:09,603 --> 00:03:12,163 just how Shakespeare's contemporary audiences... 46 00:03:12,272 --> 00:03:14,832 may have reacted to the depiction of witchcraft. 47 00:03:14,941 --> 00:03:16,499 After all, we're dealing with a society... 48 00:03:16,610 --> 00:03:19,272 which was very different to the one which we know today. 49 00:03:19,946 --> 00:03:25,282 A lot of fuss is made about Elizabethan audiences' response to the witches. 50 00:03:25,952 --> 00:03:28,284 If you really push me I don't much care... 51 00:03:28,622 --> 00:03:31,614 how Elizabethan audiences responded to the witches. 52 00:03:33,627 --> 00:03:35,857 If we can only understand the play Macbeth... 53 00:03:35,962 --> 00:03:40,956 by doing a huge amount of research into Elizabethan beliefs... 54 00:03:41,301 --> 00:03:44,862 and Elizabethan laws about witches, then the play is a historical document... 55 00:03:44,971 --> 00:03:47,633 and not a work of art. 56 00:03:47,974 --> 00:03:50,636 It's Johnson, isn't it? Who says that Shakespeare... 57 00:03:50,977 --> 00:03:54,879 was not of an age but for all time and I profoundly believe that. 58 00:03:54,981 --> 00:03:57,973 I think what Shakespeare wants from the witches... 59 00:03:58,318 --> 00:04:04,587 is a kind of theatricalization of the idea of temptation. 60 00:04:06,092 --> 00:04:10,085 Poison venom, sleeping got... 61 00:04:11,765 --> 00:04:16,759 Boil thou first i'the charmed pot. 62 00:04:20,774 --> 00:04:24,107 Double, double, toil and trouble; 63 00:04:24,444 --> 00:04:28,107 Fire burn, and cauldron bubble. 64 00:04:28,281 --> 00:04:32,274 The witches are always a problem for modern audiences and modern directors. 65 00:04:33,453 --> 00:04:36,013 They are too liable to become pantomime figures... 66 00:04:36,122 --> 00:04:42,118 with their odd properties of dead thumbs and that sort of thing... 67 00:04:42,462 --> 00:04:44,123 they cast into a cauldron. 68 00:04:47,133 --> 00:04:51,797 Finger of birth-strangled babe... 69 00:04:52,138 --> 00:04:54,800 Ditch delivered by a drab... 70 00:04:55,141 --> 00:04:58,042 There were varied attitudes to witchcraft in Shakespeare's day... 71 00:04:58,144 --> 00:05:02,080 just as there are in our own. You can't talk in any sort of overall terms... 72 00:05:02,415 --> 00:05:05,316 on the Elizabethan attitude to witchcraft... 73 00:05:05,418 --> 00:05:09,650 but we might, for instance, take as an example the attitude of James I... 74 00:05:09,756 --> 00:05:12,657 the king at the time that Macbeth was written... 75 00:05:12,759 --> 00:05:15,990 who himself had written a book before he was king of England... 76 00:05:16,096 --> 00:05:20,658 when he was still king of Scotland, about witchcraft, "Demonology"... 77 00:05:20,767 --> 00:05:24,760 in which he shows that he believed at that point in witchcraft. 78 00:05:25,105 --> 00:05:27,437 This would have made the witches, I think... 79 00:05:27,774 --> 00:05:31,335 a more powerful, imaginative symbol... 80 00:05:31,444 --> 00:05:35,107 in Shakespeare's time than they are easily seen to be nowadays... 81 00:05:35,448 --> 00:05:37,780 which is why modern directors often have to find... 82 00:05:38,118 --> 00:05:41,781 more modern equivalents for the witches in a sense. 83 00:05:43,790 --> 00:05:46,020 It could be argued that the most popular play... 84 00:05:46,126 --> 00:05:48,356 that Shakespeare wrote was "Macbeth". 85 00:05:48,461 --> 00:05:51,123 It is certainly the most frequently performed of the tragedies. 86 00:05:51,297 --> 00:05:55,631 It is also the most accessible. The plot is simple and easy to follow... 87 00:05:55,802 --> 00:05:58,794 the action is fast paced and gripping in its intensity. 88 00:05:58,972 --> 00:06:00,906 Some critics have argued that despite its popularity... 89 00:06:01,241 --> 00:06:03,903 this is actually one of the most superficial of the tragedies. 90 00:06:04,244 --> 00:06:06,474 Whereas King Lear, written shortly after Macbeth... 91 00:06:06,579 --> 00:06:09,571 has been described famously as the "great Stonehenge of the mind"... 92 00:06:09,916 --> 00:06:11,907 there remains the suspicion that, in some circles... 93 00:06:12,252 --> 00:06:14,152 "Macbeth" is not considered to be one... 94 00:06:14,254 --> 00:06:16,916 of the intellectual heavyweights of the Shakespearean cannon... 95 00:06:17,257 --> 00:06:19,248 and possibly, we could be dealing here with a work... 96 00:06:19,592 --> 00:06:23,255 which is more concerned with action rather than the intellectual content. 97 00:06:24,097 --> 00:06:26,429 For my part, I am sure that's not the case... 98 00:06:26,766 --> 00:06:29,758 but it is a question that bears closer examination. 99 00:06:30,437 --> 00:06:32,769 I think Macbeth certainly is a thriller. 100 00:06:33,106 --> 00:06:37,099 It's one of Shakespeare's shortest plays, most violent plays. 101 00:06:37,777 --> 00:06:42,009 It's one of Shakespeare's most concentrated plays. It's a play... 102 00:06:42,115 --> 00:06:44,447 without any kind of sub-plot at all... 103 00:06:44,784 --> 00:06:47,446 and its movement is extraordinarily rapid... 104 00:06:47,787 --> 00:06:51,348 from the inception of the idea of killing Duncan... 105 00:06:51,458 --> 00:06:57,363 to the final awful consequences of the road that takes Macbeth along. 106 00:06:57,464 --> 00:07:01,059 So certainly it's a thriller, also in one very technical sense... 107 00:07:01,234 --> 00:07:04,226 in that it almost all takes place in the dark. 108 00:07:04,571 --> 00:07:08,905 There is no play of Shakespeare's that is more a night play than Macbeth. 109 00:07:12,912 --> 00:07:14,573 My husband! 110 00:07:15,915 --> 00:07:17,576 I have done the deed. 111 00:07:17,917 --> 00:07:19,475 Didst thou not hear a noise? 112 00:07:19,586 --> 00:07:23,147 I heard the owl scream and the cricket's cry. Did not you speak? 113 00:07:23,256 --> 00:07:24,587 - When? - Now. 114 00:07:24,924 --> 00:07:26,255 - As I descended? - Aye. 115 00:07:26,593 --> 00:07:30,256 Hark! Who lies i'the second chamber? 116 00:07:32,265 --> 00:07:33,926 Donalbain. 117 00:07:34,100 --> 00:07:36,000 This is a sorry sight. 118 00:07:36,102 --> 00:07:38,332 It is a thrilling and exciting story... 119 00:07:38,438 --> 00:07:41,430 but it is a lot more than that too. 120 00:07:41,775 --> 00:07:45,108 It's a play that works on many levels at once... 121 00:07:45,445 --> 00:07:51,782 and the reason why it is regarded as a great play, I suppose... 122 00:07:52,118 --> 00:07:54,109 rather than just a good melodrama... 123 00:07:54,454 --> 00:07:58,447 is the way that it does explore... 124 00:07:58,625 --> 00:08:01,560 more fundamental aspects of the human condition. 125 00:08:01,728 --> 00:08:03,628 One cried 'God bless us! ' and 'Amen' the other; 126 00:08:03,730 --> 00:08:06,722 As they had seen me with these hangman's hands. 127 00:08:07,400 --> 00:08:08,958 Listening their fear... 128 00:08:09,068 --> 00:08:12,401 I could not say 'Amen' when they did say 'God bless us'. 129 00:08:12,739 --> 00:08:16,072 - Consider it not so deeply. - But wherefore could not I say 'Amen'? 130 00:08:17,076 --> 00:08:19,636 I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen' stuck in my throat. 131 00:08:19,746 --> 00:08:22,408 These deeds must not be thought after these ways; 132 00:08:22,749 --> 00:08:24,410 So, it will make us mad. 133 00:08:25,418 --> 00:08:28,319 Macbeth is accompanied in the early part of the play by my character... 134 00:08:28,421 --> 00:08:31,083 a fellow warrior and noble of Scotland, called Banquo. 135 00:08:31,424 --> 00:08:34,086 While Macbeth takes the path into darkness and evil... 136 00:08:34,427 --> 00:08:37,328 Banquo remains true to the noble qualities and loyalty... 137 00:08:37,430 --> 00:08:39,421 which we can see is in him. 138 00:08:39,766 --> 00:08:43,099 Critics often comment that Banquo is the mirror image of Macbeth... 139 00:08:43,436 --> 00:08:46,428 the Macbeth that could have been, had he stayed on the right path. 140 00:08:46,773 --> 00:08:49,765 It is a topic that hopefully repays some detailed examination. 141 00:08:50,777 --> 00:08:55,111 Banquo might almost be seen as a conscience figure for Macbeth. 142 00:08:55,782 --> 00:09:02,051 He is important, partly because in the opening episode... 143 00:09:02,388 --> 00:09:05,380 in which he and Macbeth are first seen... 144 00:09:05,725 --> 00:09:08,057 Banquo and Macbeth come on together... 145 00:09:09,395 --> 00:09:12,387 both of them are presented with the same temptation... 146 00:09:14,734 --> 00:09:19,068 but Banquo is the one who does not yield to temptation. 147 00:09:19,405 --> 00:09:21,396 As the play goes on... 148 00:09:22,408 --> 00:09:26,071 Banquo retains this symbolic function... 149 00:09:26,412 --> 00:09:32,749 as a sort of counterpoint to Macbeth, as his conscience... 150 00:09:33,086 --> 00:09:38,422 in the sense that Macbeth has to kill Banquo, kill his conscience... 151 00:09:38,758 --> 00:09:43,422 before he can go on to commit the crimes of the rest of the play. 152 00:09:51,437 --> 00:09:55,669 Thou hast it now: King, Cawdor, Glamis... 153 00:09:55,775 --> 00:09:58,437 all as the weird women promised; 154 00:09:59,112 --> 00:10:02,343 and I fear thou playest most foully for't. 155 00:10:02,448 --> 00:10:05,440 We haven't any idea at that point... 156 00:10:06,119 --> 00:10:09,782 that Macbeth is going to move against Banquo. 157 00:10:10,456 --> 00:10:13,118 He has said nothing to the audience whatsoever... 158 00:10:13,459 --> 00:10:18,123 but the audience immediately hearing Banquo... 159 00:10:18,798 --> 00:10:22,791 thinks this man is a danger to Macbeth... 160 00:10:23,803 --> 00:10:27,466 and Macbeth we have taken into our confidence. 161 00:10:28,141 --> 00:10:32,134 It seems to me that the audience thinks of the idea of killing Banquo... 162 00:10:32,478 --> 00:10:36,039 before we know that Macbeth has thought of the idea of killing Banquo. 163 00:10:36,149 --> 00:10:42,145 You can't totally kill conscience. Murder is not enough... 164 00:10:43,156 --> 00:10:45,818 so that Macbeth still retains... 165 00:10:46,659 --> 00:10:51,221 within himself the capacity to be moved by Banquo... 166 00:10:51,331 --> 00:10:54,994 even after Banquo has died. The conscience is still partly there... 167 00:10:55,335 --> 00:10:58,668 and that's why the banquet scene is such a powerful... 168 00:10:58,838 --> 00:11:00,772 and moving scene as it is, I think. 169 00:11:14,620 --> 00:11:16,952 The relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth... 170 00:11:17,290 --> 00:11:20,851 alters dramatically by the time Macbeth has committed the last of his crimes. 171 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:24,623 She descends into madness, while he appears to be gathering strength... 172 00:11:24,964 --> 00:11:28,297 and resolve to, in his words, "try the last". 173 00:11:28,634 --> 00:11:30,534 Macbeth and Lady Macbeth in the early part of the play... 174 00:11:30,636 --> 00:11:32,968 are portrayed as an ideal married couple. 175 00:11:38,811 --> 00:11:40,472 My dearest love... 176 00:11:41,481 --> 00:11:43,813 Duncan comes here tonight. 177 00:11:45,151 --> 00:11:49,485 - And when goes hence? - Tomorrow, as he purposes. 178 00:11:49,822 --> 00:11:52,484 Not in any very modern domestic sense... 179 00:11:53,159 --> 00:11:56,390 but Macbeth has Lady Macbeth as... 180 00:11:56,496 --> 00:12:00,489 somebody who wishes what she regards as good for him... 181 00:12:00,767 --> 00:12:03,759 she thinks it would be a good thing for him to become king... 182 00:12:04,103 --> 00:12:06,094 and in fact also for her to become queen... 183 00:12:06,439 --> 00:12:09,772 and she supports her husband in a totally loyal... 184 00:12:10,109 --> 00:12:11,770 and devoted way. 185 00:12:12,278 --> 00:12:14,610 We will proceed no further in this business. 186 00:12:15,281 --> 00:12:17,181 He hath honoured me of late... 187 00:12:17,283 --> 00:12:20,275 and I have bought golden opinions from all sorts of people... 188 00:12:20,620 --> 00:12:23,953 which would he worn now in their newest gloss... 189 00:12:25,291 --> 00:12:27,282 not cast aside so soon. 190 00:12:37,136 --> 00:12:40,128 Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself? 191 00:12:42,809 --> 00:12:44,800 Hath it slept since? 192 00:12:45,144 --> 00:12:50,810 And wakes it now to look so green and pale at what it did so freely? 193 00:12:51,818 --> 00:12:56,482 A very usual way of playing the relationship, these days... 194 00:12:56,656 --> 00:13:02,253 is of Lady Macbeth using her sexuality as a kind of bribe... 195 00:13:02,428 --> 00:13:07,422 to Macbeth to get him to kill Duncan, as it were, for her. 196 00:13:07,600 --> 00:13:11,934 'When thou derst do it, then thou wert a man', she says... 197 00:13:12,605 --> 00:13:19,943 with an implication that one sees, I don't think it's the only way to it... 198 00:13:21,114 --> 00:13:28,111 that if he doesn't kill Duncan for her then... 199 00:13:28,788 --> 00:13:32,781 their sexual relationship will be concluded by her. 200 00:13:33,459 --> 00:13:37,122 From this time such I account thy love. 201 00:13:38,464 --> 00:13:42,127 Art thou afeard to be the same in thine own act and valour... 202 00:13:42,468 --> 00:13:44,800 as thou art in desire? 203 00:13:45,304 --> 00:13:47,636 Wouldst thou have that which thou esteem'st the ornament of life... 204 00:13:47,807 --> 00:13:52,141 and live a coward in thine own esteem, letting I dare not wait upon I would... 205 00:13:52,311 --> 00:13:55,303 - Like the poor cat i'the adage? - Prithee peace. 206 00:13:55,982 --> 00:13:59,975 I dare do all that may become a man; Who dares do more is none. 207 00:14:03,256 --> 00:14:06,589 What beast was't then that made you break this enterprise to me? 208 00:14:12,098 --> 00:14:14,089 When you durst do it... 209 00:14:15,101 --> 00:14:17,433 then you were a man; 210 00:14:18,771 --> 00:14:21,433 And to be more than what you were... 211 00:14:22,108 --> 00:14:25,771 you would be so much more the man. 212 00:14:26,445 --> 00:14:31,678 Nor time nor place did then adhere, and yet you would make both. 213 00:14:31,784 --> 00:14:37,120 She wants Duncan killed but needs his physical strength to get it done. 214 00:14:37,456 --> 00:14:39,686 He, in a sense, also wants to kill Duncan. 215 00:14:39,792 --> 00:14:43,023 We see that in the soliloquies with which he responds... 216 00:14:43,129 --> 00:14:45,120 to the witches prophecy that he will be king. 217 00:14:45,298 --> 00:14:47,960 He wants that power very, very badly... 218 00:14:48,134 --> 00:14:51,467 but he has the physical strength of doing it obviously because... 219 00:14:51,637 --> 00:14:55,539 Duncan is an old man, or normally portrayed as old... 220 00:14:55,641 --> 00:14:57,541 he's got the physical ability to do it but... 221 00:14:57,643 --> 00:14:59,975 actually he doesn't have the willpower to do it without her... 222 00:15:00,146 --> 00:15:05,743 so they absolutely need each other for this first phase of the play. 223 00:15:06,085 --> 00:15:08,076 I have given suck... 224 00:15:08,754 --> 00:15:12,747 and know how tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me; 225 00:15:14,760 --> 00:15:19,424 I would while it was smiling in my face... 226 00:15:20,099 --> 00:15:23,330 have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums... 227 00:15:23,436 --> 00:15:26,098 and dashed the brains out... 228 00:15:28,774 --> 00:15:31,766 had I so sworn as you have done to this. 229 00:15:36,782 --> 00:15:39,114 If we should fail? 230 00:15:43,122 --> 00:15:45,113 We fail! 231 00:15:46,292 --> 00:15:48,954 But screw your courage to the sticking place... 232 00:15:50,796 --> 00:15:52,696 and we'll not fail. 233 00:15:52,798 --> 00:15:55,790 But it's a relationship that breaks down. 234 00:15:56,802 --> 00:16:02,069 After the murder of Duncan... 235 00:16:03,409 --> 00:16:09,746 it begins to go, Macbeth seems to feel it's necessary to act on his own... 236 00:16:10,416 --> 00:16:13,078 and Lady Macbeth fades out of the picture. 237 00:16:13,586 --> 00:16:16,578 From the moment the deed is done... 238 00:16:17,256 --> 00:16:20,248 Macbeth is off stage twelve lines... 239 00:16:21,260 --> 00:16:25,162 and he comes back, in his own words... 240 00:16:25,264 --> 00:16:28,597 'with his eternal fate sealed'. 241 00:16:28,934 --> 00:16:32,267 Twelve lines to seal your eternal fate. 242 00:16:33,439 --> 00:16:38,775 He comes back and from that moment they are not talking the same language. 243 00:16:39,111 --> 00:16:42,444 I mean, he's talking about Macbeth 'has murdered sleep'... 244 00:16:42,782 --> 00:16:46,445 and that 'one cried sleep no more... 245 00:16:46,786 --> 00:16:49,346 and the other answered and he couldn't say amen' and so on. 246 00:16:49,455 --> 00:16:51,013 And then you get Macbeth saying things like... 247 00:16:51,123 --> 00:16:53,353 'Oh there are two lodged together'... 248 00:16:53,459 --> 00:16:57,020 like some little seaside landlady really, all of a sudden... 249 00:16:57,129 --> 00:17:01,725 and he's in the wilds of self-destructive imaginings... 250 00:17:02,568 --> 00:17:04,559 'a little water clears us of this deed'. 251 00:17:05,237 --> 00:17:08,900 A little water clears us of this deed. 252 00:17:09,742 --> 00:17:11,733 How easy is it then... 253 00:17:13,579 --> 00:17:16,571 your conscious has left thee unattended. 254 00:17:20,252 --> 00:17:21,480 Get on your night gown... 255 00:17:21,587 --> 00:17:24,579 unless occasion calls and show us to be watchers. 256 00:17:30,763 --> 00:17:33,425 To know my deed, to best not know myself. 257 00:17:33,766 --> 00:17:39,432 No, no, they are not talking the same language at all at this point... 258 00:17:39,772 --> 00:17:44,106 and of course the next time we see them together... 259 00:17:44,443 --> 00:17:46,775 they are... 260 00:17:48,447 --> 00:17:52,349 a very, very long way apart indeed. 261 00:17:52,451 --> 00:17:56,114 Macbeth has conceived the idea of killing Banquo by this point... 262 00:17:57,623 --> 00:18:00,888 and he tells Lady Macbeth not to bother about it. 263 00:18:02,728 --> 00:18:06,391 There's comfort yet, they are ceilable. 264 00:18:09,402 --> 00:18:11,734 What's to be done? 265 00:18:15,741 --> 00:18:18,073 Be innocent of the knowledge dearest chuck... 266 00:18:18,411 --> 00:18:20,743 till thou applaud the deed. 267 00:18:21,080 --> 00:18:24,072 'Be innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck... 268 00:18:24,417 --> 00:18:27,978 til you applaud the deed'. What a patronizing thing to say... 269 00:18:28,087 --> 00:18:31,079 don't trouble your pretty little head about it, darling... 270 00:18:32,425 --> 00:18:34,416 and a little bit after that... 271 00:18:36,095 --> 00:18:38,427 he's dismissing everybody. 272 00:18:38,764 --> 00:18:42,097 Let every man be master of his time, till seven at night. 273 00:18:42,935 --> 00:18:47,269 To make society the sweeter welcome will keep ourselves to supper time. 274 00:18:47,940 --> 00:18:51,603 Alone, then God be with you. 275 00:18:55,281 --> 00:18:57,272 'We will be alone til seven at night... 276 00:18:58,451 --> 00:19:02,387 til supper we will keep ourself alone'... 277 00:19:02,721 --> 00:19:06,384 meaning get out of here as well you, Lady Macbeth... 278 00:19:06,559 --> 00:19:08,891 as all these other superfluous courtiers. 279 00:19:09,395 --> 00:19:11,056 But as the play goes on... 280 00:19:11,730 --> 00:19:15,632 Lady Macbeth reacts imaginatively... 281 00:19:15,734 --> 00:19:18,294 in a way which much more resembles the way... 282 00:19:18,404 --> 00:19:21,066 in which Macbeth had worked in the earlier part of the play... 283 00:19:21,407 --> 00:19:24,399 and this is the importance of the sleepwalking scene in the play. 284 00:19:24,577 --> 00:19:26,568 Yet here's a spot. 285 00:19:27,246 --> 00:19:29,237 She speaks. 286 00:19:31,584 --> 00:19:37,921 I'll set down what come from her to satisfy my remembrance. 287 00:19:39,258 --> 00:19:42,921 Out, damn spot... 288 00:19:43,262 --> 00:19:44,923 out I say. 289 00:19:45,264 --> 00:19:49,598 And the sleepwalking scene shows us the subconscience that Lady Macbeth... 290 00:19:49,935 --> 00:19:52,597 we may assume, has had to suppress... 291 00:19:52,938 --> 00:19:58,274 to clamp down on, in the earlier part of the play. 292 00:20:02,114 --> 00:20:05,675 Go to, go to: you have known what you should not. 293 00:20:05,784 --> 00:20:09,117 She has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that. 294 00:20:09,955 --> 00:20:12,617 Heavens knows what she has known. 295 00:20:17,963 --> 00:20:20,295 Here's the smell of the blood again. 296 00:20:24,303 --> 00:20:27,966 All the perfumes of Arabia... 297 00:20:28,307 --> 00:20:30,969 will not sweeten this little hand. 298 00:20:31,644 --> 00:20:35,637 And she, in the sleepwalking scene... 299 00:20:35,981 --> 00:20:40,645 is in the world of wild imaginings that he was... 300 00:20:40,986 --> 00:20:45,320 asking questions like 'Who would have thought the old man... 301 00:20:45,658 --> 00:20:48,320 to have had so much blood in him? '... 302 00:20:48,994 --> 00:20:52,555 a question that comes for her three acts too late, I suppose... 303 00:20:52,665 --> 00:20:55,998 otherwise they wouldn't have gone down the road... 304 00:20:56,168 --> 00:20:57,829 that they have gone down. 305 00:20:58,003 --> 00:21:01,495 It has often been said that Macbeth is the one exponent of evil... 306 00:21:01,607 --> 00:21:04,599 for whom we nonetheless, still hold some sympathy. 307 00:21:05,277 --> 00:21:08,838 We stay with Macbeth from the moment he meets the witches... 308 00:21:08,948 --> 00:21:10,939 to his grisly end on the battlefield... 309 00:21:11,283 --> 00:21:13,843 and despite the fact that he performs a series of wicked deeds... 310 00:21:13,953 --> 00:21:16,615 we never quite lose our fascination for him. 311 00:21:16,789 --> 00:21:19,690 It's a theme which has enthralled writers and critics over the years... 312 00:21:19,792 --> 00:21:23,455 and it's one which is well worth examining in some detail. 313 00:21:30,803 --> 00:21:33,033 They have tied me to a stake, I cannot fly... 314 00:21:33,138 --> 00:21:35,470 But bear-like I must fight the course. 315 00:21:36,475 --> 00:21:41,469 What's he that was not born of woman? Such a one am I to fear, or none. 316 00:21:45,985 --> 00:21:48,647 Macbeth is certainly not a figure of unqualified evil. 317 00:21:49,989 --> 00:21:54,221 In the first place, Shakespeare establishes him immediately... 318 00:21:54,326 --> 00:21:57,887 he comes on as a great warrior and that in itself we, I suppose... 319 00:21:57,997 --> 00:21:59,328 must regard as admirable. 320 00:21:59,665 --> 00:22:04,261 It's not so easy nowadays to admire a person, perhaps, for being a killer. 321 00:22:04,937 --> 00:22:08,600 In battle, and that's part of the moral complexity of the play... 322 00:22:08,941 --> 00:22:12,502 that Macbeth is admired by people in his own society... 323 00:22:12,611 --> 00:22:15,603 and by himself for being able to kill people in battle. 324 00:22:15,781 --> 00:22:17,772 - What is thy name? - Thou'lt be afraid to hear it. 325 00:22:18,117 --> 00:22:20,677 No, though thou call'st thyself a hotter name than any is in hell. 326 00:22:20,786 --> 00:22:22,447 My name's Macbeth. 327 00:22:22,788 --> 00:22:26,121 The devil himself could not pronounce a title more hateful to mine ear. 328 00:22:26,291 --> 00:22:29,954 - No, nor more fearful. - Thou liest, abhorred tyrant! 329 00:22:30,295 --> 00:22:33,287 With my sword I'll prove the lie thou speak'st. 330 00:22:51,817 --> 00:22:53,808 Thou wast born of woman. 331 00:22:56,155 --> 00:22:59,386 Macbeth certainly is tempted to do something evil... 332 00:22:59,491 --> 00:23:03,086 but he knows it's evil. He's a man of moral scruples. 333 00:23:03,429 --> 00:23:06,660 It's true that those scruples are eventually overcome... 334 00:23:06,765 --> 00:23:10,997 but Shakespeare shows us very deeply into the mind of a man... 335 00:23:11,103 --> 00:23:16,439 who is aware of evil, who knows what evil is... 336 00:23:17,109 --> 00:23:20,442 who admittedly is dragged into committing evil... 337 00:23:20,779 --> 00:23:25,011 but does so very much against what must be seen as his better nature... 338 00:23:25,117 --> 00:23:31,454 so Macbeth is admirable in the sense that he is a morally aware figure. 339 00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:37,622 Is this a dagger which I see before me... 340 00:23:37,963 --> 00:23:43,299 the handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. 341 00:23:44,970 --> 00:23:48,963 I have thee not and yet I see thee still! 342 00:23:49,308 --> 00:23:53,642 Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible to feeling as to sight? 343 00:23:53,812 --> 00:23:55,803 Or art thou but a dagger of the mind... 344 00:23:55,981 --> 00:23:59,644 a false creation, proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain? 345 00:24:00,753 --> 00:24:05,747 I see thee yet, in form as palpable as this which now I draw. 346 00:24:06,091 --> 00:24:08,082 Thou marshall'st me the way that I was going... 347 00:24:08,260 --> 00:24:10,922 and such an instrument I was to use. 348 00:24:11,764 --> 00:24:13,994 Mine eyes are made the fools o'the other senses... 349 00:24:14,099 --> 00:24:18,661 or else wirth all the rest. I see thee still; 350 00:24:18,771 --> 00:24:23,435 And, on thy blade and dudgeon, gouts of blood, which was not so before. 351 00:24:24,443 --> 00:24:26,673 There's no such thing. It is the bloody business... 352 00:24:26,779 --> 00:24:28,770 which informs thus to mine eyes. 353 00:24:29,281 --> 00:24:32,512 There is everything to admire about Macbeth, I am sure. 354 00:24:32,618 --> 00:24:37,954 He destroys himself, of course, but he destroys himself... 355 00:24:38,290 --> 00:24:44,286 in a state of communication with the audience from beginning to end... 356 00:24:44,630 --> 00:24:47,963 sharing with them at every stage... 357 00:24:48,300 --> 00:24:52,202 his awareness of the consequences of what he is doing... 358 00:24:52,304 --> 00:24:57,970 in language that is astonishingly alive theatrically... 359 00:24:58,143 --> 00:25:01,408 extraordinarily engaging theatrically... 360 00:25:02,414 --> 00:25:05,747 capable of measuring practically the heart beats... 361 00:25:06,418 --> 00:25:09,751 of his own passion and involvement and emotion... 362 00:25:10,088 --> 00:25:12,420 in the experience that he is going through. 363 00:25:13,425 --> 00:25:15,416 Everything to admire in Macbeth... 364 00:25:16,762 --> 00:25:21,324 in terms of his wonderful self-awareness... 365 00:25:21,433 --> 00:25:26,336 a self awareness that doesn't leave him, even at the end of thejourney... 366 00:25:26,438 --> 00:25:30,431 when the consequences of the road that he has taken... 367 00:25:30,776 --> 00:25:35,770 leave him on the edge of the abyss. 368 00:25:36,949 --> 00:25:38,940 This push will chair me ever... 369 00:25:39,284 --> 00:25:41,616 or disseat me now. 370 00:25:45,624 --> 00:25:50,618 I have lived long enough: my way of life is fallen into the sere... 371 00:25:50,963 --> 00:25:52,954 the yellow leaf; 372 00:25:53,632 --> 00:25:55,964 And that which should accompany old age, as... 373 00:25:56,635 --> 00:25:58,967 honour, love... 374 00:26:00,305 --> 00:26:04,241 obedience, troops of friends, I must not look to have; 375 00:26:05,077 --> 00:26:07,068 but, in their stead... 376 00:26:07,579 --> 00:26:11,242 curses, not loud... 377 00:26:11,917 --> 00:26:14,909 but deep, mouth-honour... 378 00:26:15,254 --> 00:26:19,588 breath which the poor heart would fain deny and dare not. 379 00:26:20,592 --> 00:26:22,253 Seyton! 380 00:26:22,594 --> 00:26:25,256 What's your gracious pleasure? 381 00:26:25,931 --> 00:26:30,595 - What news more? - All is confirmed, which was reported. 382 00:26:31,603 --> 00:26:35,266 I'll fight till from my bones, my flesh be hacked. 383 00:26:35,941 --> 00:26:37,272 Give me my armour. 384 00:26:38,110 --> 00:26:40,340 In order for a play to be categorized as a tragedy... 385 00:26:40,445 --> 00:26:44,108 it is necessary that the hero be famous or of significant stature. 386 00:26:44,449 --> 00:26:46,440 Secondly he must die because of a series of events... 387 00:26:46,785 --> 00:26:50,346 which he himself has set in motion. There is a danger, therefore... 388 00:26:50,455 --> 00:26:54,118 that tragedy in itself, might seem to be pessimistic by it's very nature. 389 00:26:55,127 --> 00:26:59,029 It could be argued that if these plays culminate in the death of the hero... 390 00:26:59,131 --> 00:27:02,066 that they are simply an exercise in doom and gloom? 391 00:27:02,401 --> 00:27:04,631 The popular consensus is different. 392 00:27:04,736 --> 00:27:08,399 There is something in this play which is unique and powerful. 393 00:27:19,751 --> 00:27:21,742 Tis that noise? 394 00:27:23,422 --> 00:27:25,754 Tis the cry of women, my good lord. 395 00:27:32,597 --> 00:27:34,588 Finally, in that wonderful speech... 396 00:27:34,933 --> 00:27:36,833 the 'tomorrow, tomorrow and tomorrow' speech... 397 00:27:36,935 --> 00:27:41,599 a very symbolist speech, in that speech there Macbeth is... 398 00:27:41,940 --> 00:27:47,606 expressing a sense of desolation, of meaningless... 399 00:27:47,946 --> 00:27:51,279 which I am sure is not Shakespeare telling us that life is meaningless... 400 00:27:51,616 --> 00:27:53,846 but it's showing the sense of meaningless... 401 00:27:53,952 --> 00:27:56,944 that can come to somebody who has betrayed himself... 402 00:27:57,289 --> 00:28:01,885 betrayed his better self so completely and absolutely as Macbeth has. 403 00:28:12,571 --> 00:28:14,232 Wherefore was that cry? 404 00:28:16,241 --> 00:28:18,232 The queen, my lord, is dead. 405 00:28:30,589 --> 00:28:32,921 She should have died hereafter. 406 00:28:34,259 --> 00:28:36,921 There would have been a time for such a word: 407 00:28:40,599 --> 00:28:42,590 Tomorrow... 408 00:28:43,268 --> 00:28:45,259 and tomorrow... 409 00:28:45,604 --> 00:28:49,836 and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day... 410 00:28:49,941 --> 00:28:52,603 to the last syllable of recorded time; 411 00:28:55,781 --> 00:28:57,772 And all our yesterdays... 412 00:28:57,949 --> 00:29:01,544 have lighted fools the way to dusty death. 413 00:29:03,555 --> 00:29:07,548 Out, out briefcandle! 414 00:29:10,896 --> 00:29:14,559 Life's but a walking shadow... 415 00:29:16,234 --> 00:29:18,566 a poor player... 416 00:29:19,237 --> 00:29:22,570 that struts and frets his hour upon the stage... 417 00:29:22,741 --> 00:29:24,732 and then is heard no more. 418 00:29:27,412 --> 00:29:29,403 It is a tale told by an idiot... 419 00:29:30,415 --> 00:29:33,077 full of sound and fury... 420 00:29:43,095 --> 00:29:44,756 signifying nothing. 421 00:29:47,432 --> 00:29:51,095 Macbeth is, of course, a play about individuals, it's about people... 422 00:29:51,770 --> 00:29:56,434 but it's also a play about the fate of a nation, the fate of Scotland. 423 00:29:57,109 --> 00:29:59,441 You have a sort of savior figure coming up... 424 00:29:59,778 --> 00:30:01,769 in the figure of Malcolm at the end of the play... 425 00:30:02,114 --> 00:30:07,450 so I don't think at all that Macbeth is a pessimistic play in total impact. 426 00:30:07,786 --> 00:30:11,688 Of course, it's a tragedy, a tragedy involves death. 427 00:30:11,790 --> 00:30:16,022 We are, to some degree at least, emotionally involved with Macbeth... 428 00:30:16,128 --> 00:30:20,121 of course Macbeth is not the sympathetic hero that... 429 00:30:20,298 --> 00:30:22,960 well, Shakespeare portrays for example in Hamlet and King Lear. 430 00:30:23,468 --> 00:30:27,461 Therefore, the death of the tragic hero, the tragic figure... 431 00:30:27,806 --> 00:30:30,138 may be welcome to the audience... 432 00:30:30,475 --> 00:30:33,706 which would mean that although it's bad for Macbeth it's not bad for us... 433 00:30:33,812 --> 00:30:37,373 in other words the play has, to a certain degree, a happy ending. 434 00:30:37,482 --> 00:30:42,818 Really in my definition I don't think Macbeth is pessimistic in any... 435 00:30:43,155 --> 00:30:46,818 profound sense at all. There is an awful sense... 436 00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:50,822 of waste, of terror... 437 00:30:51,496 --> 00:30:54,158 of fear about the play... 438 00:30:54,499 --> 00:30:58,162 but Macbeth is absolutely clear... 439 00:30:58,503 --> 00:31:02,667 as he contemplates the murder of Duncan... 440 00:31:02,774 --> 00:31:04,765 that if he goes ahead with it... 441 00:31:05,110 --> 00:31:08,773 he will destroy what he calls his eternal jewel. 442 00:31:09,114 --> 00:31:12,106 I think Macbeth is one of Shakespeare's most intense plays... 443 00:31:13,118 --> 00:31:16,349 one of the most theatrically exciting and energized of his plays. 444 00:31:16,454 --> 00:31:20,015 It's so quick, so fast, so inexorable... 445 00:31:20,125 --> 00:31:23,788 in the progression... 446 00:31:24,462 --> 00:31:29,126 from the first idea of power, get power by killing... 447 00:31:29,467 --> 00:31:32,800 killing once, kill again, kill again, kill more, kill more... 448 00:31:33,138 --> 00:31:37,131 and the person who begins entirely one of us... 449 00:31:37,475 --> 00:31:40,137 takes us through the process... 450 00:31:40,478 --> 00:31:45,142 of making those decisions that follow inexorably one after the other. 451 00:31:45,483 --> 00:31:48,816 Once you have done a crime you need to do another to cover it up... 452 00:31:49,154 --> 00:31:52,487 and I think the theatrical intensity in that... 453 00:31:52,824 --> 00:31:56,385 the vividness of the relationship between Macbeth and the audience... 454 00:31:56,494 --> 00:31:59,827 pulls you through those experiences... 455 00:32:00,165 --> 00:32:03,657 in a way which, in a half decent production... 456 00:32:03,768 --> 00:32:06,760 is extraordinarily exciting and involving... 457 00:32:07,105 --> 00:32:09,767 and when Malcolm comes on at the end... 458 00:32:10,108 --> 00:32:13,339 and dismisses the chap he'd just spend the evening with... 459 00:32:13,445 --> 00:32:17,438 as a 'dead butcher' and his wife as 'a fiend-like queen'... 460 00:32:17,782 --> 00:32:21,445 you say, uh, uh, you don't know the half. No, no, it was different from that... 461 00:32:21,786 --> 00:32:24,448 it was more important than that... 462 00:32:24,789 --> 00:32:30,125 it really took us through this experience... 463 00:32:30,462 --> 00:32:35,126 and I think Shakespeare has put his finger on some very raw nerves indeed. 464 00:32:35,634 --> 00:32:38,296 Blow wind, come lack. 465 00:32:40,972 --> 00:32:43,634 At least we'll die with hardness on our back.