Aquila Theatre Company in William Shakespeare’s
Stephens Auditorium 10 a.m.—60-minute guided tour (see p. 5 for more info) 7:30 p.m.—full performance Tuesday, November 1, 2011 For nearly four hundred years, Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written for the Elizabethan stage, has been performed for many audiences. Because of its universal appeal and short length (Macbeth is the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays), the play is frequently produced. Modern audiences enjoy the elements of ghosts, superstition and witchcraft together with an action-packed plot. Macbeth, a politically ambitious character, is married to a strong-willed wife who tries to cope with the guilt caused by their murder of an innocent king in order to further their power. Macbeth is the last of Shakespeare’s four great tragedies, the others being Hamlet, King Lear and Othello, and is considered by many scholars to be Shakespeare’s darkest work. Nowhere does he show life as more brutal and cynical.
William Shakespeare
Shakespeare’s chief source for Macbeth is Holinshed’s Chronicles (Click here to read Holinshed), who bases his account of Scotland’s history, and Macbeth’s in particular, on the Scortorum Hostoriae, written in 1527 by Hector Boece. Shakespeare altered these sources: to produce more exciting story than is found in the original sources to create a more complex characterization of Macbeth for the political purpose of catering to the beliefs of King James the First, the reigning monarch.
Shakespeare, the dramatist Very little is known about the life of Shakespeare. However, dates of his birth and death, and his marriage to Anne Hathaway have been verified by historians and by church records. He was born on April 23, 1564 to John and Mary Shakespeare. On November 23, 1582 he married Anne Hathaway. She was eight years older than he was. They had a child named Susanna, baptized on May 25, 1583 and then had twins, Hammet and Judith, baptized on February 2, 1585. Shakespeare proved himself to be a very good writer and an average actor. He was associated with a group of other actors called the Chamberlain’s Men and was one of the few actors who held a share in the company. He was also a part of the consortium who built and owned the Globe Theatre. With his writing and acting abilities he wrote plays at the rate of about two a year. In his lifetime he wrote 36 plays, 154 sonnets and two narrative poems. Macbeth was written around 1605 during Shakespeare’s so-called “Tragic Period.” The play, intended to teach us a lesson about the human condition, is a tragedy about a wealthy Scottish noble, Macbeth, who kills his king to gain the throne.
The Globe Theater