Shakespeare’s MACBETH is a tough, even “unlucky” play to stage. Many interpretations have been tried and yet more dreamt up. I am exploring that of Garry Wills in WITCHES & JESUITS (1995). Anyone  staging MACBETH along the lines Wills recommends  should step out in person before Act One, Scene One and say something along the following lines.

MACBETH is war for the soul of medieval Scotland. Duncan, a decent but too trusting king, is replaced by his murderer who later swings far to the dark side and trades his soul to Satan. If that Satanic king, Macbeth, be not replaced by a just, tougher monarch, what will become of Scotland? That kingdom might be ruled by hand picked diabolic successors of Macbeth: Saddam Hussain following Hitler, Osama Bin Laden following Idi Amin for ever and ever.

Shakespeare asks how such a state of affairs came to be, how it was undone, how it must be guarded against in the future. He presents a world in which a hierarchy of evil spirits lives among humans, tempting them and winning  their allegiance across a spectrum from fellow travelers up to total, unrepentant diabolists.

In Shakespeare’s world and that of the three contemporaries who composed THE WITCH OF EDMONTON, cursing, abusing language and demanding favors of Weird Sisters is to summon the devil himself to your side:
 

              “Thou never art so distant
From an evil spirit but that thy oaths,
Curses, and blasphemies pull him to thine elbow.”

Shakespeare’s world is alien to thought  of both this evening’s actors and you, their audience. But its assumptions must be entertained by our poetic acts of faith if we are to grasp both Scotland’s peril and Macbeth’s descent.

The evil spirits, the witches and their animal familiars are master misusers of language. They mix enough truth with either falsehood or ambiguity to tempt weak, ambitious mortals to reach beyond their allotted spheres and limits. “Thane of Glamis! Thane of Cawdor! All Hail Macbeth that shalt be king hereafter.”

That much the three Weird Sisters volunteer to generals Macbeth and Banquo. The witches will not disclose more unless compelled  to do so. And they can only be compelled to disclose the future by persons who have pacted with the devil, who have made themselves witches. 

The government of King James I, having survived the Gunpowder Plot of November 1605, was busy telling the world that evil spirits and witches had misused language (the Jesuit witches through their doctrine of “equivocation”) to convert loyal Catholic men into terrorists. Witchcraft and misuse of language were in the air when Shakespeare composed and his company staged MACBETH in 1606-1607.

The farseeing and suspicious King James I who detected the plot is, by implication, contrasted with the innocent, trusting Duncan. Duncan’s son and anointed successor Malcolm is portrayed as just duplicitous enough amidst his virtues as to be the right man to pull down and succeed Macbeth.

Powerful magic is required to ensnare the soul of Macbeth in its double “toils,” that is, nets. Diabolic spaces and circles are created by a cauldron and dances. These dances and songs are presented this evening in a rarely attempted degree of elaboration and finesse. Following Beerbohm Tree’s 1911 production we are today having Hecate, the Queen of Darkness, clothe Macbeth in a wizard’s cloak and give him a wizard’s staff which he will wear until he finally dons armor to fight against the Scottish resistance and their English allies.

This evening on our stage you will see Macbeth deliberately talk authentic witch talk, enter Satan’s magic circles of song and dance, renounce his baptismal vows and sell his soul and, by implication, Scotland itself , to Satan, the enemy of God and good government.

-OOO-

For INDEPENDENT TORCH