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Banquo's role, especially in the banquet ghost scene, has been subject to a variety of mediums and interpretations. Shakespeare's text states: "Enter Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth's place." [32] Several television versions have altered this slightly, having Banquo appear suddenly in the chair, rather than walking onstage and into it.
Macbeth was a favourite of the seventeenth-century diarist Samuel Pepys, who saw the play on 5 November 1664 ("admirably acted"), 28 December 1666 ("most excellently acted"), ten days later on 7 January 1667 ("though I saw it lately, yet [it] appears a most excellent play in all respects"), on 19 April 1667 ("one of the best plays for a stage ...
Proposals for printing a new edition of the plays of William Shakespeare, with notes, critical and explanatory, in which the text will be corrected: the various readings remarked: the conjuectures of former editors examined, and their omissions supplied. By the author of the Miscellaneous Observations on the Tragedy of Macbeth. [12]
The traditional origin is said to be a curse set upon the play by a coven of witches, angry at Shakespeare for using a real spell. [2] One hypothesis for the origin of this superstition is that Macbeth, being a popular play, was commonly put on by theatres in financial trouble, or that the high production costs of Macbeth put theatres in financial trouble.
Lord Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and quickly the Thane of Cawdor, is the title character and main protagonist in William Shakespeare's Macbeth (c. 1603–1607). The character is loosely based on the historical king Macbeth of Scotland and is derived largely from the account in Holinshed's Chronicles (1577), a compilation of British history.
At the banquet, Macbeth becomes haunted after seeing Banquo's ghost. The others panic at Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a harmless malady. Enraged, Macbeth is warned by the Three Witches to beware of Macduff, who has fled to England.
William Shakespeare's play Macbeth is said to be cursed, so actors avoid saying its name when in the theatre (the euphemism "The Scottish Play" is used instead). Actors also avoid even quoting the lines from Macbeth before performances, particularly the Witches' incantations. Outside a theatre and after a performance, the play can be spoken of ...
[143] [144] [145] In Macbeth, the shortest and most compressed of Shakespeare's tragedies, [146] uncontrollable ambition incites Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth, to murder the rightful king and usurp the throne until their own guilt destroys them in turn. [147] In this play, Shakespeare adds a supernatural element to the tragic structure.