WILLIAM SHAKESPEAREThe Bard of Avon

He was not of an age, but for all time! ~ Ben Jonson

He was the man who of all modern, and perhaps ancient poets, had the

largest and most comprehensive soul. ~

John Dryden

Our myriad-minded

Shakespear. ~

Samuel Taylor

Coleridge

Shakespeare - The

nearest thing in

incarnation to the

eye of God. ~Laurence Olivier

The remarkable thing about

Shakespeare is that he really is

very good, in spite of all the people

who say he is very good.  ~ Robert

Graves 

THE LIFE

• BORN: APRIL 23, 1564 in Stratford upon Avon• DIED: APRIL 23, 1616 in Stratford

upon Avon• WIFE: ANNE HATHAWAY

ANNE HATHAWAY’S COTTAGE

IN STRATFORD UPON AVON

SHAKESPEARE’S HOUSE IN STRATFORD

SHAKESPEARE’S HOUSE

CHILDREN:JudithSusanna & Hamnet (twins; Hamnet died at age 11)

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE IS

BURIED ATHOLY TRINITY

CHURCHIN STRATFORD

SHAKESPEARE’S TOMB INSIDE TRINITY

SHAKESPEARE’S MONUMENT IN POET’S CORNER AT WESTMINSTER ABBEY

My Shakespear, rise! I will not lodge thee by Chaucer, or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie A little further, to make thee a room.

~ Ben Jonson

THE MONARCHS ELIZABETH I JAMES I (VI) r. 1558-1603 r. 1603-1625

THE COMPANIES & THE PLAYHOUSESThe Lord Chamberlain’s MenThe King’s Men

The CurtainThe RoseThe TheatreThe Globe

THE WORK•154 SONNETS•4 LONG POEMS•37 PLAYS: tragedies

histories comedies and problem plays

•5 ACTS•IAMBIC PENTAMETER•PRINTED IN THE FIRST FOLIO

CLASSIC GREEK TRAGEDY• Classical Tragedy depicts the downfall of a noble hero

or heroine, usually through some combination of hubris (overbearing pride, arrogance), fate, and the will of the gods.

• Aristotle says that the tragic hero should have a flaw and/or make some mistake (hamartia). The hero need not die at the end, but he / she must undergo a change in fortune. In addition, the tragic hero may achieve some revelation or recognition about human fate, destiny, and the will of the gods.

• Classic tragedy employs the Unities (time, place, and action), and makes use of Messengers.

SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY

• DOES NOT EMPLOY THE UNITIES• THE HERO IS A PERSON OF HIGH STANDING• THE HERO IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS OWN FALL

BECAUSE OF HIS ACTIONS, HIS OWN CHOICES• THE CALAMITY IS USUALLY IMMENSE• IT IS OFTEN UNEXPECTED• A Shakespearean tragedy, then, may be called a

story of exceptional calamity leading to the death of a person(s) of high estate.

MACBETH• Put even in its simplest terms, the problem

Shakespeare gave himself in Macbeth was a tremendous one. Take a good man, a noble man, a man admired by all who know him—and destroy him, not only physically and emotionally, but also morally and intellectually.

• As if this were not difficult enough as a dramatic hurdle, while transforming him into one of the most despicable mortals conceivable, maintain him as a tragic hero—that is, keep him so sympathetic that, when he comes to his death, the audience will pity rather than despise him.

• IS SHAKESPEARE’S SHORTEST PLAY

• EXAMINES:– GENDER ROLES– THE NATURE OF AMBITION– THE NATURE OF EVIL– APPEARANCE vs REALITY– MENTAL FRAGMENTATION– LEGITIMATE RULE vs

TYRANNY– NATURAL/UNNATURAL/

SUPERNATURALAND…

According to Legend, is Cursed

• Why?• According to the tale, Shakespeare used real

incantations in the play and angered a coven of witches.

• They responded by cursing the play.• Don’t believe me?• Consider:

• Shakespeare wrote the play to please King James I, who was an expert on demonology.

• However, the play displeased the king so much that he banned it for five years.

• Beginning with its first performance, in 1606, Shakespeare himself was forced to play Lady Macbeth when Hal Berridge, the boy designated to play the lady, became inexplicably feverish and died.

• When performed in Amsterdam in 1672, the actor playing Macbeth substituted a real dagger for the blunted stage one and, with it, killed Duncan in full view of the entranced audience.

• As Lady Macbeth, Sarah Siddons was nearly ravaged by a disapproving audience in 1775.

• In 1794, the actor playing Macbeth sustained a near-fatal stab wound. The actor playing Macduff lost both thumbs, hacked off by the actor playing Macbeth.

• During the 1849 performance at New York's Astor Place, a riot broke out in which 31 people were trampled to death.

• In 1934, British actor Malcolm Keen turned mute onstage, and his replacement, Alister Sim, like Hal Berridge before him, developed a high fever and had to be hospitalized.

• Sybil Thorndyke was almost strangled by a burly actor in 1936.

• In 1937, when Laurence Olivier took on the role of Macbeth, he lost his voice, a 25 pound stage weight crashed within an inch of him, and his sword, which broke onstage, flew into the audience and hit a man who later suffered a heart attack. And the founder of the theater had a heart attack and died on opening night.

• Diana Wynyard sleepwalked off the rostrum in 1948, falling 15 feet.

• In the 1942 Macbeth production headed by John Gielgud, three actors -- Duncan and two witches -- died, (one of the witches suffering a heart attack on stage) and the costume and set designer committed suicide amidst his devilish Macbeth creations.

• In 1947 the promising young actor Harold Norman who played Macbeth fell during his final scene and instead of dying, as rehearsed, he crawled offstage and whispered to the stage manager that he had been stabbed. He was rushed to the hospital but he later died of his wounds. Other actors said that Norman did not believe in the curse and had been quoting from the play backstage, despite being warned.

• The indestructible Charlton Heston, in an outdoor production in Bermuda in 1953, suffered severe burns in his groin and upper thighs from tights that were accidentally soaked in kerosene.

• In 1954, the Old Vic took the play on the road. The company manager broke both legs in a car accident, an electrician sustained severe burns, and there was an attempted suicide.

• 1955—a film of Macbeth was planned, starring Laurence Olivier and Vivian Leigh, but at the last minute the producers go cold feet and canceled the project, saying that Olivier and Leigh could not guarantee a good box office. This was after Leigh had starred in Gone With the Wind and Olivier’s Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III had all been box office hits.

• In 1961, Franklin Clover was playing Macbeth in the White House before JFK. He got injured and developed a cyst under his arm, was operated on but continued playing. A young colleague was found dying of stab wounds; the murderer was never found. The company manager was murdered, too, in his Boston apartment.

• An actor's strike felled Rip Torn's 1970 production in New York City

• In 1970, an actor of the Liverpool Repertory Theatre, playing Macbeth, was hit in the eye by a sword, his Lady caught flu, which spread, so five understudies were needed.

• Two fires and seven robberies plagued the 1971 version starring David Leary.

• In the 1981 production at Lincoln Center, J. Kenneth Campbell, who played Macduff, was mugged soon after the play's opening.

• In 1988, during a performance of Verdi's Macbeth, at intermission, an elderly man in the top balcony committed suicide by leaping off the rail. Fortunately no one else was hurt.

• Don’t ever quote from Macbeth while backstage unless rehearsing or performing it or you are courting disaster.

• Don't even refer to this haunted play by name while in a theatre.

• Instead, call it That Scottish Play, The Scots Tragedy or simply That Play.

• IF you should accidentally refer to it backstage, you must perform the counter-curse immediately.

COUNTER CURSE• In order to reverse the bad luck, the guilty person

must exit the theater (sometimes forcibly), spin around three times, utter the worst swear word he knows, spit, knock, and then ask for permission to return inside (which may be denied).

• Some say that you must repeat the words "Thrice around the circle bound, Evil sink into the ground," or you can turn to Will himself for assistance and cleanse the air with a quotation from Hamlet. Whatever steps you choose to take, failing to do anything to prevent the curse from taking effect will ensure that you are in for some trouble.