Macbeth remains among the most popular of Shakespeare's plays in performance, having been a favourite with theatre companies since its first recorded performance in 1611. Dubbed 'the Scottish play', Macbeth has acquired a reputation as 'cursed' due to calamities which have occurred during various productions over the centuries, including riots, falling scenery, illness and even the death of a lead actor.


Richard Burbage (c.1567-1619) played the title role in first known performance of Macbeth at the Globe on 20 April 1611, an event recorded by Simon Forman in his Book of Plaies. Some historians contend the play may have been performed even earlier, when it could have been one of several works presented at Hampton Court before King James VI/I and the visiting King of Denmark, Christian IV, on 7 August 1606.


The next recorded performance was in 1663, by William Davenant's company, the Duke of York's Servants, at Lincoln Inn's Fields. Davenant (1606-68), who claimed to be Shakespeare's illegitimate son, adapted the play to suit the tastes Restoration audiences accustomed to tidy moral lessons and lavish spectacle. Davenant expanded the role of Lady Macduff to provide a virtuous contrast to Lady Macbeth, while minor characters, most notably the Porter, were cut. Elaborate songs and dances were added, for example during the witch scenes. The witches are thought to have flown with the help of stage machinery.


Davenant's adaptation was the version most often used during the next 80 years, which made David Garrick's choice (in 1744) to revert to the text "as written by Shakespeare", seem radical. In fact Garrick (1717-79) used not just Shakespeare's text but a combination of previously expurgated passages from the First Folio, two musical scenes retained from Davenant and Garrick's own newly written eight-line death speech for Macbeth. Garrick's production opened at Drury Lane on 2 Jan 1744, with Garrick in the title role and Hannah Pritchard as Lady Macbeth. Garrick's harrowing portrayal was held to be the definitive Macbeth for a generation.


Charles Macklin's production at Covent Garden in 1773 marked the departure from the then-prevalent practice of doing Shakespeare in contemporary dress. Macklin (c. 1697-1797) insisted on special costumes emphasizing a "Highland" setting in medieval Scotland. He introduced the tartans and kilts that would become standard Macbeth dress in subsequent productions. Macklin's production was not popular and lasted only 4 performances.


The next definitive production was 1785, when the great tragic actress Sarah Siddons' innovative portrayal of Lady Macbeth completely overshadowed Macbeth, played by her brother, John Philip Kemble (1757-1823). Siddons (1755-1831) wore a white nightgown in the sleepwalking scene to signify her madness and put her taper down before wringing her hands as if obsessively trying to wash out imagined blood. Her portrayal became a benchmark, the definitive version of Lady Macbeth for the next hundred years.


In 1849 rival productions of Macbeth in New York City led to one of the most famous fights in theatre history: the Astor Place Riots. Supporters of the two Macbeths - the English William Charles Macready (1793-1873) and the American Edwin Forrest (1806-72) - broke into fighting that spilled out into the city streets.


Charles Kean (1811-68)'s Macbeth in 1853 at the Princess Theatre (London) furthered the drive toward historical accuracy begun under Macklin and displayed the love of pageantry associated with Victorian theatre. In 1888 at the Lyceum Theatre (London), Henry Irving (1838-1905) presented a well-researched Macbeth. Irving's Macbeth mistook guilt for fear, an interpretation regarded as too cowardly by many critics. Ellen Terry (1848-1928), the most beloved actress of her era, experienced mixed critical success as well in her interpretation of Lady Macbeth. Previously cast in more genial roles, she emphasized Lady Macbeth's femininity and tenderness, a choice not well received by critics expecting the imposing matriarch popularised by Sarah Siddons (1755-1831). Despite its mixed success, the production was revived several times throughout the 1890s.




William Poel (1852-1934), an actor, theatre manager and producer, was instrumental in re-introducing Renaissance stage practices. Poel staged an innovative First Folio Macbeth in 1909 for the Elizabethan Stage Society which demonstrated his championing of a thrust-like stage and minimal scenery. Herbert Beerbohm Tree (1853-1917)'s production two years later at Her Majesty's, meanwhile, presented a deliberately beautiful spectacle, with a decidedly pre-Raphaelite Lady Macbeth in the person of Violet Vanbrugh 91867-1942). John Gielgud (1904-2000) carried on the tradition of a stately, "romantic" Macbeth when playing the role at the Old Vic in 1930.


In 1933, Theodore Komisarjevsky presented a controversial Macbeth at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. The set was deliberately non-realistic, consisting of a bare stage covered with aluminium and dominated by a spiral staircase, and, in later scenes, a hanging platform of twisted metal. The moody lighting only illuminated part of the stage, while the costumes matched the silver-grey colour of the set (Lady Macbeth's costume in the banquet scene included a crown made of saucepans and a breastplate apparently fashioned out of saucepan lids!). The production was savaged by many critics, but its controversial reputation ensured its success at the box office.


Macbeth was staged at the Old Vic in 1934, with Tyrone Guthrie directing Charles Laughton in the title role. Influenced by the writing of Harley Granville-Barker, Guthrie cut the witches' opening scene, arguing that it was not written by Shakespeare.


In 1936, Orson Welles directed his famous "Voodoo" Macbeth at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem. The script was cut to ensure that the action was swift-moving. The production was set in Haiti and used West Indian witchcraft. The Weird Sisters were voodoo priestesses in thrall to a male Hecate.


Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh played the famous couple in 1955 to great acclaim. The production, while criticised for its unimaginative design, won plaudits for Olivier's inventive approach to the role, which "moved from a haunted preoccupation with murder to an unbearable sense of solitude" [Michael Billington in the Guardian] and became one of the century's definitive performances.


In 1967 Peter Hall directed Paul Scofield as Macbeth. The production's opening night had to be postponed when Hall came down with shingles - a coincidence that had newspaper columnists buzzing once again about the "Macbeth curse". Although it received mixed reviews, Hall's production was praised for rethinking the play in a Christian context, emphasizing its often-overlooked religious themes. The production began and ended with the display of a crucifix, the Porter was interpreted as a guardian of Hell-Gate, and Malcolm's speech on the saintliness of Edward the Confessor, usually omitted, was retained.


Trevor Nunn's production at Stratford in 1974 (in which Nicol Williamson played Macbeth and Helen Mirren his wife) also emphasized the play's religious aspects. The designer John Napier set the action in a black-and-silver church interior which had "the aura of a funeral parlour" according to Frank Marcus in the Sunday Telegraph. Nunn's emphasis on ritual was clear from the play's opening moments, which showed the coronation of King Duncan. White curtains were abruptly drawn to end the scene and then became a screen for shadow-like projections enacting the war and destruction threatening Duncan's kingdom. A devilish, horned figure suddenly tore the curtains open to reveal the witches hanging aloft from a chandelier. While Robert Cushman [writing in the Observer] was impressed by the "theological emphasis," critics generally were relatively lukewarm about most of the performances. Cushman wrote that he had never seen another actor give "a clearer glimpse of the despair" of Macbeth than Williamson, but that the actor was too "heavy-handed" with the climatic speeches. A critic in the Sunday Times lauded Mirren's "intelligent and irresistible sexuality" as Lady Macbeth, but the Telegraph dismissed her as "a sexy doll amusing herself by dabbling in black magic."


Trevor Nunn was not entirely happy with his 1974 production, and tackled the play again two years later at The Other Place, the RSC's studio theatre in Stratford, with Ian McKellen as Macbeth and Judi Dench playing Lady Macbeth in a version that was later deemed definitive. Reportedly produced with a budget of only £250, scenery and lighting were kept to a minimum. Actors sat on upturned crates outside the playing space, a Brechtian chalk circle. John Barber wrote in the Telegraph:

There is no raised stage. Everything is plain, quiet, austere. Actors wear modern dress, barely raise their voices, and sit with the audience when not performing. A few lamps and packing cases, and a clanging bell are the only accessories.

Nunn's simple, yet theatrical staging emphasized the play's terror. Keith Brace [Birmingham Post] wrote that Nunn's production "triumphantly scales the play down to the dark, brooding, thundery manic chamber-play I have often suspected it to be."

McKellen and Dench garnered much praise for their performances. J. W. Lambert of the Sunday Times felt that McKellen's Macbeth was a tormented, hollow man whose ambition had sapped his vitality:

I have seldom felt the woe of a man facing disaster more poignantly transmitted than in Mr. McKellen's chill, staring end; but even at his first entrance one felt that his triumphs on the battlefield were the gestures of a hollow man, his mounting ambition a substitute for life rather than a mark of vitality.

Dench too was highly praised. Her intense Lady Macbeth showed increasing bewilderment as Macbeth began to rely less and less on her counsel after killing Duncan:

Having partnered him in the bloody deed, [Lady Macbeth] is bewildered by his withdrawal, pitched into black desolation, bereft and excoriated. Her mind teeters in knife-edge balance. Soul-haunted in sleep, this tragic woman is the most searching exposition Miss Dench has achieved on the Shakespearean stage. [Stratford-upon-Avon Herald]


In 1986, Adrian Noble directed Jonathan Pryce and Sinead Cusack as the Macbeths. Michael Billington [Guardian] wrote that Pryce and Cusack were "a childless Strindbergian couple for whom power became a substitute for parenthood." The production played without an interval, emphasizing the play's relentless sweep of events.


In 1993, the newly appointed Artistic Director of the RSC, Adrian Noble, directed a production with Derek Jacobi and Cheryl Campbell. Jacobi's consummately military Macbeth was praised as "outstanding" by Martin Dodsworth in the Times Literary Supplement: "This Macbeth is one of those highly trained, sensitive military men who love the army for its discipline and order." Dodsworth praised Campbell's Lady Macbeth for its paradoxical power. Her Lady Macbeth was a woman consumed by her own ambition, Dodsworth wrote, "a woman discovering not only her own power but also the sapping of her nature by that very power." Not all critics, though, were so enthusiastic and the play opened to mixed reviews.


In 1996, Tim Alberry directed Macbeth with Roger Allam and Brid Brennan. The Absurdist set, dominated by a castle battlement positioned downstage, looked to Nicholas de Jongh "as if [it were] waiting for Godot." The costumes were not confined to one specific era-the men wore twentieth century military dress, while many of the women characters wore medieval sheathes. The witches were played as deranged, bearded Victorian governesses. The minimalist production deliberately de-emphasized the play's sense of terror and religious imagery, a move not approved by the critics. Howard Walker [Stratford Standard] felt the production had "an air of ordinariness," while John Gross in the Telegraph found it "arid" and "lacking in inner conviction."


Gregory Doran directed Macbeth in the Swan Theatre in 1999. Hailed by Michael Billington as the RSC's "best Macbeth since Trevor Nunn's legendary production a quarter of a century ago," the fast-moving production presented Macbeth (played by Antony Sher) as a dynamic warrior/military dictator driven insane by his lust for power. Set in a militaristic state, the production drew parallels with the Balkan conflict and the Ceaucescu regime in Romania.

Another contemporary parallel was to be found in Stephen Noonan's Porter who got "a big laugh for turning his 'equivocator' into a Blair-ite spin-doctor" according to Ian Shuttleworth in the Financial Times.

While Doran made less of the power of the witches, he maintained a sense of terror, particularly in the opening moments. The production began with a thunderclap, after which the theatre was plunged into darkness. The voices of the three Weird Sisters emerged as if out of nowhere, setting an eerie precedent for the evening.

Paul Taylor felt Harriet Walter's Lady Macbeth was the best portrayal since Judi Dench [RSC 1976]: "The suppressed hysteria and erotic release in collaborative violence are at once ruthlessly unsentimentalised in Walter's performance and achingly sad." In one unexpectedly poignant moment, when Lady Macbeth tells Macbeth that Duncan will not leave their house alive, Walter dabbed Sher's bloodied, mud-stained face with a flannel. It was a chilling maternal gesture that paradoxically allowed Lady's Macbeth's suggestion of murder to take hold within her husband's brain.

Antony Sher's Macbeth was Everyman, "a man-next-door Macbeth" according to Diane Parkes in the Evening Mail. Sher played Macbeth as a military dictator, "a Macbeth for our times, a go-getting, might-is-right-solider-patrician of the sort who has wreaked such havoc across the world this century" [ Chris Grey, Oxford Mail]. Nick Curtis [Evening Standard] described Sher as "the running dog of a paramilitary state". Sher explored Macbeth's mental instability but he also found the character's black humour, receiving Banquo's ghost "with mock incredulity" according to Michael Billington [in The Guardian].