Improve your understanding of the world of the play
Answer the questions then check your responses against the sample answers.
When you’re staging a production of Macbeth you’ll need to consider several production points in order to do so successfully.
Question
Your production of Macbeth is in black and white with occasional uses of red. What significance would you want the red to have?
Red has an obvious association with blood. You could use red lighting at particularly violent moments and red coronation robes to link Macbeth with violence in the eyes of the audience.
Question
How would you present the witches in a way that would stop a modern audience thinking them absurd?
To some extent it depends on the style of the production, but the crucial thing to avoid is Halloween-style witches, who would be perceived as two-dimensional, absurd figures. Modern-day witches have appeared in various guises in productions, eg heroin addicts and prostitutes. They can also be male.
Question
We understand a lot about Macbeth from his soliloquies where he speaks his thoughts out loud for the benefit of the audience. How would you stage these in a proscenium arch stagingEnd-on staging on only one side of the stage, but in an older style theatre with a decorative arch framing the whole stage (called proscenium arch).?
There are various possibilities but positioning the actor downstage so that he is in direct connection with the audience is one strong suggestion. Another is to use lighting to isolate him – perhaps with an overhead spotlight.
Question
How would you deal with the sword fight at the end of the play if you had set your production of Macbeth in modern dress? (Note that the scene lasts for 34 lines and talks explicitly about swords, blood and wounds so guns would not be an easy option.)
It might be possible to substitute knives or to use swords but you would have to establish the convention for either. Often this is done by having an almost realistic setting but there are qualities about it that are clearly artistic invention. An example of this would be in director, Baz Luhrmann’s film version of Romeo and Juliet. You could also film the action prior to the performance and show it on a screen to the audience.
Question
If you were staging a production of Shakespeare’s play, Titus Andronicus, what would be the value of setting it both in the past in its original context and also flipping to the present day? How would you show the different periods?
A variety of effects such as sound and music can be used to show the two different time periods. Classical music could be played when the action is set in the original period of the play. Electronica and a rich variety of sound effects could be used in the modern setting to show the contrast between both eras clearly. Costume could also vary, with period costumes being worn in the earlier period and modern dress in the 21st century. Multimedia, eg film and projected images could be used in the modern-day setting to further emphasise the shift in time.
Setting a play in the past and in its original context gives the director a chance to convey everything intended in the script. The modern connection allows the audience to see the contemporary relevance of the play.
