Macbeth Essay 2000 Words

Macbeth Essay 2000 Words

On Sunday the 27th of march I went on a school trip with the rest of year 11 to The Madinat to watch one of Shakespeare's many plays: Macbeth, presented by the globe theater. While I was waiting in the lobby with my friends, I spotted a soldier who was standing near the food stand and was quite bewildered… A few moments later, two students came up to me and my friends and asked us if they knew where they're school went, after which they disappeared. I initially thought that the play would be very old fashioned , I imagined jerkins and cloaks and men in chain mail and breastplates but I later on realized I was completely wrong. As we entered the theater I expected to see a closed curtain to my surprise what greeted me was not a velvet red curtain but a set that looked very modern and like a military barrack. The curtains were folded neatly at the sides with ladders rested on either side of the walls. In the center there were first aid kits, explosive cartridges and what looked like ammunition. There were a few body bags scattered around the stage and lots of entrances, exits and a second level. There was a huge net like drape running from the top of the set to the bottom which cover the whole middle of the set .While i was waiting for the play to begin I noticed those two students who were asking about their class they were sitting in the front row, they were arguing with one of the workers complaining the couldn't see the play properly from their seats and one of them even went on stage and touched the props then they left the theatre. I thought they were weird and crazy and was very surprised when I found out that both students and the soldiers outside were part of the play!

Macbeth is a very bloody and gory play in which a thane called Macbeth is a thane fighting for Scotland in a war against Norway .Since it's a war movie I expected a lot of fighting and expected to see soldiers die on stage wielding swords and shield embezzled with the country flag or royal seal . my image of the play was completely different to how the globe presented it , the play was modernized and the soldiers were not wearing chain mail or breastplates but instead Kevlar and full army uniform resembling that of the American army .But although they changed the attire and the weapons the performance stayed true to the script and the actors spoke in Shakespearean English .In addition I expected the lights in the theater to go off but to my and probably everyone else's surprise they stayed on. I was at first confused on why the lights were still on but while I watched the play I realized that the lights stayed on in the theatre to give the audience the full feeling of integration and to allow actors to respond to the audience's reaction. The actors used the audience during the play by talking to them for example when during the banquet Macbeth addressed the whole audience with "thanks for coming all of you!". Also since the lights were left on I felt more alert and probably concentrated more than I would have if the lights were off.

As the play started, soldiers ran in from the sides celebrating about battles they had won. We see Macbeth and Banquo laughing and cheering, whilst they did that a dark skinned women in a black dress came into center stage with a white ‘x' plastered on her forehead , she doesn't talk at all and as she stops she creates a quite macabre atmosphere she spreads white powder around the stage and forms into a perfect circle and then pulls out two voodoo dolls from each pocket as she does that two of the body bags start to rise and out of them come the two students which we saw earlier with their uniforms dirty and torn in many places . this was very exciting and astonishing because I did not see the students get into the bags ,but also I saw the bags on stage while they were sitting in the front seats and I simply could not fathom how they got into there . I suspect that the director put the actors in the lobby and in the audience in the first place to make us form a connection with them and recognize them as fellow students and so while they acted in the play we also being a teenage audience could relate to them. Apart from that I thought that the white powder in a circle and the dolls was also very affective as they are both connected with voodoo and so made the rising out of the bag seem more exciting.

After the witches tell Macbeth his prophecy that he will become thane of Cawdor and later the king of Scotland he writes a letter to his wife telling her how he has been prophesied to become king, while reading the letter lady Macbeth get more and more excited as she reads , her voice getting louder, higher and more happy . When Macbeth got home he told his wife how the king was coming to Macbeth's castle and Lady Macbeth then manipulates him and tells him he must kill Duncan in order to become king. Once he has killed the