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(adapted for the stage by Christoph Nonn)
About the Play
Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies and one of his shortest plays. History suggests the play was compromised by King James – James I of England and James VI of Scotland – to be performed for him for the occasion of the visit of the King of Denmark in 1606. King James was Shakespeare’s patron and Shakespeare’s company was called The King’s Players.
Historians assign the original play to 1606 because they suggest that the theme of Macbeth – the killing of a king – was inspired by the so-called ‚Gunpowder Plot‘ of 1605, in which a group of Catholics (most famously Guy Fawkes) conspired to blow up the English Houses of Parliament during Protestant King James‘ visit.
Shakespeare used actual names of historic Scottish rulers and nobility, but the play itself is a work of fiction. The actual Macbeth was King of Moray and became King of Scotland after King Duncan was killed in a battle. Macbeth ruled for seventeen years, but was killed in battle by Malcolm, Duncan’s eldest son, who had been installed as ruler of Perth and Fife.
Macbeth is famous for many reasons, containing, as it does, many of Shakespeare’s best-known quotes, but the play is infamous for quite another reason. A common superstition among actors, even today, is that the mere utterance of the name Macbeth in theatre is bad luck. This is why Macbeth is often likely to be referred to as ‚the Scottish play‘, and Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as ‚Mr and Mrs M‘.
One theory suggests that the play was cursed because Shakespeare had used actual witches‘ spells in the text, and that certain witches, taking offence at this, cursed the play.
This superstition was, in fact, invented by the English essayist and novelist, Max Beerbohm, in 1898, when he wrote of the death of a young male actor playing the role of Lady Macbeth, who died and whom Shakespeare himself replaced in the production – evidence for which is sorely lacking. However, when the revered English actor, Sir John Gielgud, played Macbeth in 1942, three actors died and a costume designer committed suicide during the production.
Rest assured, no-one involved in this production has (yet) met an untimely end.
About the Author
William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England, in 1564. At the age of only eighteen, he married a woman who was eight years older than he. It was obviously a forced shotgun marriage: six months later their first daughter was born.
In the late 1580s he left Stratford and went to London in order to work in the theater. It is said that his first job there was to take care of the horses of noblemen who attended a play. But soon he became a successful playwright, probably the most popular of his time after the early death of his colleague and rival Christopher Marlowe. Together with friends, among them the then famous actor Richard Burbage, Shakespeare started his own theater company. He did act himself, too. It is said that he for example played the part of Hamlet’s father’s ghost.
But it was as a writer of plays that he was most successful. He very often used plots from plays and prose works of classical antiquity, or from the Italian commedia dell’arte and novellas. Thus many of his plays are set in ancient Greece and Rome, or in Renaissance Italy. In his history plays, which nowadays are performed not too often, at least not outside Britain, Shakespeare took the subject matter from the chronicles of medieval English kings. Macbeth is an exception, though: Though its subject matter was very loosely taken from a chronicle, it is about a Scottish king. This is at least one of the reasons it is not grouped with the histories, but with Shakespeare’s tragedies – along with Hamlet and King Lear. Like Hamlet, however, Macbeth does have its moments of comic relief, which we could not resist to exploit.
Macbeth was performed on the following dates:
- Sunday, April 21st, 2013, 8 p.m.
- Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013, 4 p.m.
- Friday, May 3rd, 2013, 8 p.m.
- Sunday, May 5th 2013, 8 p.m.
The Cast (in order of appearance)
| First Newspresenter |
Thomas Wahrlich |
| Duncan, CEO of Royal Caledonian Bank |
Maximilian Eisl |
| First Cleaner | Adelina Arnold |
| Second Cleaner | Alissa Horsch |
| Third Cleaner / Porter | Christian Lühr |
| Malcolm, Duncan’s son | Matthias Zimmer |
| Macduff, Head of Fife regional division of Royal Caledonian Band | Adam Pardoe |
| Head of Ross, the Head fo regional division of Royal Caledonian Bank |
Vanessa Klein |
| Macbeth, Head of Glamis regional division of Royal Caledonian Bank | Anna Weinand |
| Banquo, Head of yet another regional division | Elke Nonn |
| Andrew Macbeth, Macbeth’s husband | André Manchen |
| Florence, Banquo’s daughter | Julia Nonn |
| Second Newspresenter | Annika Toll |
| directed by Christoph Nonn | |
Macbeth was attended by several members of the press. Please find their reviews below for your convenience and reading enjoyment.
Lisa Bergmann, Trierischer Volksfreund: Königsmord in der Bankzentrale.
Tom Rüdell, 16vor.de: Hochfinanz statt Hochadel.
Sandra Pries, trunews.de: Shakespeare’s ‚Macbeth‘ und die Finanzwelt – Die neue Inszenierung der Trier English Drama Group.