• Histrionic study of III, iv (Banquet scene)

• Introduction

• On Performance Theory: Bibliography and Method

× Poem vs. Play--squint-eyed reading vs. wide eyed imagination

× Styan, Taylor, Levin vs. Brooks, Bradley

× performance theorists

× Marvin Rosenberg's massive combination of all three

× Berger's "Imaginary Audition"

• Greenblatt on "Shakespeare and the Exorcists"

× evacuation of meaning of ritual and religion in Lear

× meaning moved into theatre

× histrionic analysis of Lear IV, vii

• speech about player strutting and fretting V,ii

× all the world's a stage, and Prospero's now our revels all are ended

× acting and action--i.e. Michael Goldman's actor's freedom: to act vs. be passive, acted upon; audience is passive

× Greenblatt's notion of self-fashioning as acting

× breakdown of performance is breakdown of self

× the deed and the act: what's done is done--Macbeth's attempt to divorce act from texture of reality--escape destiny and morality and god

× all gestures are symbolic, carry meaning; all physical presence is signifier; time and space are fully charged with meaning; "body language" -- "Highness"

• Entrances and Exits

• emphasis on them, like opening and closing sentences of a paragraph

× magic appearance and disappearance--

• actor and ghost--quote Goldman

× uncanny; aggressive; terrific; fascinating and frightening; more than alive and dead; mask; plays and exorcisms; playwrights and magicians--Prospero

× ghost makes two entrances and exits in this scene

• Processional entry

× evocation of order--own degrees

• Macbeth and Lady Macbeth as actors and directors

• This is directed scene-- like MND, Hamlet, Lear-- before audience of thanes; the central dramatic representation is of a failed performance

× a true horror show for players

× director at Kennedy center coming out and apologizing for light screw-up

× audience managed, but finally dismissed in disarray; performance has failed

• sit down; stand up--internal stage directions; comic routine; here I'll sit i th midst (12)

 

 

• i'll mingle with society and play the humble host

× Macbeth as player: playing and acting--ceremony and falsehood; cf. HV as king

• starts the drinking

• contest among other characters to give direction=struggle for power: Macbeth, LM, Ross, the Ghost always struggling

× expressed as struggle to command and struggle for the position of "state"--Duncan's usurped by M and retaken by Banquo

• Location on stage as significant: high and low-- on dais or "state"; center and periphery; up and down stage

• Creating new spaces; levels of reality; with a very long stage that has several horizontal levels of "up and down"

× meeting with the murderer--direction; blood on thy face

× down stage between audience in front and audience in back--counterpoint indicates hypocrisy

× also puts on the murderers; more intimate diction; also positive and festive, but secret

× further down stage aside to audience creates another "inner-outer" space; then back to murderer; audience; murderer

× inner space he enters through asides from the beginning, creating identification with audience

× "my fit comes again," presaging ghost; inner space of immense struggle, which he wins

× called back to space of ceremony by Lady M. and returns to conviviality (=drinking) falsely calls on Banquo to enter

× but entrances of Banquo [and exits], usurp his central space and disorient him

× "The table's full" (47) vs. Lennox's: "here is a place reserved"

× symbolism of Banquo's future

× attention on exits and exits

× destroys his control over entrances and exits, over levels of reality, and over spaces

× Macbeth's responses: range from cowardly to heroic

× Lady M indicates his expressions: "faces" flaws and starts"

× bewilderment, dread of losing reason, insecurity of inexplicable, guilt, physical revulsion

× contrast happiness of hearing throat cut to seeing it

× his first response is paranoia: which one of you has done this

× second is false defense--thou canst not say I did it

× third is aggression--Never shake thy gory locks at me

× this is specifically a stage direction to the audience or director

 

 

 

× Ghostly entrance changes our relation to levels of reality--

× Banquo is present to us as the robbers are, but not in a separate stage location; he's in the space of the guests, but invisible to them; we are with Macbeth in his space, observing the uncanny

× stage direction makes us aware of it before Macbeth is

× many stagings reserve appearance for ghost for M's perception of it

× what they don't see--here is a place reserved... here--protects them

× Now Ross says rise--gives direction

× Then Lady Macbeth denies Ross' perception; says sit, twice, and instructs her audience to ignore Macbeth;

× commands their perceptions--feed and regard him not; seeks to hide him by commanding them

× theme of hiding; secrecy; making invisible; make "exit"--e.g. witch

× moves [downstage] toward his space, which they do not hear: are you a man?

× he answers her and comes down further, refusing not to look on what is forbidden to regard

× she instructs him [pulling him upstage?] to ignore what he sees--reduces it to woman's story and a stool

× very painting of fear; not a state--small chair; small place locator

× compares it to dagger

× but audience experience dagger as imagination and ghost as real

× Macbeth [moving downstage] calls to ghost and challenges it

× fearlessly: why, what care I

× and with jest--kites vomit up their prey

× Ghost exits; Macbeth returns to LM's space and marvels over the past experience of the ghost--more strange than the murder

× moral rumination about the destruction of order--dead wont stay dead--he himself has created this destruction--deed is not done

× She lures him back upstage to the banquet and his seat now vacated

× he is back in convivial, community space and drinks again, and commands--"love and health to all"(89)

× heads back to his seat, drink to Banquo, whose ghost again enters, as thanes take the toast

 

 

 

× Toast broken again; Macbeth back downstage--in higher pitch of terror, tension and heroic domination: pattern of fright, recovery, attack

× symbol--like feast, symbol of unity and sharing

× LM again in between talking to thanes

× trembling; identifying self as baby girl--this time more terrifying

× how could staging emphasize this?

× succeeds in sending it hence, mobilizing his total fierceness, and regains partial composure

× visceral "Hence"

× Macbeth tells them to sit still, but this time, doesn't succeed in covering up, and speaks "enraged" to thanes about sight, both addressing them and remembering ghost as real--seeking to break his isolation

× moves from fraud to self exposure; from "acting" to responding

× rage and lyric musing

× Ross says "what sights?"--as challenge or as support?

× She denies this reality; shuts off questioning; speaks of him in third person; commands them to leave in no order; isolates them and makes them disappear--Exeunt

× perhaps moving among the thanes

× in the same way; with the same summoning of her powers that Macbeth uses to drive out the ghost

• Private, non-performative moment between M and LM [Orsino w. Cesario]

• Macbeth's understanding of what's happening; supernatural causes are now engaged; initiate fear is gone

× not shaken, but thinks strategy and commits himself to total evil; ghost doesn't shake him but rather hardens his conviction

× speaks as royal we; acts most kingly in private

× ghost becomes "strange and self abuse"

× he'll get Macduff, go to witches, pursue evil without remorse

× balance between them changes--she fears for him; he's confident; these are her last lines before going mad; strain on her of this scene is too much

• instead of having lost control, he's gained it

• he's no longer interested in appearances or trickery; she still is

• Overall structure of scene

• like encounter with murderers

× expectation of relaxation--fair

× disappointment--foul

× triumph of the will to power--Satan rules; conscience is purged

• all introspections end with stronger resolution; Macbeth opposite of Hamlet