Macbeth

Macbeth -

Reading drama alone and silently can be a daunting task--to say nothing of the difficulty many students have with Shakespeare's language. A few things have always helped me out. 1. Read slowly. Understand that you will not be able to read this at the pace you might read modern prose. In fact, you'll probably have to read sections multiple times.

2. Maintain an awareness of the set or stage. Who is on stage? Where are they located? It may help you to draw a little doodle of the set. This will also come in handy when you must figure out to whom a character is speaking (the text does not tell you).

3. Read like an actor. Ultimately these are just words on a page until an actor endows them with meaning through cadence, vocal inflection and so on. Consider how a character might be feeling or what he might be thinking in order to understand how to deliver the lines. For a few tips on this, feel free to look up as many performances of this as you see fit. One actor/reader may portray Macbeth as desperate and emasculated, while another may portray him as predominantly bewildered with outbursts of rage. One actor/reader may deliver Lady Macbeth's lines like a cold-hearted matriarch, while another emphasizes her sexualized manipulation. The point is that these readings are valid based on the reader's understanding of the character's motivations, intentions, and other hints of indirect characterization.

Here is an entire performance of Macbeth that you can view as you see fit to help or entertain you. I have also saved MP3 files of a an audio production of Macbeth on shared drive. It can be accessed at S: BHS students/Mr. Brady/ Macbeth on CD media type="google" key="883718043846080512&hl=en&fs=true" width="400" height="326"