In 'Macbeth' the witches have to be portrayed as evil and fearsome for the play to make sense

The Witches Present Modern audiences and directors with great difficulties. Consider the role of the witches and suggest how they can be made as successful for a modern audience as they would have been for a contemporary audience.

In ‘Macbeth’ the witches have to be portrayed as evil and fearsome for the play to make sense. This is difficult for a modern director to achieve as out culture and beliefs are extremely different from those at the time at which Macbeth was written.

The intended effect of the witches is to scare the audience into believing them. To strengthen this belief one witch in the play says:

‘Though has bark cannot be lost,

Yet it shall be tempest-toss’d.’

In Shakespeare time people were very conscious about the practice of witchcraft. People believed that witches could manipulate the weather, curse people and control what other people did. Anyone who was suspected of witchcraft was tortured. When the witches came on stage during this play the audience would have been genuinely afraid for Macbeth. In modern society people would be generally amused by the proposition that witches existed and could tell the future. This is because we have based our society on factual findings. We find it hard to believe that there are such paranormal things that we cannot explain.

A modern audience would laugh at the witches on stage and wouldn’t be afraid at all. As well as the change in culture there has been a change in attitudes toward things we cannot explain or do not understand. We are a lot more tolerant and willing to let people live how they wish without discriminating against them or torturing them. In Shakespearean times people were less tolerant and were against anything that they didn’t understand or things that they thought were wrong. This creates problems for a modern director on how to capture the imagination of the audience and how to make the witches believable. If the director cannot capture the attention and emotions of the audience then the play is not as exciting and it loses some of its appeal.

Shakespeare wrote the play Macbeth for King James I. This was to make sure that Shakespeare would have a future of writing plays for the king. He favoured King James belief in the divine right of kings by defeating evil in the play and showing that when the rightful king was killed it was unnatural and made unnatural things happen.

The language used in the play is not as we would speak today. It is a lot more complex.

“if chance will have me king, why chance may crown me

Without my stir”

A modern audience would ...

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The language used in the play is not as we would speak today. It is a lot more complex.

“if chance will have me king, why chance may crown me

Without my stir”

A modern audience would find it hard to understand and it would break the flow of conversation in the play. The language used in the play is different from the language we would use in everyday conversation. The imagery used by the witches to lure Macbeth into a false sense of security is very effective in creating the sense that they want to destroy all that is good. There is imagery of the number 3 in the play. There are three witches. All the prophecies that the witches give Macbeth are said in-groups of three. ‘All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.’

‘All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor.’

‘All hail Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter.’

The number 3 was considered the number of Satan and everything that was evil. At no time in the play to the witch lie outright to Macbeth, but they speak in riddles that have a wide berth for interpretation.

The scenes that occur at night show the dominance of evil. Light or daytime shows goodness or grace. Duncan arrives in the castle in the middle of the day, thus showing his close association with certain values such as grace, virtue, truth and goodness. Dark or night-time has a close association with evil or wrongdoing. The King is a monarch with divine rights. His murder was seen to be sacrilegious at the time. His murder happened at night and it was viewed as unnatural and the witches seem to try and perversion the natural course of everything in the play.

“And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp”

This imagery is about Duncan’s murder. Duncan is represented as the travelling lamp as he stands for everything good and pure. He is in Macbeth’s castle as a guest. Macbeth the unknown dark night Ross and the Old Man are talking that about. This shows how much Macbeth has changed from a good warrior to a dark and evil man.

The role of the witches in the play is to create a mood of gloom and darkness and this is achieved by their presence at the very start of the play. The witches speak in rhyming couplets, which gives the impression that they are casting a spell. This sets the mood of fear and apprehension for the rest of the play. The witches corrupt Macbeths mind so much that he can no longer pray or sleep as he has doubts about the correctness of the murder of Duncan the witches also highlight the human weakness to power. The witches do not have power over Macbeth or anyone else they just play on the insecurities and worries that the characters in the play have.

“the instruments of darkness tell us truths;

Win us with honest trifles”

Banquo tries to warn Macbeth that the witches could be tricking him. Banquo doesn’t react in the same way as Macbeth as he is more cautious and is not as trusting. He tries his best to warn Macbeth about the dangers of messing with the supernatural.

They do not suggest or even mention the murder of Duncan to Macbeth. What they say to him is completely his own interpretation.

The characterisation of the witches in Macbeth is essential to the understanding of the play and how the different characters react to the prophecies that they make to Macbeth and Banquo. They way they are presented in the play isn’t practical and plausible for a modern audience. The items the witches use in the broth are perfectly plausible for a contemporary audience, as their culture was extremely different. This is hard for a modern director because we are less gullible. For this to be believable the scene would have to be very graphic.

It is hard a modern director to make a modern audience believe what they see is true. There are several difficulties, the first is that of Banquos ghost appearing and disappearing quickly from the set. I would do this by not putting in a ghost at all but to have Macbeth look at an empty stool the whole time. This would create tension for the audience as they cannot see what it is Macbeth can see and they would have to use their own imagination. I think that putting in a ghost would make the scene more comical and less believable. The apparitions that visit Macbeth are another difficulty that a director would encounter. The way that it has been directed in the past is that puppets have been used to be the apparitions. Using people for this part of the play it would make it less believable. In my opinion the only way to make the play believable to a modern audience is to create an air of mystery to and minimise the amount of times that the audience see the supernatural.