In this essay we will compare the RSC stage version of Macbeth with the film version by Polanski. We shall look especially at the characterisation of Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the witches; Stagecraft of the setting, the dagger, darkness and light, and the devices of death on stage and soliloquies. Shakespeare often found his ideas for his plays in historical sources.
He did not follow his sources closely; however, he took the most important parts, and sometimes added new material to make his plays exciting on the stage.One major change is that the play takes place during a period of a few months, whereas Macbeth ruled Scotland for 17 years; another thing is that in reality Macbeth was a good king and Duncan was weak, but in the play Macbeth is a tyrant and Duncan is highly respected. The representations of Lady Macbeth, Macbeth and the witches are different between the film and the play. We can see that in the film, Lady Macbeth is beautiful, avaricious, and also seems to be cold. However, in the play Lady Macbeth is very sexually provocative to the audience.
It is very clear that Lady Macbeth uses her sex to manipulate Macbeth, so that we feel the full force of her of her taunts of “If thou were a man”. Macbeth is heroic at the beginning and has a stronger sense of his guilt than we get from the play. In the play, Macbeth is called “brave Macbeth”. In the film, the witches are old women. In the play we are told that they have a beard as Banquo says in act two scene one, “What are you?.
.. Your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so”. This is telling us that they have a definite gender in the film.In the play, they are deliberately sexless, which makes the link stronger between Lady Macbeth and the witches when she asks the spirits to “unsex” her, which has a much bigger effect on the audience.
Comparing the stagecraft between the film and the play is very interesting. In the play, when Macbeth says in act two scene one “Is this a dagger which I see before me”, the audience wouldn’t have to imagine it, as the dagger appears and disappears using modern technology. It would be very difficult to do this on stage without hanging a dagger on a bit of string which would look ridiculous.The audience would laugh and break the dramatic tension.
On Shakespeare stage, all they had for the light was the sunlight, and to tell the audience that it’s dark, the actors would have to describe it to the audience. We can see this in act two, scene one, when Fleance says “The moon is down; I have not heard the clock! ” whereas in the film, they had all they needed, so that they could construct a perfect film for the audience, and not to make the audience imagine the set, but play them out.We can see this too, when Duncan comes to Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane and describes what he sees. Shakespeare used no set, and neither did the RSC stage version, so the descriptions of the time of the day and setting become more important. Devices like death on and off stage and soliloquies have a huge difference between the film and the play. In the film you can see all the death happening and you know who has died so you will conclude what will happen next.
It is made very realistic and we feel the horror.However in the text actors come on the stage again to tell you there’s been a battle and someone’s died but you don’t get the same image so it doesn’t really affect you as much. It is very difficult to represent death on stage realistically, and if the audience laughs, it would break the dramatic tension. In the film the soliloquies are used as someone’s thoughts, which are done as voice-overs.
However in the text they are used for the same reasons so that the audience knows what is happening.The only difference is that when it comes to a soliloquy the person goes to one side and says it aloud to him self so his lips are moving unlike in the film when the words are in his head, and a background voice is talking about his thoughts. Having modern technology gives them an advantage of making it more realistic, and more understandable. But in the text, they would make the actor to say soliloquy, instead of standing and waiting for his voice-over to be done.
