“‘Macbeth’ is the story of a fearless warrior and inspiring leader brought low by ambition and desire. A thrilling interpretation of the dramatic realities of the times and a re-imagining of what wartime must have been like for one of Shakespeare’s most famous and compelling characters, a story of all-consuming passion and ambition set in war torn 11th Century Scotland.”
Directed by Justin Kurzel. Written by Jacob Koskoff (screenplay), Michael Lesslie (screenplay), Todd Louiso (screenplay) and William Shakespeare (play). Starring Michael Fassbender, Marion Cotillard, David Thewlis, Elizabeth Debicki, Jack Reynor, Sean Harris, Paddy Considine, David Hayman, Barrie Martin, Ross Anderson and Maurice Roëves.
Macbeth (full title The Tragedy of Macbeth) is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare. Set mainly in Scotland, the play illustrates the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power for its own sake.
The play is believed to have been written between 1599 and 1606. The earliest account of a performance of what was probably Shakespeare’s play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing such a play at the Globe Theatre. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book. It was most likely written during the reign of James I, who had been James VI of Scotland before he succeeded to the English throne in 1603. James was a patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, and of all the plays Shakespeare wrote during James’s reign, Macbeth most clearly reflects the playwright’s relationship with the sovereign.
Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy, and tells the story of a brave Scottish general named Macbeth who receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes the throne for himself. He is then wracked with guilt and paranoia, and he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler as he is forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion. The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of arrogance, madness, and death.
Shakespeare’s source for the tragedy is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. In recent scholarship, the events of the tragedy are usually associated more closely with the execution of Henry Garnett for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. Read more about Macbeth at Wikipedia.
