How Shakespeare Got Scotland Wrong

Dunsinane is not just a sequel to Macbeth; it’s a counter-history. Yes, like in Shakespeare, Macbeth is dead. And, yes, like in Shakespeare, Macduff is victorious, along with his allies: Siward, the commander of the English army, and Malcolm, contestant for the Scottish throne whose father Duncan had been killed by Macbeth.

But, as it turns out, Shakespeare’s play was imperialist propaganda. Shakespeare wrote Macbeth around the year 1600, more than 500 years after the reign of the historical Macbeth, and he got much of the history wrong. He portrays Scotland as a primitive, chaotic place, incapable of governing itself.

Throughout history, the English have used this kind of thinking to justify colonizing neighboring nations like Scotland and Ireland and incorporating them into the United Kingdom. For example, succession to the Scottish throne followed the ancient Celtic principle of tanistry, whereby a ruler would name a successor from numerous candidates within his family. Succession to the English

“It occurred to me that… [what] really was interesting was not so much the overthrow of the tyrant, but just that question of what happened after you overthrew a tyrant.”

– David Greig (video interview with the Royal Shakespeare Company, published on youtube.com, 2011)

GOT SCOTLAND WRONG

throne followed the principle of primogeniture, whereby the eldest son of the ruler automatically became the successor. Centuries of English historians despised the Scottish way, and depicted Scottish rulers as lawless and illogical.

Greig’s play reworks Shakespeare’s play and seriously interrogates English assumptions. Greig draws much more closely on true histories of Macbeth and Scotland. Greig also insists on greater linguistic authenticity than Shakespeare did, with Scottish characters occasionally speaking their native Gaelic at key moments.

David Greig’s play Dunsinane premiered in 2010 at the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, and has since toured worldwide with the National Theatre of Scotland, last touring the U.S. in 2015. This production at MTC marks the first production by an all-American team. Macbeth is Scottish history written by an English playwright, and it got so many things wrong. Dunsinane is Scottish history written by a Scottish playwright, and it sets the record straight.

GLEN LYON is the longest glen (steep, glacier-formed valley) in Scotland, 32 miles long, sometimes thought of as a mystical place. In Dunsinane, it is Gruach’s key hidden pocket of resistance.