Macbeth
!
“I’d like to show Macbeth repelling the attempted sea invasion. This and a battle with Irish cavalry”
have power over ‘land and sea’. It was said at the trials that witches, at the behest of Satan, had tried to sink a royal ship carrying the queen, Anne of Denmark. In a time rife with witch-burnings this was a form of ‘bread and circuses’. “People will confess to anything under torture, and I believe all the statements recorded were put there to advance the Stuart line of kings in the early days of the union.” Alongside all the martial manhood, there’s a great deal of female power in this play – with the Witches and Lady Macbeth. How did you approach this element? “I must admit I enjoyed it. It was refreshing to see such strength of purpose in the female characters, in fact startling – it seems very modern because it is so uncompromising. Admittedly Lady Macbeth
does seek strength by asking to be ‘unsexed’ but she is already so much more determined than Macbeth himself that it’s a wonder she would need any kind of transformation. We are journeying into her mind here and it’s a dark place. To some extent it was just easy to watch and draw the excellent performances of Jessica Boone (Lady Macbeth) and the various witches. But then I also felt that I didn’t have to worry too much about maintaining a graceful appearance for Lady Macbeth. As the story progressed I let her change in some panels to become more witch-like herself. But I made her more graceful again when she began sleep-walking, perhaps to reflect a kind of remorse that I think is there in the play. They both have those moments of reflection.” Many Macbeth productions take place in a shakespeare magazine
17