The Role of Witches in Macbeth

The Role of Witches in Macbeth

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 ...

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...aring 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.