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Passport
TO CULTURE
Teacher’s Resource Guide
SCH
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ime Performance
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Macbeth
Shakespeare LIVE!
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8
200
-20
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Grad
09
7-12
just imagine
More Activities and Resources
Before the Performance
1. Have each student select a character
from Macbeth and write a journal as that
character to answer such questions as:
What is a typical day like? Who are your
friends? Who are your enemies? Who
is in your family? What do you do for
amusement or entertainment? What are
you frightened of? What does your home
look like? (1.2, 1.3)*
2. Give students this list of Elizabethan
words and terms that are used in Macbeth
along with their contemporary meanings:
Act 1
thrice – three times
hurly-burly – battle, chaos
unseamed him from the knave to the chops
– cut him open from his navel to his jaw
corporal – of or relating to the body
inane root – a root that, when eaten, can
produce intense hallucinations
compunctions – anxiety arising from guilt
dunnes – darkest
trammel – confine in a net
surcease – completion – in this case
Duncan’s death
shoal - shallow
1
Act II
knell – a stroke of a bell for death or
disaster
incarnadine – redden, to make red
anointed – made sacred by the application
of oil
Act III
indissoluble – cannot be dissolved or
undone
sundry – several, diverse, various
gory locks – blood and gore soaked hair
augur – predictions
beldams – hags
Pit of Acheron – a river in the Underworld
in classic mythology
Act IV
brinded – strictly “tawny with bars of
another color” as describing a striped cat
harpier – possibly a harpy, a mythical birdwoman who symbolized vengeance
entrails –intestines
fenny snake – snake which inhabits fens or
marshlands
howlet – owlet or small owl
farrow – a litter of pigs
harp’d – struck the right note; guessed
pernicious – very destructive; deadly
Act V
mated – overcome, bewildered
Seyton – Macbeth’s armorer
skirr – run rapidly over; scour
physic – medicine
bane – violent death; destruction
hew – to cut or fell with blows
ague – a fever with recurrent chills and
sweating
cow’d – made to feel fear
painted upon a pole – likeness painted
on a pole as an advertisement – as in a
sideshow
Divide students into groups of four. Have
each group write a short skit or play that
takes place in the present and uses at least
five of these Elizabethan words or terms.
Have each group present its work. (1.2,
1.3, 1.4)
After the Performance
1. Show a film version of Macbeth to
students (See “Delving Deeper” on page
8 of the Teacher’s Resource Guide.)
Have students compare the film with the
Shakespeare LIVE! production. Explore how
the personality and choices of a particular
actor shape a role. How do the setting and
costumes affect the piece? Can students see
the director’s concept at work? Compare
the film director’s concept with that of
the director of Shakespeare LIVE! Finally,
have several students work together on a
monologue from Macbeth. Urge each person
to interpret the monologue as personally
as possible. Have the students perform the
monologue for the class. Discuss how many
ways the same text can be interpreted. (1.1,
1.2, 1.3, 1.4)
2. The supernatural is employed as a
theatrical device in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.
The world Shakespeare establishes in the
play is one in which witches, ghosts and
spectral weapons abound. With them
comes a sense of unease about the evidence
of one’s own senses and uncertainty. For
example, upon first encountering the weird
sisters, Banquo asks:
Who are these,
So withered and so wild in their attire,
That look not like th’ inhabitants o’th’ earth
And yet are on’t? Live you, or are you
aught
That man may question?
Have students find other examples of the
supernatural and their significance in the
play. How do the characters interpret
supernatural solicitations? How do they
affect the characters’ behavior and the
play’s action? (1.5)
3. The witches in Macbeth very cunningly
use peer pressure to manipulate Macbeth
and his wife. Find examples in the play of
how the witches employ this strategy. Have
the students ever felt pressure from their
peers to act a certain way? Why do people
give in to peer pressure? Explain that while
peers can have a positive influence on each
other, sometimes peers influence each other
in negative ways. Divide the class into
groups. Ask each group to decide upon an
example of negative peer pressure. Then,
have each group create a skit illustrating the
causes, circumstances and consequences of
the example it chose and perform its skit for
the class. Discuss ways to avoid and/or walk
away from peer pressure. (1.1, 1.2, 1.3)
4. Ask students to research what London
was like in Shakespeare’s time (the late 16th
and early 17th centuries). What main source
of diversion was accessible to people of all
classes? Why was theater eventually banned
by the Puritans? (1.5)
5. Big events are afoot in the course of
Macbeth: one foreign invasion is defeated,
another succeeds, a king is murdered, his
sons flee the country under suspicion of the
deed – and – there are cannibalistic horses
and other spooky signs. Assign the big
events of the play to members of the class
and have them create appropriate television
or newspaper coverage. (1.4, 1.5)
6. Have the class research the Globe
Theatre, the resident playhouse for
Shakespeare’s company of actors. How
was the Globe built, by whom and where?
Who owned it? How was it staffed and
administered? How was it designed? How
were plays staged? Who were the actors
in Shakespeare’s company? What was the
status of an actor in society? Who attended
the plays? What was the price of admission?
How was seating in the theater organized?
Have students share the information they
gather. (1.5)
7. Conduct a research project on the source
and history of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. (1.5)
*Number(s) indicate the NJ Core
Curriculum Content Standard(s) supported
by the activity.
Delving Deeper
Bloom, Harold. Shakespeare: The Invention
of the Human. Riverside, 1998.
Mack, Maynard. Everybody’s Shakespeare:
Reflections Chiefly on the Tragedies.
University of Nebraska Press, 1993.
Bradbrook, M.C. Shakespeare: The Poet
in His World. Columbia University Press,
1978.
The Riverside Shakespeare. G. Blakemore
Evans, ed. Houghton Mifflin Company,
1974.
Frye, Northrop. On Shakespeare. Yale
University Press, 1986.
Schoenbaum, Samuel. Shakespeare, The
Globe, and the World. Oxford University
Press, 1979.
Books for Teachers and Students
Kermode, Frank, ed. Four Centuries of
Shakespearean Criticism. Avon, 1974.
Kott, Jan. Shakespeare Our Contemporary.
Norton, 1974.
2
Shakespeare, William. Kenneth Muir,
ed. Macbeth (Arden Shakespeare: Second
Series). Arden, 1977.
Toropov, Brandon, and Joe Lee.
Shakespeare for Beginners. Steerforth Press,
2008.