A Stage History Of “Macbeth”

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32038, 12 July 1969, Page 4

A Stage History Of “Macbeth”

Macbeth And The Players. By Dennis Bartholomeusz. Cambridge, 302 pp. Bibliography. Index, 11 plates. Othello. By Shakespeare. Edited by Alice Walker and John Dover Wilson. Cambridge. LXIX. Plus 246 pp. notes, glossary. The Tempest By Shakespeare. Edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch and John Dover Wilson. Cambridge. LX. Plus 117 pp. notes, glossary.

“I have tried in this book to test the proposition that players achieve special insights into a text, insights not normally available to critics and scholars.” With a mission as commendable as this, it is not surprising that Dr Bartholomeusz has produced a valuable and interesting book even if his conclusions are rather that bad players “have frequently obscured the text of ‘Macbeth.’”

The best way to test such an idea would undoubtedly have been for Dr Bartholomeusz to go on stage himself for a few years and record the results. Instead, he has chosen to remain among the ranks of the scholars, and simply view with envy historical evidence of “special insights.” This he finds almost exclusively in written records, although, within this limitation, he is indeed resourceful: acting editions, contemporary reviews and criticism, playbills, promptcopies, published interviews, and directors’ scripts are all used intelligently. But, at best, this insight reaches the reader at third hand, and, unless special care has been taken over its transmission, with some degree of devaluation. Few of the primary source-writers are writing for posterity; most of them had in mind an audience which shared the experience of the production they were concerned with, and a lot was obviously taken for granted. As far as getting some general meaning from the Play goes, Dr Bartholomeusz's work starts with the Restoration. It is true he ♦ oe .u Peyote a short chapter Globe production of ion. but the facts are uncertain and his conclusions dubious. The real complications started with William Davenant, Poet Laureate and selfstyled bastard son of Shakespeare, with which qualification he felt justified in rewriting many of the plays, adapted to Restoration tastes. But whatever mutilations the texts suffered, Davenant does seem to have been motivated by the need for consistency within a production: if there emerged apparent contradic-

tions or other complexities, he made a cut Macbeth could be “bloody, bold, and resolute,” or “haunted and imaginative,” but not both—or at least according to Dr Bartholomeusz, not “before Olivier proved it possible.” Lady Macbeth had a better time of it with a definite performance in the eighteenth century by Sarah Siddons. She and Garrick are allowed by Dr Bartholomeusz to share with Olivier the “most successful interpretations,” and several other actors are granted flashes of insight. Why the book's scope has been restricted to the two principal characters in “Macbeth” is not stated, apart from the obvious need to keep the study “within manageable bounds.” The play certainly has problems which are common to most, but its history does not give a full coverage of the main approaches to the plays. And so the author gives an adequate account of the theories of William Poel, but no satisfactory explanation how they were received on the stage. The name of Jan Kott is nowhere to be found; Stanislavsky is all but excluded.

Given the book’s purpose, it seems odd that so much of

it is devoted to interpretations which help but little in elucidating the play. But if Dr Bartholomeusz’s aims are forgotten, and the end product alone considered, there will be found a comprehensive and scholarly stage history of the play. Prominent in Dr Bartholomeuz’s extensive bibliography is the Cambridge “New Shakespeare” series. With the plethora of excellent new editions since the war, the “New Shakespeare” has lost some of its predominance; however, over the last year the series has been re-issued in paperback, a complete set of 39 volumes. Although there are certainly better editions, this series must be unrivalled for its price—less than one quarter of the hardback cost. The print is very large, and the margins wide enough to write in. All notes and critical apparatus are at the end of the book. The extent and quality of the notes varies from volume to volume; of the two under review, “Othello” is much more comprehensive than “The Tempest,” which, although it lacks a Quarto, needs more than eleven pages of specific introductory discussion.