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English Macbeth Essay

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English Macbeth Essay
In this essay, I’m going to be comparing the presentation of Lady Macbeth in Act 1 Scene 5 with the filmed stage performance of the same scene by the Royal Shakespearean production, directed by Sir Trevor Nunn and with Dame Judi Dench in the role of Lady Macbeth.

In the Shakespearean play, Shakespeare gives little indication to the characters how to play the character when and where to move and how to say their lines. The readers have to make their own interpretation. There background was just black so was the costumes it was really plain and and economically cheap.

However from the film we expected fancy costumes we imagined Lady Macbeth wearing an old fashioned dress we pictured her hair to be brown and we thought she would be much younger. In the film we expected her to be in her bedroom, as well as on some main lines such as ‘Hie thee hither ‘and ‘come you spirits’ we thought there might be powerful sound effects.

In the letter scene we expected LM to be very different. In the play she starts reading the letter half way. However in the film, she starts with 'Hail king that shalt be,' this shows us that she has read the letter before and she knows what the letter says. 'Hail King that shalt be' was repeated twice in the film this allows the audience to think she is obsessive about Macbeth becoming king and already she has ideas about killing the king. She reads the letter at a fast pace but, when she comes across the supernatural in the letter she stops and looks around this shows that she is very interested about the supernatural. In the play we expected her to be happy while reading 'my dearest partner of greatness' the word ‘partner sounds very businesslike as well as it emphasises her love and affection towards Macbeth. However in the actual film she read it really casually it did not affect her. In the play we expected her to read the letter while she is in her bedroom however in the film she was pacing up and down as well as the background was

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