MYPNA_TE_G12_U3_web.pdf

The images shown here are

from the 2015 film adaptation

of Macbeth starring Michael

Fassbender as Macbeth and

Marion Cotillard as Lady

Macbeth.

© Pearson Education, Inc., or its affiliates. All rights reserved.

How realistic or true to Shakespeare’s era does this need to be?

Some directors attempt to keep with the playwright’s vision by staging

the action in as realistic a manner as possible or by recreating Elizabethan

settings and costume. Other directors, however, take liberties with settings,

costumes, and other aspects of the production.

• To bring new realism to the woodland setting of A Midsummer Night’s
  Dream, the director of a 1905 production brought live rabbits onstage.


• By contrast, the set for Peter Brook’s famous 1972 stage production of
  A Midsummer Night’s Dream was a white box with no ceiling and two
  doors. Stagehands were completely visible to the audience.


• The famous actor Laurence Olivier brought unintentional realism to the
  part of Macbeth. Following his director’s instructions, he played the part
  so enthusiastically that he injured the actor playing Macduff during their
  staged sword fight. On another occasion, with yet another Macduff,
  Olivier fought the sword battle so vigorously that his sword broke and
  flew into the audience.

How do we show relevance? Some directors highlight the play’s

application to modern life by relocating the story to times and places that

resonate with current audiences.

• In a 1936 production of Macbeth, director Orson Welles set the play in
  Haiti instead of Scotland. He used a cast of African American actors and
  modeled Macbeth after a famous Haitian dictator.


• In a 2000 film version of Hamlet starring Ethan Hawke, the action takes
  place on twentieth-century Wall Street in New York City at a company
  called Denmark Corporation.


• In a 2010 televised production of Macbeth starring Sir Patrick
  Stewart, the sets, mood, and costumes intentionally evoke Stalin-era
  Soviet Union, a particularly bloody and oppressive time and place in
  twentieth-century history.

essential question: How do our attitudes toward the past and future shape our actions?

Literature and Culture 253

LIT17_SE12_U03_A1C_WC.indd 253PERSONALIZE FOR LEARNING 3/14/16 1:09 AM

English Language Support

Domain-Specific Vocabulary Students may

struggle with domain-specific vocabulary

presented in the text about Elizabethan theater.

Support them in understanding the text by

reviewing some of these terms: pageants,

patrons, troupes, groundlings, galleries.

Have students use a dictionary to find meanings

of each term as they apply to dramatic theater

and have them write sentences that show word

meaning. Encourage students to create a glossary

of terms they can add to as they read through the

rest of the Background material. ALL LEVELS

Whole-Class Learning 253

LIT17_TE12_U03_A1C_WC.indd 253 4/9/16 10:07 AM