Shakespeare Magazine 11

Macbeth
“I’d like to show Macbeth repelling the attempted
sea invasion. This and a battle with Irish cavalry”
have power over ‘land and sea’. It was said at the
trials that witches, at the behest of Satan, had tried
to sink a royal ship carrying the queen, Anne of
Denmark. In a time rife with witch-burnings this
was a form of ‘bread and circuses’.
“People will confess to anything under torture,
and I believe all the statements recorded were put
there to advance the Stuart line of kings in the early
days of the union.”
Alongside all the martial manhood, there’s a
great deal of female power in this play – with
the Witches and Lady Macbeth. How did you
approach this element?
“I must admit I enjoyed it. It was refreshing to see
such strength of purpose in the female characters,
in fact startling – it seems very modern because it
is so uncompromising. Admittedly Lady Macbeth
does seek strength by asking to be ‘unsexed’ but she
is already so much more determined than Macbeth
himself that it’s a wonder she would need any kind
of transformation. We are journeying into her
mind here and it’s a dark place. To some extent
it was just easy to watch and draw the excellent
performances of Jessica Boone (Lady Macbeth)
and the various witches. But then I also felt that I
didn’t have to worry too much about maintaining
a graceful appearance for Lady Macbeth. As the
story progressed I let her change in some panels to
become more witch-like herself. But I made her
more graceful again when she began sleep-walking,
perhaps to reflect a kind of remorse that I think is
there in the play. They both have those moments of
reflection.”
Many Macbeth productions take place in a
shakespeare magazine 17