Macbeth Booster Class: Easter

Service Description

This course explores the major themes and key moments within Shakespeare’s Jacobean play Macbeth. Each hour is designed to help students consider key themes in more detail, and carefully consider the importance of context, staging, props and audiences in poignant moments of this powerful play. Session 1 – Act 1 Scene 3 Supernatural. This 31-line extract shows the moment when Macbeth and Banquo are approached by three prophetic witches on the Scottish heathland. We will read the extract aloud as a group before considering Shakespeare’s use of punctuation, lines, formal language, figurative language and double meanings. Session 2 – Act 2 Scene 3 Loyalty and Ambition. Act 2 Scene 3 depicts the discovery of King Duncan’s murder, as everyone’s loyalties become suspect and the Macbeths conceal their ambitious, treacherous guilt. We will consider characters’ actions and interactions onstage, their tone of voice and the importance of speaking aloud versus in asides. Session 3 – Act 3 Scene 4 Gender. The banquet scene brings Jacobean gender codes into fresh focus, as the Macbeths respond to their crimes in disturbing ways. This extract provides ample opportunity for students to think more carefully about how they can incorporate instances from elsewhere in the play to enrich their own arguments. Session 4 – Act 4 Scene 1 Power and Authority. By Act 4 Scene 1, Macbeth begins to delude himself into assuming that, as king, he holds the ultimate authority and power, especially over the witches. This extract question drives students to consider how stage directions, costume, tone of voice and gesture impacts meaning and effects onstage. Session 5 – Act 5 Scenes 1 and 8 Guilt. Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking confession scene of Act 5 Scene 1 is a striking example of guilt’s consequences. Focusing on figurative language, stage directions, and minor characters, we will examine two Act 5 extracts about Lady Macbeth, thinking about how to compare the attitudes of both monarchs.

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To cancel or reschedule you must give more than 24hrs notice.

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