'Macbeth' on the Victorian Stage

Macbeth was a very popular play in the nineteenth century, and most of the major actors, including Samuel Phelps, William Macready, Sir Henry Irving, Helen Faucit and Ellen Terry, tried their hand in the main roles. Productions were characterised by music and spectacle, including large numbers of singing witches. One of Shakespeare's shortest plays often took more than three hours to perform. This lecture will consider the range and variety of the productions and the innovations some performers introduced.

Sandra Clark has recently co-edited (with Pamela Mason) Macbeth for the Arden Shakespeare, Third Series, and has published widely on the literature of the early modern period. She is Series Editor of the Arden Shakespeare Dictionaries, and is currently writing a volume for it on Shakespeare and the language of domestic life. She taught for many years at Birkbeck, and then worked as Deputy Director, and also Acting Director, at the IES.