Aim
Explore the role(s) of women in this production of Macbeth
Learning Objectives
- Recall the female characters from the play and their main features
- Explain how this production presents these female characters (using production photography)
- Illustrate the differences between the text and the production
- Use contextual knowledge to analyse the reason/s for these differences
Metacognition focus!
Cognitive strategies: How do you feel about Assessment Objective 3 on ‘context’? What do you think counts as ‘context’?
Activate prior knowledge: what do you know about how women’s roles were played in Shakespeare’s time?
Introduction
In Macbeth, gender roles are explored and also disrupted. In the production you saw at Shakespeare’s Globe, this was given extra emphasis as several roles normally played by men were played by female actors.
Playing Female Characters
Have students work in groups of three. Ask: How many female characters are there in Macbeth? [Answer: Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, the witches, Hecate] Ignoring Hecate, they should write each character’s name into the centre of a separate A3 sheet of paper. On the left of each name/page, they should add notes about each characters’ main features: their appearance; how they act towards others; how others react to/think about them. You must use direct quotations.
Next, have each student select one character to focus on. On the right hand side of the page, they should add notes about how this production presented this female character. Think about: their costume (including colours and textures); their hair and make up; their body language/movement/use of gestures; their interaction with other characters. After 1 minute, they should swap characters, and see what else they can add. Repeat this again, until they end up with the character that they started with.
Students should then form a group with everyone else that has the same character as them (i.e. one group for: Lady Macbeth, Lady Macduff, the witches). In these larger groups, students should discuss the similarities and differences between the main features suggested by the text versus what they saw in the production. Students should then return to their original group of 3 and explain their findings to the group (as the ‘expert’ on that character).
Pose the questions to the class:
- What surprised you about these female characters when you saw them in the play? Why? Try to link this to the text.
- How did the presentation of these characters support / disrupt stereotypes linked to women?
- How does this presentation differ from what we know about how these characters would have been played in Shakespeare’s time?
- Focusing on the differences between the text and the production: why do you think the Director made these decisions about the presentation of these female characters (use production photography)?
- What is happening in our world today that might have influenced these decisions? How does our context shape this?