Adapting Macbeth, or, Creating a Diversion?

[T]hence to the Duke’s house and saw Macbeth; which though I saw it lately yet appears a most excellent play in all respects, but especially in divertisement, though it be a tragedy, it being most proper here and suitable.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys, 27 January 1667

Divertisement (1)

A kind of ballet; a short ballet or other entertainment given between acts or longer pieces…formerly also a piece of music containing several movements.

OED, def. 2.

Some Macbeths (1674)

John Downes on the 1670s Macbeth

The Tragedy of Macbeth, alter’d by Sir William Davenant; being drest in all its Finery, as new Cloath’s, new Scenes, Machines, as flying for the Witches; with all the singing and dancing in it…it being all excellently perform’d being in the nature of an Opera, it Recompenc’d double the Expence; it proves still [1708] a lasting Play.

Roscius Anglicanus (1708)

Warrant authorising the adaptation of earlier plays in the Restoration

Whereas Sr William Davenant, Knight hath humbly prsented [sic] to us a proposition of reformeinge some of the most ancient Playes that were played at Blackfriers and of makeinge them, fitt, for the Company of actors appointed under his direction and Comand…

Davenant’s Adaptations of Shakespeare

The Law Against Lovers (1662) – mash-up of Measure for Measure and Much Ado

About Nothing

Macbeth (1663/64)

The Tempest (co-authored with Dryden, 1667)

Singing, Dancing, and “Divertisement” in Davenant’s Macbeth

Come hover through the foggy filthy air – Exeunt Flying (Act I, Scene i)

Lady Macbeth: What quite unmann’d in Folly [the Ghost descends

-------Lords: Our Duties are to Pledge it [the Ghost of Banq. rises at his feet

Act II, Scene v in Davenant is a new scene in which the witches sing songs and dance

Dryden on Shakespeare (1667)

As when a Tree’s cut down the secret rootLives under ground and thence new Branches

shoot;So, from Shakespear’s honour’d dust, this daySprings up and buds a new reviving Play.

“Prologue” to The Tempest (1667)

Critical Opinions on the Adaptation of Shakespeare (1)

“It’s almost like a rouged corpse – a thing too ghastly to conceive of”

George C. D. Odell, Shakespeare from Betterton to Irving (1920-21)

“everything that the authors [Dryden and Davenant] laid their hands on is defiled”

Hazelton Spencer, Shakespeare Improved (1927)

Critical Opinions of the Adaptation of Shakespeare (2)

“The extraordinary reduction of the protagonists…is revealed in scene after scene”

Peter Dyson, “Changes in Dramatic Perspective: From Shakespeare’s Macbeth to Davenant’s” The Shakespeare Quarterly 30 (1979), 402-407.

Divertisement (2)

the action of diverting or the fact of being diverted

OED, def. 1

Montaigne, “On Diversion”

• Montaigne argues that reason cannot control the passions, therefore it is necessary to find “diversions” to provide an outlet for the passions so that they do not become destructive.

• This idea has a big influence on much continental thinking in the middle of the seventeenth century, especially in France in the 1650s, where…

Davenant happens to be thinking about “divertisements” as well

[T]he wise Athenians (dividing into three Parts the publick Revenue) expended one in Plays and Shows, to divert the people from meeting to consult of their Rulers merit, and the defects of Government.

“Preface” to Gondibert (1651)

The People of England are observ'd by writers of other nations and by our owne to require continual divertisements, being otherwise naturally inclin'd to that melancholy that breeds sedition

Letter to John Thurloe (1656)

The Re-Opening of the Theatres as “diversion”

Greatest of Monarchs, welcome to this placeWhich Majesty so oft was wont to graceBefore our Exile, to divert the Court,And ballance weighty Cares with harmless Sport.

Davenant, “The Prologue to His Majesty” (1660)

Davenant’s Witches

Shakespeare Act I, Sc. I, ll. 10-11

Fair is foul and foul is fairHover through the fog and filthy air

Davenant, Act I, p. 1To us fair weather’s foul and foul is fairCome hover through the foggy

filthy air

And in an added scene:We shou’d rejoyce when good kings bleed (p. 27)

I go, and it is done. The bell invites me.Hear it not, Duncan; for it is a knellThat summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Shakespeare Act 2, scene I (63- 65)

Oh Duncan hear it not for tis a bellThat rings my Coronation, and thy Knell.

Davenant, Macbeth, p. 18

Macbeth

Shakespeare, Act 1, scene 2For brave Macbeth – well he deserves that name –Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished steelWhich smoked with bloody executionLike valour’s minionCarved out his passage till he faced the slave

Davenant, Act I (p.But brave Macbeth (who well

deserves that name)Did with her frowns put all her

smiles to flightAnd cut his passage to the rebel’s person

Macbeth

Shakespeare, 1.3.Till that Bellona’s bride-groom

lapped in proofConfrinted him with self-comparisons

Davenant, Act I (p.3)Brave Macbeth opposed his bloody rageAnd checked his haughty spirits

Macbeth

Shakespeare 1.4, ll. 49-53Stars hide your fires,Let not light see my black and

deep desiresThe eye wink at the hand, yet

let that beWhich the eye fears when it is

done to see

Davenant, Act I, p. 9Let no light see my black and deep desiresThe strange idea of a bloody actDoes into doubt all my resolve

distract

Lady Macbeth in Davenant

You were a man.And by the charter of your sex you shou’dHave govern’d me, there was more crime in youWhen you obey’d my counsels, then I contractedBy my giving it. Resign your Kingdom now,And with your Crown put off your Guilt

Davenant, p. 53

Macbeth as 1650s Regicide

Drag his body hence, and let it hang uponA Pinnacle at Dunsinane, to shewFuture Ages what to those is dueWho others right by lawless power pursue

MacDuffs in Davenant

Lady MacDuff: Ambition led him to that bloody deed

May you be never by ambition ledMacDuff: From Duncan’s grave I think I hear a groan | That calls aloud for justice.Lady MacDuff: If the throneWas by Macbeth ill-gained, Heavens may,Without your sword sufficient vengeance pay

On the added scene of debate between the MacDuffs, Lois Potter writes that it must have been: “agonisingly relevant…For that majority of Davenant’s audience who had been quiescent under Cromwell, this argument externalises an inner conflict that badly needed ventilating.” Potter, Secret Rites, p. 202.