Witches and Jesuits: Shakespeare's Macbeth

THIS BOOK WAS SUGGESTED AFTER SEEING BILL CAIN'S NEW PLAY "EQUIVOCATION". THE GUNPOWDER PLOT (AN EARLY 17TH CENTURY ATTEMPT TO BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT OF JAMES I BY BLOWING UP THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT WITH THE KING AND ALL THE LORDS INSIDE) SERVES AS THE BASIS FOR THAT PLAY, AND AS REVEALED IN GARRY WILLS BOOK, ALSO FOR MACBETH. THE BOOK PROVIDES DETAILS OF THAT TIME THAT ILLUMINATE PARTS OF THE PLAY THAT WERE, FOR ME, OBSCURE. AS AN EXAMPLE, THE PORTER'S SPEECH IS ALL ABOUT THE EQUIVOCATION OF THE GUNPOWDER PLOT PARTICIPANTS. WILLS DETAILS OTHER PLAYS OF THE PERIOD THAT INCLUDED THE SAME PLOT DEVICE CONCERNING MALCOLM'S CHALLENGE OF THE LOYALTY OF MACDUFF IN ACT 4. HE PROVIDES INVALUABLE INSIGHT INTO THE CONDUCT OF THE WITCHES, DISCUSSING HOW THEY CAST THEIR SPELLS, THE MAGIC CIRCLE INTO WHICH THEY INVITE MACBETH, AND THE MOTIONS THAT DO AND UNDO THEIR SPELLS. BUY AND READ THIS BOOK (AND RE-READ IT) BEFORE THE NEXT PERFORMANCE YOU SEE OF MACBETH. THE EXPERIENCE WILL BE SO MUCH RICHER WITH THE KNOWLEDGE WILLS PROVIDES.

Wills' little book takes a fresh look at Macbeth. It's certainly not a revelation that Macbeth was influenced by the Gunpowder Plot and King James' interest in the occult, but Wills' exploration goes deeper. His point of departure is the well-known difficulty in staging Macbeth, a play that bounces from the witch-infested battlefield to an intensely private murder and the interplay between Macbeth and his wife. But all of that is finished a third of the way through the play, to be followed by seemingly disjointed scenes with Malcolm in England, with Hecate and the witches, and other bits that many modern productions simply omit. Wills argues that the environment in England after the 1605 Gunpowder Plot --an attempt by a band of Jesuits to blow up the King, the crown prince, all the senior judges and the entire Parliament-- was not unlike the grave national mood in the US after Pearl Harbor (or perhaps after 9-11, one might add). Macbeth was written the following year, and, Wills believes, is one of many "Gunpowder" plays that showed the Jesuits as satanic, clever liars who made pacts with the devil and sought to overturn the natural political order. In this context, the witch scenes in the play, as well as several other scenes (the porter pretending to be Hell's gatekeeper, Malcolm's verbal testing of Macduff in England) take on a new light. They are not extraneous to the closet murder story, but are themselves key to understanding Macbeth's motives. Macbeth was seduced by the devil and eventually becomes a witch himself. Clever lies ("equivocating") are a trademark of the conspirators, and are a natural offense against language and right. Wills' conclusions are that Macbeth need not be a "cursed" play. If directors and actors would rethink its historical context and seek to understand Shakespeare's message at a time of national crisis, they could redraw the logical links between the disparate scenes and present the play in the way it was intended. This is a wonderful book. Wills is a pleasure to read, whether he writes about Lincoln, Venice or Shakespeare, he always brings a fresh view that is well-worth thinking through.

'Macbeth' is a play with a problem, according to Wills. Most directors consider it has too many witches and sprites, so they cut a lot of song and dance. Then there's that banquet scene climax that comes too soon and dribbles off into the seemingly pointless byplay between Malcolm and Macduff in England. Most of this is faithful to Shakespeare's source (Holinshed), but did the Bard fail to wrestle the material into a coherent drama?Wills makes a case for considering the play in its context of current events and dramatic conventions. In particular, he believes that the recently-foiled Gunpowder Plot loomed so large in the public (and particularly, the royal) mind that much of what seems mysterious or pointless to us can be seen as plain references to the Plot and the Jesuit perpetrators of it.He is a master of the material, and his enthusiasm and high intellectual vigor make this a joy to read. His solution to the 'problem' of Macbeth is radical: Macbeth is a witch, and the supernatural element should be stressed, not played down. Even the scene with Malcolm and Macduff can be rescued if one can see Malcolm as a counter-witch, good as against Macbeth's evil, rather than as cautious wimp.The book is full of ideas for interpreting passages that have always been puzzles, and pulling the drama together. His ultimate justification is that Shakespeare was taking advantage of the times -- and that his first audience for the play was James I himself -- and so DID know what he was doing, that much that falls flat now worked well then. I would love to see a production that -- somehow! -- retrieved this vanished topicality.

Wills places "Macbeth" firmly within the context of its times. Shakespeare's play, in addition to others written in 1606-7, contains numerous references to the Gunpowder plot, an attempt by radical Jesuits made in 1605 to overthrow the government and Church of England. Wills, also author of "John Wayne's America,: and "Lincoln at Gettysburg," sees "Macbeth," (as is true of ALL media, whether enduring works of art as this is, or daily newspapers), as a political document. Only through a realization of this fact can the play be truly appreciated.

In "Witches and Jesuits," Gary Wills provides the political and social background of England during the time that Shakespeare wrote "Macbeth." Using the Gunpowder Plot and other events of the time, Wills delves deeper into the underlying meaning of the Scottish play than any other critical treatment, and even includes an explanation about why Shakespeare wrote the Hecate scene. It is an extremely enjoyable read, rare for analyses of Shakespeare.