Macbeth is told by three witches that he will become king of Scotland. With the encouragement of his wife, Lady Macbeth,
he murders Duncan, the present king, and takes over the throne. This leads to a series of further murders, and
culminates in the death of Macbeth himself and the restoration of Malcolm, Duncan's son, to the throne.
References within the play suggest that it was written after teh accession of the Scottish King James VI to the
English Throne in 1603 as James I of England. It was probably written in 1606, when the repercussions of the Gunpowder Plot
made the subject of regicide and the Scottish succession topics of vital topical interest.
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The costume designs for this production highlighted the charqacters of the different groups of people involved.
The witches were dressed in multiple layers of black and grey rags, with thin strips of ragged red trailing from them.
Macbeth and his wife were predominantly dressed in red and black, the colours of blood and night,
while Duncan and his sons wore cream and gold, to suggest light and sunshine. Other characters tended to wear greys,
silver and green.
The set consisted of towering walls of mottled grey to suggest the claustrophobic nature of the castle in which
so much of the action takes place, and lighting created bright pools of action amid the surrounding darkness. A
narrow opening at the back of the set showed stormy skies for many of the exterior scenes, and was curtained with black
for interiors.
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