Darkness performed macbeth that was plays staged shakespeare’s

Text	Conjuring darkness in Macbeth It is strange to think that Macbeth https://www.bl.uk/works/macbeth was almost certainly written for, and first performed at, the open-air Globe Theatre, where plays were staged in daylight. ‘Light thickens, and the crow / Makes wing to th’ rooky wood’ (3.2.50–51), says Macbeth – but the actor first speaking these words did so in the bright light of day. The palpable gathering of darkness that the speaker describes and welcomes had to be imagined by Shakespeare’s audience. We know for certain that Macbeth was performed in daylight at the Globe, for the astrologer Simon Forman records seeing it performed there in 1610. It had first been staged in 1606. Even if it were later performed at the indoor theatre at Blackfriars, where plays were illuminated by candlelight and where darkness was obtainable, this theatre was not available to Shakespeare’s company until 1608–09. It seems clear, then, that Shakespeare conceived it as a play where darkness had to be theatrically conjured rather than literally provided.

Text

Conjuring darkness in Macbeth

It is strange to think that

Macbeth
https://www.bl.uk/works/macbeth

was almost certainly written for, and first performed at, the open-air Globe Theatre, where plays were staged in daylight. ‘Light thickens, and the crow / Makes wing to th’ rooky wood’ (3.2.50–51), says Macbeth – but the actor first speaking these words did so in the bright light of day. The palpable gathering of darkness that the speaker describes and welcomes had to be imagined by Shakespeare’s audience. We know for certain that Macbeth was performed in daylight at the Globe, for the astrologer Simon Forman records seeing it performed there in 1610. It had first been staged in 1606. Even if it were later performed at the indoor theatre at Blackfriars, where plays were illuminated by candlelight and where darkness was obtainable, this theatre was not available to Shakespeare’s company until 1608–09. It seems clear, then, that Shakespeare conceived it as a play where darkness had to be theatrically conjured rather than literally provided.

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Conjuring darkness in Macbeth