Scene Lady Macbeth Dench’s Act Dench Husband Conversation

How has this Act 1 Scene 5 been interpreted?

Trevor Nunn’s 1979 version of the play (recorded for television), with Judi Dench as Lady Macbeth and Ian McKellen, as her husband remains a towering and chilling production of the text, of which Act 1, Scene 5 is a particular high point. Here, Dench’s performance is multifaceted. Often, her lines are delivered with an icy austerity, in suitably hushed, hissed tones. Dench’s call to the ‘spirits’ is presented as the character engaging in a real, meaningful dialogue with these presences; it is a conversation so powerful and real to Lady Macbeth that its implications shock and frighten her, making her voice waver, making her squeal with fear.

Macbeth’s arrival in the scene brings about a subtle shift in Dench’s performance. Rather than aggressively cajoling her husband into following her ‘fell purposes’, instead Dench interestingly uses her feminine wiles – using womanliness she renounced seconds before – to flirt with and coerce Macbeth into action. Their conversation here, and Lady Macbeth’s persuasion, is full of seduction and unsettling sensuality.