Macbeth and the Players

There is now considerable support for the view that a performance by an actor of genius can constitute a critical interpretation of a play and that only through such performance studies can a completely valid judgement about the play be made. In this paperback edition of a pioneering work, Dennis Bartholomeusz reconstructs from prompt copies, playbills and contemporary accounts, the major interpretations of the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth on the English stage from 1611 to the 1960s and relates the outstanding peformances of Burbage and Olivier, Siddons and Thorndike to the overall production history of Macbeth.