This Makbeth—with a K (after Shakespeare)—requires only nine actors—men or women; a virtually bare stage, and jumpsuits for costumes. And it is one of the most fascinating plays your audiences will ever have the thrill of watching. Makbeth came into being when Obie-winning director Richard Schechner led the professional actors of The Performance Group in New York in a thorough study of Shakespeare's masterpiece, looking for new meanings to help us understand the play and the greedy, power-hungry political leaders of our day. Staging notes by Brooks McNamara and Paul Epstein, and a "musical score" indicating reading, rhythms, and inflections rather than singing are included in the playbook. A large-format score may be ordered separately.

Ever since this inventive staging of Shakespeare's play was presented in The Performance Group Garage in New York City in 1969-70, producers have been trying to obtain a copy of the script. We are pleased to be able to offer this exciting adaptation to our customers. Richard Schechner, author of Environmental Theatre, describes the play as "preserving the flavor of Shakespeare's language and telling the story very swiftly, with music, for contemporary audiences." The music, primarily designed to indicate the rhythm and pitch of the lines, enhances and clarifies the language.

From the Publisher: Richard Schechner and The Performance Group which he founded are among the most creative forces in modern theatre. The "variation on a theme by Shakespeare" presented in this script is rich in new implications and meanings—a test designed for inventive staging by modern dramatists for contemporary audiences. Faithful to Shakespeare in that every word and every character are the Bard's, this Makbeth is experimental in several ways: in the idea that Macduff, Cawdor, and Banquo, along with Malcolm, are all sons of Duncan—and all are yearning for his crown (Donalbain is absent from this version); in the use of the Dark Powers to play all the minor roles; in the rearrangement of words and phrases, and the transferral of lines to other characters; in the repetition of key scenes and the simultaneity of scenes. There has been, and will be, disagreement over the viability of this adaptation. In daring to tamper with the work of Shakespeare, this play will shock some and horrify others. That, too, is part of the tradition of the theatre. When plays cease to shock and stir up controversy, the legitimate stage will fall to the level of the television studio. For every purist who scowls there will be innovators and vanguards who applaud. But everyone—purist, vanguard, whatever—will find himself spellbound in comparing the new Makbeth with the old Macbeth. The very essence of this variation on the Macbeth theme is experimentation—finding new meanings, nuances, messages in Shakespeare's words; discovering twentieth century psychology and politics in the seventeenth century view of an eleventh century political struggle.

More Shakespeare: As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night