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John Houseman

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145-525: John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann ; September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television. He became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane and his collaboration, as producer of The Blue Dahlia , with writer Raymond Chandler on

290-526: A Scottish -born American, a Detroit -based inventor, best known for founding the Buick Motor Company. Harley-Davidson – The Davidson brothers were of Scottish descent (William. A., Walter and Arthur Davidson ) and William S. Harley of English descent. Along with Indian Motorcycle Manufacturing Company was the largest and most recognizable American motorcycle manufacturer. Baseball – The earliest recorded game of base-ball for which

435-508: A third murderer , presumably to ensure that the deed is completed. The murderers succeed in killing Banquo, but Fleance escapes the ambush. Macbeth becomes furious: he fears that his power remains insecure as long as an heir of Banquo remains alive. At the banquet, Macbeth invites his lords and Lady Macbeth to a night of drinking and merriment. Banquo's ghost enters and sits in Macbeth's place. Macbeth raves fearfully, startling his guests, as

580-488: A 'nemesis' to face to achieve that throne. For Antony, the nemesis is Octavius; for Macbeth, it is Banquo. At one point Macbeth even compares himself to Antony, saying "under Banquo / My Genius is rebuk'd, as it is said / Mark Antony's was by Caesar." Lastly, both plays contain powerful and manipulative female figures: Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare borrowed the story from several tales in Holinshed's Chronicles ,

725-691: A Continental Navy lieutenant) on the ship Alfred in Philadelphia). In addition, some places were named after the kings and queens of the former kingdoms of England and Ireland . The name Virginia was first applied by Queen Elizabeth I (the "Virgin Queen") and Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584., the Carolinas were named after King Charles I and Maryland named so for his wife, Queen Henrietta Maria (Queen Mary). The Borough of Queens in New York

870-613: A biopic directed by Minnelli of Vincent van Gogh , although it was extremely well-received critically. Houseman moved into television producing, notably doing The Seven Lively Arts (1957) and episodes of Playhouse 90 . He also returned to theatre, producing revivals of Measure for Measure (1957) and The Duchess of Malfi (1957). Houseman was enticed back to MGM as a producer, and given his own production company, John Houseman Productions. His films were All Fall Down (1962), Two Weeks in Another Town (1962) and In

1015-459: A bloody child tells him that no one born of a woman will be able to harm him. Thirdly, a crowned child holding a tree states that Macbeth will be safe until Great Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane Hill . Macbeth is relieved and feels secure because he knows that all men are born of women and forests cannot possibly move. Macbeth also asks whether Banquo's sons will ever reign in Scotland, to which

1160-517: A character who sees through plots—along with a vocabulary similar to the Plot in its immediate aftermath (words like train, blow, vault ) and an ironic recoil of the Plot upon the Plotters (who fall into the pit they dug)." The play utilizes a few key words that the audience at the time would recognize as allusions to the Plot. In one sermon in 1605, Lancelot Andrewes stated, regarding the failure of

1305-642: A contract with Paramount Pictures to produce movies. His first credit for that studio was The Unseen (1945). He followed it with Miss Susie Slagle's (1945) and The Blue Dahlia (1946), both with Veronica Lake . The latter, starring Alan Ladd and written by Raymond Chandler , has become a classic. He left Paramount and returned to Broadway to direct Lute Song (1946) with Mary Martin . Back in Hollywood he produced Letter from an Unknown Woman (1948) for Max Ophuls at Universal. Houseman went to RKO where he produced They Live by Night (1948)

1450-532: A corporate dinner for the Mercury crew, Welles exploded, calling his partner a "bloodsucker" and a "crook". As Houseman attempted to leave, Welles began hurling dish heaters at him, effectively ending both their partnership and friendship. Houseman later, however, played a pivotal role in ushering Citizen Kane (1941), which starred Welles. Welles telephoned Houseman asking him to return to Hollywood to "babysit" screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz while he completed

1595-471: A date in late 1606 is the first witch's dialogue about a sailor's wife: "'Aroint thee, witch!' the rump-fed ronyon cries./Her husband's to Aleppo gone, master o' the Tiger " (1.3.6–7). This has been thought to allude to the Tiger , a ship that returned to England 27 June 1606 after a disastrous voyage in which many of the crew were killed by pirates. A few lines later the witch speaks of the sailor, "He shall live

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1740-604: A double sense" and "keep the promise to our ear/And break it to our hope", confirmed James's belief that equivocation was a "wicked" practice, which reflected in turn the "wickedness" of the Catholic Church. Garnet had in his possession A Treatise on Equivocation , and in the play the Weird Sisters often engage in equivocation, for instance telling Macbeth that he could never be overthrown until "Great Birnan wood to high Dunsinane hill/Shall Come". Macbeth interprets

1885-620: A first approximation of the truth", the Census Bureau commissioned a study to produce new scientific estimates of the colonial American population, in collaboration with the American Council of Learned Societies , in time to be adopted as basis for legal immigration quotas in 1929, and later published in the journal of the American Historical Association , reproduced in the table below. Note: as in

2030-598: A game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford , Surrey ; Bray's diary was verified as authentic in September 2008. This early form of the game was apparently brought to North America by British immigrants. The first appearance of the term that exists in print was in " A Little Pretty Pocket-Book " in 1744, where it is called Base-Ball. Today, rounders , which has been played in England since Tudor times, holds

2175-438: A giant's robe upon a dwarfish thief Like Richard III , but without that character's perversely appealing exuberance, Macbeth wades through blood until his inevitable fall. As Kenneth Muir writes, "Macbeth has not a predisposition to murder; he has merely an inordinate ambition that makes murder itself seem to be a lesser evil than failure to achieve the crown." Some critics, such as E. E. Stoll, explain this characterisation as

2320-547: A grain business. His mother was British, from a Christian family of Welsh and Irish descent. His father was an Alsatian -born Jew . Haussmann was educated in England at Clifton College , became a British subject, and worked in the grain trade in London. He moved to Argentina as a speculator in the international grain markets before emigrating to the United States in 1925. He had a successful business career and

2465-431: A hallucination of a bloody dagger. He is so shaken that Lady Macbeth has to take charge. In accordance with her plan, she frames Duncan's sleeping servants for the murder by placing bloody daggers on them. Early the next morning, Lennox, a Scottish nobleman, and Macduff, the loyal Thane of Fife, arrive. A porter opens the gate and Macbeth leads them to the king's chamber, where Macduff discovers Duncan's body. Macbeth murders

2610-612: A heavily cut source, perhaps a prompt-book for a particular performance. This would reflect other Shakespeare plays existing in both Quarto and the Folio, where the Quarto versions are usually longer than the Folio versions. Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio, but has no Quarto version – if there were a Quarto, it would probably be longer than the Folio version. That brevity has also been connected to other unusual features:

2755-569: A history of England, Scotland, and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries, although the events in the play differ extensively from the history of the real Macbeth. The events of the tragedy have been associated with the execution of Henry Garnet for complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as " The Scottish Play ". The play has attracted some of

2900-473: A holdover from Senecan or medieval tradition. Shakespeare's audience, in this view, expected villains to be wholly bad, and Senecan style, far from prohibiting a villainous protagonist, all but demanded it. Yet for other critics, it has not been so easy to resolve the question of Macbeth's motivation. Robert Bridges , for instance, perceived a paradox: a character able to express such convincing horror before Duncan's murder would likely be incapable of committing

3045-589: A huge success with The Bad and the Beautiful (1952), directed by Vincente Minnelli . He followed it with the film adaptation of Julius Caesar (1953) (for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture) Also popular was Executive Suite (1954), a highly creative adaptation by Ernest Lehman of Cameron Hawley 's bestselling novel. However, although Her Twelve Men (1954), Minnelli's The Cobweb (1955) and Fritz Lang 's Moonfleet (1955) all lost money. So did Lust for Life (1956),

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3190-621: A kinsman of the dead king. Banquo reveals this to the audience, and while sceptical of the new King Macbeth, he remembers the witches' prophecy about how his own descendants would inherit the throne; this makes him suspicious of Macbeth. All but Macduff attend Macbeth's coronation. Despite his success, Macbeth, also aware of this part of the prophecy, remains uneasy. Macbeth invites Banquo to a royal banquet , where he discovers that Banquo and his young son, Fleance, will be riding out that night. Fearing Banquo's suspicions, Macbeth arranges to have him murdered, by hiring two men to kill them, later sending

3335-410: A man forbid:/Weary se'nnights nine times nine" (1.3.21–22). The real ship was at sea 567 days, the product of 7x9x9, which has been taken as a confirmation of the allusion, which if correct, confirms that the witch scenes were either written or amended later than July 1606. The play is not considered to have been written any later than 1607, since, as Kermode notes, there are "fairly clear allusions to

3480-506: A popular history of the British Isles well known to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. In Chronicles , a man named Donwald finds several of his family put to death by his king, Duff , for dealing with witches. After being pressured by his wife, he and four of his servants kill the king in his own house. In Chronicles , Macbeth is portrayed as struggling to support the kingdom in the face of King Duncan's ineptitude. He and Banquo meet

3625-445: A proper claim to the throne, and only took it at the urging of his wife. Holinshed accepted Boece's version of Macbeth's reign at face value and included it in his Chronicles . Shakespeare saw the dramatic possibilities in the story as related by Holinshed, and used it as the basis for the play. No other version of the story has Macbeth kill the king in Macbeth's own castle. Scholars have seen this change of Shakespeare's as adding to

3770-647: A result of the British colonization of the Americas , what became the United States was "easily the greatest single destination of emigrant British". Historically in the 1790 United States census estimate and presently in Australia , Canada , and New Zealand "people of British origin came to constitute the majority of the population" contributing to these states becoming integral to the Anglosphere . There

3915-493: A sad tale in thine ear Shall make thee let the cup fall from thy hand, And stand as mute and pale as death itself. Macbeth was first printed in the First Folio of 1623 and the Folio is the only source for the text. Some scholars contend that the Folio text was abridged and rearranged from an earlier manuscript or prompt book . Often cited as interpolation are stage cues for two songs, whose lyrics are not included in

4060-549: A script. The Mercury Theatre on the Air featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead , Bernard Herrmann , and George Coulouris . The Mercury Theatre on the Air subsequently became famous for its notorious 1938 radio adaptation of H. G. Wells ' The War of the Worlds , which had put much of the country in a panic. By all accounts, Welles was shocked by the panic that ensued. According to Houseman, "he hadn't

4205-407: A significant drop overall, especially from the 1980 census where 49.59 million people reported English ancestry and larger numbers reported Scottish, Welsh and North Irish ancestry also. Demographers regard current figures as a "serious under-count", as a large proportion of Americans of British descent have a tendency to simply identify as 'American' since 1980 where over 13.3 million or 5.9% of

4350-511: A similarity to baseball. Although, literary references to early forms of "base-ball" in the United Kingdom pre-date use of the term "rounders". In addition to baseball, American football is a sport that developed from soccer and Rugby , which are both sports that originated in the British Isles. Bowling or ten-pin bowling derived from Nine-Pins ( nine-pin bowling ) brought over by early British settlers. The Grand Union Flag

4495-523: A tailor who was questioned by the Archbishop of Canterbury on 27 November and 3 December 1607 for the part he played in Garnet's "miraculous straw", an infamous head of straw that was stained with Garnet's blood that had congealed into a form resembling Garnet's portrait, which was hailed by Catholics as a miracle. The tailor Griffin became notorious and the subject of verses published with his portrait on

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4640-401: A tempest and sabotage the boat King James and his queen were on board during their return trip from Denmark . The three witches discuss the raising of winds at sea in the opening lines of Act 1 Scene 3. Macbeth has been compared to Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra . As characters, both Antony and Macbeth seek a new world, even at the cost of the old one. Both fight for a throne and have

4785-416: A total of 11.0% being "not specified". Additional responses were Cornish (3,991), Northern Irish 4,009 and Manx 6,317. Most of the population who stated their ancestry as "American" (20,625,093 or 7.3%) are said to be of old colonial British ancestry. Following are the top 10 highest percentage of people of English, Scottish and Welsh ancestry, in U.S. communities with 500 or more total inhabitants (for

4930-657: A vice-president of David O. Selznick Productions. His most notable achievement during that time was helping adapt and produce the adaptation of Jane Eyre (1943) which starred Joan Fontaine and Welles. In the aftermath of the attack on Pearl Harbor , Houseman quit his job and became the head of the overseas radio division of the Office of War Information (OWI), working for the Voice of America whilst also managing its operations in New York City. In 1945 Houseman signed

5075-565: Is about half as long as Hamlet . Perhaps in the Shakespearean theatre too it seemed to occupy a longer time than the clock recorded." At least since the days of Samuel Johnson , analysis of the play has centred on the question of Macbeth's ambition, commonly seen as so dominant a trait that it defines the character. Johnson asserted that Macbeth, though esteemed for his military bravery, is wholly reviled. This opinion recurs in critical literature, and, according to Caroline Spurgeon ,

5220-679: Is accepted without protest by the Scottish lairds as their king despite being an usurper. Hadfield argued this aspect of the play with the thanes apparently choosing their king was a reference to the Stuart claim to the English throne, and the attempts of the English Parliament to block the succession of James's Catholic mother, Mary, Queen of Scots, from succeeding to the English throne. Hadfield argued that Shakespeare implied that James

5365-669: Is also a significant population of people with British ancestry in South Africa . An English presence in North America began with the Roanoke Colony and Colony of Virginia in the late-16th century, but the first successful English settlement was established in 1607, on the James River at Jamestown . By the 1610s, an estimated 1,300 English people had traveled to North America, the "first of many millions from

5510-626: Is concentrated in countries that had mass migration such as the United States and that are part of the English-speaking world . A 2006 publication from the Institute for Public Policy Research estimated 5.6 million British-born people lived outside of the United Kingdom. After the Age of Discovery , the British were one of the earliest and largest communities to emigrate out of Europe, and

5655-472: Is considered to be the first national flag of the United States . The design consisted of 13 stripes, red and white, representing the original Thirteen Colonies , the canton on the upper left-hand corner bearing the British Union Flag , the red cross of St. George of England with the white cross of St. Andrew of Scotland. The flag was first flown on December 2, 1775, by John Paul Jones (then

5800-476: Is mired in a bloody, monarch-killing past. ... Macbeth may have been set in medieval Scotland, but it was filled with material of interest to England and England's ruler." Critics argue that the content of the play is clearly a message to James, the new Scottish King of England. Likewise, the critic Andrew Hadfield noted the contrast the play draws between the saintly King Edward the Confessor of England who has

5945-458: Is no longer in the castle, everyone in Macduff's castle is put to death, including Macduff's young son and Lady Macduff . In England, Macduff is informed by Ross that his "castle is surprised; wife and babes / Savagely slaughter'd" (IV.iii.204–205). When this news of his family's execution reaches him, Macduff is stricken with grief and vows revenge. Lady Macbeth becomes racked with guilt from

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6090-748: Is not differentiated between modern Northern Ireland (part of the United Kingdom ) and the Republic of Ireland , which was part of the United Kingdom during the greatest phase of Irish immigration. Figures for Manx and Cornish ancestries are not separately reported, although Manx was reported prior to 1990, numbering 9,220 on the 1980 census, and some estimates put Cornish ancestry as high as 2 million. This figure also does not include people reporting ancestries in countries with majority or plurality British ancestries, such as Canadian, South African, New Zealander (21,575) or Australian (105,152). There has been

6235-490: Is run by the boss, Mister Mister (played in the original production by Will Geer ). The show was thought to have had left-wing and unionist sympathies (Foreman ends the show with a song about "unions" taking over the town and the country), and became legendary as an example of a "censored" show. Shortly before the show was to open, FTP officials in Washington announced that no productions would open until after July 1, 1937,

6380-447: Is supported by Shakespeare himself, who apparently intended to degrade his hero by vesting him with clothes unsuited to him and to make Macbeth look ridiculous by several exaggerations he applies: his garments seem either too big or too small for him – as his ambition is too big and his character too small for his new and unrightful role as king. After Macbeth is unexpectedly greeted with his new title as Thane of Cawdor as prophesied by

6525-462: Is usually taken to be contemporaneous to the other canonical tragedies: Hamlet , Othello , and King Lear . While some scholars have placed the original writing of the play as early as 1599, most believe that the play is unlikely to have been composed earlier than 1603 as the play is widely seen to celebrate King James' ancestors and the Stuart accession to the throne in 1603 (James believed himself to be descended from Banquo ), suggesting that

6670-561: The Appalachia . Much of American culture shows influences from nation states of British culture . Colonial ties to Great Britain spread the English language , legal system and other cultural attributes. Historian David Hackett Fischer has posited that four major streams of immigration from the British Isles in the colonial era contributed to the formation of a new American culture, summarized as follows: Fischer's theory acknowledges

6815-576: The British Empire 's expansion during the latter half of the 18th century and first half of the 19th century saw an "extraordinary dispersion of the British people", with particular concentrations "in Australasia and North America ". The British Empire was "built on waves of migration overseas by British people", who left the United Kingdom and "reached across the globe and permanently affected population structures in three continents". As

6960-498: The Channel Islands and Gibraltar . Based on 2020 American Community Survey estimates, 1,934,397 individuals identified as having British ancestry, while a further 25,213,619 identified as having English ancestry, 5,298,861 Scottish ancestry and 1,851,256 Welsh ancestry. The total of these groups, at 34,298,133, was 10.5% of the total population. A further 31,518,129 individuals identified as having Irish ancestry, but this

7105-529: The Earl of Northumberland , against Dunsinane Castle. While encamped in Birnam Wood, the soldiers are ordered to cut down and carry tree boughs to camouflage their numbers. Before Macbeth's opponents arrive, he receives news that Lady Macbeth has died, causing him to sink into a deep and pessimistic despair and deliver his " To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow " soliloquy (V.v.17–28). Though he reflects on

7250-684: The Immigration Act of 1924 , which imposed numerical quotas on each country of Europe limiting the number of immigrants to be admitted out of a finite total annual pool. The size of each national quota was determined by the National Origins Formula , in part computed by estimating the origins of the colonial stock population descended from White Americans enumerated in the 1790 Census . The undercount of other colonial stocks like German Americans and Irish Americans would thus have contemporary policy consequences. When CPG

7395-610: The Lafayette Theatre on April 14, 1936, to enthusiastic reviews and remained sold out for each of its nightly performances. The play was regarded by critics and patrons as an enormous, if controversial, success. After 10 months with the Negro Theater Project, however, Houseman felt he was faced with the dilemma of risking his future: ... on a partnership with a 20-year-old boy in whose talent I had unquestioning faith but with whom I must increasingly play

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7540-484: The United Kingdom ( England , Scotland , Wales , and Northern Ireland and also the Isle of Man , the Channel Islands , and Gibraltar ). It is primarily a demographic or historical research category for people who have at least partial descent from peoples of Great Britain and the modern United Kingdom , i.e. English , Scottish , Irish , Welsh , Scotch-Irish , Orcadian , Manx , Cornish Americans and those from

7685-633: The United Kingdom . In 1927, proposed immigration quotas based on CPG figures were rejected by the President's Committee chaired by the Secretaries of State , Commerce , and Labor , with the President reporting to Congress "the statistical and historical information available raises grave doubts as to the whole value of these computations as the basis for the purposes intended." Among the criticisms of A Century of Population Growth : Concluding that CPG "had not been accepted by scholars as better than

7830-513: The right of the Parliament of Great Britain to govern them without representation ; they proclaimed their independence in 1776, and subsequently constituted the first thirteen states of the United States of America, which became a sovereign state in 1781 with the ratification of the Articles of Confederation . The 1783 Treaty of Paris represented Great Britain's formal acknowledgment of

7975-510: The 2020 census. Response rates for the question on ancestry was 83.1% (1980) 90.4% (1990) and 80.1% (2000) for the total population of the United States. Ethnic distribution in 1700. According to estimates by Thomas L. Purvis (1984), published in the European ancestry of the United States , gives the ethnic composition of the American colonies from 1700 to 1755. British ancestry in 1755

8120-560: The 28 March 1606 trial and execution on 3 May 1606 of the Jesuit Henry Garnet , who used the alias "Farmer", with "equivocator" referring to Garnet's defence of "equivocation" . The porter says that the equivocator "committed treason enough for God's sake" (2.3.9–10), which specifically connects equivocation and treason and ties it to the Jesuit belief that equivocation was only lawful when used "for God's sake", strengthening

8265-474: The Air . An adaptation of Treasure Island was scheduled for the program's first broadcast, for which Houseman worked feverishly on the script. However, a week before the show was to air, Welles decided that a program far more dramatic was required. To Houseman's horror, Treasure Island was abandoned in favor of Bram Stoker 's Dracula , with Welles playing the infamous vampire. During an all night session at Perkins' Restaurant, Welles and Houseman hashed out

8410-499: The Banquo created by Shakespeare. Critics have proposed several reasons for this change. First, to portray the king's ancestor as a murderer would have been risky. Other authors of the time who wrote about Banquo, such as Jean de Schelandre in his Stuartide , also changed history by portraying Banquo as a noble man, not a murderer, probably for the same reasons. Second, Shakespeare may have altered Banquo's character simply because there

8555-598: The British Isles". In 1620, the Pilgrims established the English imperial venture of Plymouth Colony , beginning "a remarkable acceleration of permanent emigration from England" with over 60% of trans-Atlantic English migrants settling in the New England Colonies . During the 17th century, an estimated 350,000 English and Welsh migrants arrived in North America, which in the century after the Acts of Union 1707

8700-1069: The Cool of the Day (1963). Houseman returned to television where he made The Great Adventure and Journey to America (1964). He returned to Hollywood briefly to produce This Property Is Condemned (1966), then returned to TV for Evening Primrose (1966). He returned to Broadway, directing Pantagleize (1967). Houseman became the founding director of the Drama Division at The Juilliard School , and held this position from 1968 until 1976. The first graduating class in 1972 included Kevin Kline and Patti LuPone ; subsequent classes under Houseman's leadership included Christopher Reeve , Mandy Patinkin , and Robin Williams . British Americans British Americans usually refers to Americans whose ancestral origin originates wholly or partly in

8845-687: The Federal Theatre Project was headed by Rose McClendon , a well-known black actress, and Houseman, a theatre producer. Houseman describes the experience in one of his memoirs: Within a year of its formation, the Federal Theatre had more than fifteen thousand men and women on its payroll at an average wage of approximately twenty dollars a week. During the four years of its existence its productions played to more than thirty million people in more than two hundred theatres as well as portable stages, school auditoriums and public parks

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8990-498: The First Witch (4.1 124–131), were not part of Shakespeare's original play but were added by the Folio editors and possibly written by Middleton, though "there is no completely objective proof" of such interpolation. " Macbeth The Prince of Cumberland ! That is a step On which I must fall down, or else o'erleap, For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires; Let not light see my black and deep desires. The eye wink at

9135-474: The Folio but are included in Thomas Middleton 's play The Witch , which was written between the accepted date for Macbeth (1606) and the printing of the Folio. Many scholars believe these songs were editorially inserted into the Folio, though whether they were Middleton's songs or preexisting songs is not certain. It is also widely believed that the character of Hecate , as well as some lines of

9280-474: The King of Scotland, declares his benevolent intentions for the country and invites all to see him crowned at Scone , also naming his thanes as earls . Although Malcolm, and not Fleance, is placed on the throne at the end of the play, the witches' prophecy concerning Banquo's descendants being kings was known to the audience of Shakespeare's time to be true. James VI of Scotland, who was later James I of England ,

9425-457: The Plotters on God's day, "Be they fair or foul, glad or sad (as the poet calleth Him) the great Diespiter, 'the Father of days' hath made them both." Shakespeare begins the play by using the words "fair" and "foul" in the first speeches of the witches and Macbeth. In the words of Jonathan Gil Harris, the play expresses the "horror unleashed by a supposedly loyal subject who seeks to kill a king and

9570-463: The Scottish throne for himself. He is then racked with guilt and paranoia . Forced to commit more and more murders to protect himself from enmity and suspicion, he soon becomes a tyrannical ruler . The bloodbath and consequent civil war swiftly take Macbeth and Lady Macbeth into the realms of madness and death. Shakespeare's source for the story is the account of Macbeth, King of Scotland , Macduff , and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587),

9715-583: The Sea (1934) and Valley Forge (1934). In 1934, Houseman was looking to cast Panic , a play he was producing based on a drama by Archibald MacLeish concerning a Wall Street financier whose world crumbles about him when consumed by the crash of 1929. Although the central figure is a man in his late fifties, Houseman became obsessed by the notion that a young man named Orson Welles he had seen in Katharine Cornell 's production of Romeo and Juliet

9860-402: The U.S. and their influence on the country's population. A leading specialist, Charlotte Erickson, found them to be ethnically "invisible". This may be due to the early establishment of British settlements; as well as to non-English groups having emigrated in order to establish significant communities. Table below shows census results between 1980 (when data on ancestry was first collected) and

10005-525: The United States' sovereignty at the end of the American Revolutionary War . In the original Thirteen Colonies , most laws contained elements found in the English common law system. The vast majority of the Founding Fathers of the United States were of mixed British extraction. Most of them were of English descent, with smaller numbers of those of Scottish, Irish or Scots-Irish, and Welsh ancestry. A minority were of high social status and can be classified as White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP). Many of

10150-428: The United States, the British find Americans a "mysterious and paradoxical people, physically distant but culturally close, engagingly similar yet irritatingly different". For over two centuries (1789–2009) of early U.S. history, all Presidents with the exception of two (Van Buren and Kennedy) were descended from the varied colonial British stock, from the Pilgrims and Puritans to the Scotch-Irish and English who settled

10295-478: The acclaimed New York drama company, the Mercury Theatre . Houseman wrote of their collaboration at this time: On the broad wings of the Federal eagle, we had risen to success and fame beyond ourselves as America's youngest, cleverest, most creative and audacious producers to whom none of the ordinary rules of the theater applied. Armed with a manifesto written by Houseman declaring their intention to foster new talent, experiment with new types of plays, and appeal to

10440-701: The allied forces of Norway and Ireland, who were led by the traitorous Macdonwald and the Thane of Cawdor . Macbeth, the King's kinsman, is praised for his bravery and fighting prowess. In the following scene, Macbeth and Banquo discuss the weather and their victory. As they wander onto a heath, the Three Witches enter and greet them with prophecies. Though Banquo challenges them first, they address Macbeth, hailing him as "Thane of Glamis", "Thane of Cawdor", and that he will "be King hereafter". Macbeth appears to be stunned to silence. When Banquo asks of his own fortunes,

10585-427: The allusion to Garnet. The porter goes on to say that the equivocator "yet could not equivocate to heaven" (2.3.10–11), echoing grim jokes that were current on the eve of Garnet's execution: i.e. that Garnet would be "hanged without equivocation" and at his execution he was asked "not to equivocate with his last breath". The "English tailor" the porter admits to hell (2.3.13), has been seen as an allusion to Hugh Griffin,

10730-549: The beginning of the new fiscal year. In his memoir, Run-Through , Houseman wrote about the circumstances surrounding the opening night at the Maxine Elliott Theatre . All the performers had been enjoined not to perform on stage for the production when it opened on July 14, 1937. The cast and crew left their government-owned theatre and walked 20 blocks to another theatre, with the audience following. No one knew what to expect; when they got there Blitzstein himself

10875-436: The brevity and meaninglessness of life, he nevertheless awaits the rebels and fortifies Dunsinane. He is certain that the witches' prophecies guarantee his invincibility, but is struck with fear when he learns that the rebel army is advancing on Dunsinane shielded with boughs cut from Birnam Wood, in apparent fulfillment of one of the prophecies. A battle culminates in Macduff's confrontation with Macbeth, who kills Young Siward,

11020-625: The claim of the House of Stewart to the Scottish throne. Boece portrayed Banquo as an ancestor of the Stewart kings of Scotland, adding in a "prophecy" that the descendants of Banquo would be the rightful kings of Scotland while the Weird Sisters served to give a picture of King Macbeth as gaining the throne via dark supernatural forces. Macbeth did have a wife, but it is not clear if she was as power-hungry and ambitious as Boece portrayed her, which served his purpose of having even Macbeth realise he lacked

11165-537: The combined and tricky roles of producer, censor, adviser, impresario, father, older brother and bosom friend. Houseman later produced for the Negro Theatre Unit Turpentine (1936) without Welles. In 1936, Houseman and Welles were running a WPA unit in midtown Manhattan for classic productions called Project No. 891. Their first production was Christopher Marlowe 's Tragical History of Dr. Faustus which Welles directed while also playing

11310-534: The country over. Houseman immediately hired Welles and assigned him to direct Macbeth for the FTP's Negro Theater Unit, a production that became known as the " Voodoo Macbeth ", as it was set in the Haitian court of King Henri Christophe (and with voodoo witch doctors for the three Weird Sisters ) and starred Jack Carter in the title role. The incidental music was composed by Virgil Thomson . The play premiered at

11455-427: The crime. For many critics, Macbeth's motivations in the first act appear vague and insufficient. John Dover Wilson hypothesised that Shakespeare's original text had an extra scene or scenes where husband and wife discussed their plans. This interpretation is not fully provable; however, the motivating role of ambition for Macbeth is universally recognised. The evil actions motivated by his ambition seem to trap him in

11600-463: The crimes she and her husband have committed. At night, in the king's palace at Dunsinane, a doctor and a gentlewoman discuss Lady Macbeth's strange habit of sleepwalking. Suddenly, Lady Macbeth enters in a trance with a candle in her hand. Bemoaning the murders of Duncan, Lady Macduff, and Banquo, she tries to wash off imaginary bloodstains from her hands, all the while speaking of the terrible things she knows she pressed her husband to do. She leaves, and

11745-491: The darkness of Macbeth's crime as the worst violation of hospitality. Versions of the story that were common at the time had Duncan being killed in an ambush at Inverness , not in a castle. Shakespeare conflated the story of Donwald and King Duff in what was a significant change to the story. Shakespeare made another important change. In Chronicles , Banquo is an accomplice in Macbeth's murder of King Duncan, and plays an important part in ensuring that Macbeth, not Malcolm, takes

11890-530: The directorial debut of Nicholas Ray . He also did The Company She Keeps (1949) and On Dangerous Ground (1951). He returned to Broadway to produce Joy to the World (1949) and King Lear (1950-51), the latter with Louis Calhern . RKO's head of production had been Dore Schary . When Schary moved to MGM he offered Houseman a contract at the studio, which the producer accepted. Houseman's stint at MGM began with Holiday for Sinners (1952); then he had

12035-423: The doctor and gentlewoman marvel at her descent into madness. Prince Malcolm, Duncan's son, has succeeded in raising an army in England, and Macduff joins him as he rides to Scotland to challenge Macbeth's forces. The invasion has the support of the Scottish nobles, who are appalled and frightened by Macbeth's tyrannical and murderous behaviour. Malcolm leads an army, along with Macduff and Englishmen (Old) Siward ,

12180-490: The ethnic composition. A study published in 1909 titled A Century of Population Growth by the Census Bureau estimated the British origin combined were around 90% of the white population. Another source by Thomas L. Purvis in 1984 estimated that people of British ancestry made up about 62% of the total population or 74% of the white or European American population. Some 81% of the total United States population

12325-575: The events of that year, namely the execution of the Father Henry Garnet for his alleged complicity in the Gunpowder Plot of 1605, as referenced in the porter's scene." Those arrested for their role in the Gunpowder Plot refused to give direct answers to the questions posed to them by their interrogators, which reflected the influence of the Jesuit practice of equivocation . Shakespeare, by having Macbeth say that demons "palter...in

12470-400: The faintest idea what the effect would be". CBS was inundated with calls; newspaper switchboards were jammed. Without Welles, Houseman staged Douglas Moore 's The Devil and Daniel Webster (1939). While Houseman was teaching at Vassar College , he produced Welles' never-completed second short film, Too Much Johnson (1938). The film was never publicly screened and no print of the film

12615-458: The fast pace of the first act, which has seemed to be "stripped for action"; and the comparative flatness of the characters other than Macbeth. A. C. Bradley , in considering this question, concluded the play "always was an extremely short one", noting the witch scenes and battle scenes would have taken up some time in performance, remarking, "I do not think that, in reading, we feel Macbeth to be short: certainly we are astonished when we hear it

12760-407: The ghost is visible only to him. The others panic at the sight of Macbeth raging at an empty chair, until a desperate Lady Macbeth tells them that her husband is merely afflicted with a familiar and harmless malady. The ghost departs and returns once more, causing the same riotous anger and fear in Macbeth. This time, Lady Macbeth tells the visitors to leave, and they do so. At the end, Hecate, queen of

12905-404: The guards to prevent them from professing their innocence, but claims he did so in a fit of anger over their misdeeds, causing Macduff to suspect him. Duncan's sons Malcolm and Donalbain flee to England and Ireland, respectively, fearing that whoever killed Duncan desires their demise as well. The rightful heirs' flight makes them suspects and Macbeth assumes the throne as the new King of Scotland as

13050-405: The hand; yet let that be Which the eye fears, when it is done, to see." — Macbeth , Act I, Scene IV Macbeth is an anomaly among Shakespeare's tragedies in certain critical ways. It is short: more than a thousand lines shorter than Othello and King Lear , and only slightly more than half as long as Hamlet . This brevity has suggested to many critics that the received version is based on

13195-505: The issue: "The argument is Orson's own fault. He wanted to be given all the credit because he's a hog. Actually, it is his film. So it's a ridiculous argument." After he and Welles went their separate ways, Houseman went on to direct The Devil and Daniel Webster (1939) and Liberty Jones (1941) and produced the Mercury Theatre's stage production of Native Son (1941) on Broadway, directed by Welles. In Hollywood he became

13340-399: The king that very night. He and Lady Macbeth plan to get Duncan's two chamberlains drunk so that they will black out; the next morning they will frame the chamberlains for the murder. Since the chamberlains would remember nothing whatsoever, they would be blamed for the deed. While Duncan is asleep, Macbeth stabs him to death, despite his doubts and a number of supernatural portents, including

13485-403: The most renowned actors to the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comics, and other media. Amid thunder and lightning, the Three Witches decide that their next meeting will be with Macbeth. In the following scene, a wounded captain reports to King Duncan of Scotland that his generals Banquo and Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis, have just defeated

13630-455: The night at Macbeth's castle at Inverness ; Duncan also names his son Malcolm as his heir. Macbeth sends a message ahead to his wife, Lady Macbeth, telling her about the witches' prophecies. Lady Macbeth suffers none of her husband's uncertainty and wishes him to murder Duncan in order to obtain kingship. When Macbeth arrives at Inverness, she overrides all of her husband's objections by challenging his manhood and successfully persuades him to kill

13775-479: The only serious job he ever did in a lifetime of film writing. But Orson turned Kane into a film: the dynamics and the tensions are his and the brilliant cinematic effects—all those visual and aural inventions that add up to make Citizen Kane one of the world's great movies—those were pure Orson Welles. In 1975, during an interview with Kate McCauley, Houseman stated that film critic Pauline Kael in her essay " Raising Kane ", had caused an "idiotic controversy" over

13920-547: The original CPG report, the "English" category encompassed England and Wales , grouping together all names classified as either " Anglican " (from England ) or " Cambrian " (from Wales ). [REDACTED] Estimated British American population in the Continental United States as of the 1790 Census [REDACTED] The 1980 census was the first that asked people's ancestry . The 1980 United States Census reported 61,327,867 individuals or 31.67% of

14065-609: The original source survives, involved the family of George II of Great Britain , played indoors in London in November 1748. The Prince is reported as playing "Bass-Ball" again in September 1749 in Walton-on-Thames , Surrey, against Lord Middlesex. The English lawyer William Bray wrote in his diary that he had played a game of baseball on Easter Monday 1755 in Guildford , also in Surrey . English lawyer William Bray recorded

14210-426: The other three being of Spanish origin. Not to be confused are cases when the term is also used in an entirely different (although possibly overlapping) sense to refer to people who are dual citizens of both the United Kingdom and the United States. Americans of British heritage are often seen, and identify, as simply " American " due to the many historic, linguistic and cultural ties between Great Britain and

14355-491: The parade of eight kings—which the witches show Macbeth in a vision in Act IV—is a compliment to King James. Many scholars think the play was written in 1606 in the aftermath of the Gunpowder Plot, citing possible internal allusions to the 1605 plot and its ensuing trials. In fact, there are a great number of allusions and possible pieces of evidence alluding to the Plot, and, for this reason, a great many critics agree that Macbeth

14500-482: The play as a political melodrama with clear contemporary parallels." Houseman and Welles later presented The Shoemaker's Holiday (1938), Heartbreak House (1938) and Danton's Death (1938). Beginning in the summer of 1938, the Mercury Theatre was featured in a weekly dramatic radio program on the CBS network, initially promoted as First Person Singular before gaining the official title The Mercury Theatre on

14645-623: The play in 1607". One notable reference is in Francis Beaumont 's Knight of the Burning Pestle , first performed in 1607. The following lines (Act V, Scene 1, 24–30) are, according to scholars, a clear allusion to the scene in which Banquo's ghost haunts Macbeth at the dinner table: When thou art at thy table with thy friends, Merry in heart, and filled with swelling wine, I'll come in midst of all thy pride and mirth, Invisible to all men but thyself, And whisper such

14790-548: The play opened to indifferent notices and ran for a mere three performances, it nevertheless led to the forging of a theatrical team, a fruitful but stormy partnership in which Houseman said Welles "was the teacher, I, the apprentice." He supervised the direction of Walk Together Chillun in 1936. In 1936, the Federal Theatre Project of the Works Progress Administration put unemployed theatre performers and employees to work. The Negro Theatre Unit of

14935-529: The play, like a pervasive odor." Scholars also cite an entertainment seen by King James at Oxford in the summer of 1605 that featured three " sibyls " like the weird sisters; Kermode surmises that Shakespeare could have heard about this and alluded to it with the weird sisters. However, A. R. Braunmuller in the New Cambridge edition finds the 1605–06 arguments inconclusive, and argues only for an earliest date of 1603. One suggested allusion supporting

15080-573: The plays that Shakespeare wrote during the reign of James I , Macbeth most clearly reflects his relationship with King James , patron of Shakespeare's acting company . It was first published in the Folio of 1623 , possibly from a prompt book , and is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will become King of Scotland . Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and takes

15225-443: The power of the royal touch to cure scrofula and whose realm is portrayed as peaceful and prosperous vs. the bloody chaos of Scotland. James in his 1598 book The Trew Law of Free Monarchies had asserted that kings are always right, if not just, and his subjects owe him total loyalty at all times, writing that even if a king is a tyrant, his subjects must never rebel and just endure his tyranny for their own good. James had argued that

15370-560: The presence of other groups of immigrants during the colonial period, both from the British Isles (the Welsh and the Highland Scots) and not (Germans, Dutch, and French Huguenots), but believes that these did not culturally contribute as substantially to the United States as his main four. Apple pie – New England was the first region to experience large-scale English colonization in the early 17th century, beginning in 1620, and it

15515-589: The prewar WASP elite were Loyalists who left the new nation. Nevertheless, longstanding cultural and historical ties have, in more modern times, resulted in the Special Relationship , the exceptionally close political, diplomatic and military co-operation of United Kingdom – United States relations . Linda Colley , a professor of history at Princeton University and specialist in Britishness, suggested that because of their colonial influence on

15660-632: The prophecy as meaning never, but in fact, the Three Sisters refer only to branches of the trees of Great Birnam coming to Dunsinane hill. The inspiration for this prophecy may have originated with the Battle of Droizy ; both that battle and Macbeth may have, in turn, inspired J. R. R. Tolkien 's tree herders, the Ents in his novels The Lord of the Rings . Macbeth cannot be dated precisely, but it

15805-548: The same audiences that frequented the Federal Theater the company was designed largely to offer plays of the past, preferably those that "...seem to have emotion or factual bearing on contemporary life." The company mounted several notable productions, the most remarkable being its first commercial production of Julius Caesar . Houseman called the decision to use modern dress "an essential element in Orson's conception of

15950-506: The screen. A 200-page script was written. Some models were constructed, while the shooting of initial test footage had begun. However, little, if anything, had been done either to whittle down the budgetary difficulties or begin filming. When RKO threatened to eliminate the payment of salaries by December 31 if no progress had been made, Welles announced that he would pay his cast out of his own pocket. Houseman proclaimed that there wasn't enough money in their business account to pay anyone. During

16095-517: The screenplay. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Professor Charles W. Kingsfield in the 1973 film The Paper Chase . He reprised the role of Kingsfield in the 1978 television series adaptation . Houseman was born Jacques Haussmann on September 22, 1902, in Bucharest , Romania, the son of May (née Davies) a governess and Georges Haussmann, who ran

16240-502: The script, and keep him away from alcohol. Still drawn to Welles, as was virtually everyone in his sphere, Houseman agreed. Although Welles took credit for the screenplay of Kane , Houseman stated that the credit belonged to Mankiewicz, an assertion that led to a final break with Welles. Houseman took some credit himself for the general shaping of the story line and for editing the script. In an interview with Penelope Huston for Sight & Sound magazine (Autumn, 1962) Houseman said that

16385-445: The son of Siward, in combat. The rebel forces overwhelm Macbeth's army and castle. Macbeth boasts that he has no reason to fear Macduff, for he cannot be killed by any man born of woman. Macduff declares that he was "from his mother's womb / Untimely ripp'd" (V.8.15–16), (i.e., born by Caesarean section and not a natural birth) and is not "of woman born", fulfilling the second prophecy. Macbeth realises too late that he has misinterpreted

16530-399: The stormy weather that threatened his passage from Denmark to Scotland was a targeted attack. Not only did the subsequent trials take place in Scotland, the women accused were recorded, under torture, of having conducted rituals with the same mannerisms as the three witches. One of the evidenced passages is referenced when the women under trial confessed to attempt the use of witchcraft to raise

16675-516: The three witches, who make exactly the same prophecies as in Shakespeare's version. Macbeth and Banquo then together plot the murder of Duncan, at Lady Macbeth's urging. Macbeth has a long, ten-year reign before eventually being overthrown by Macduff and Malcolm. The parallels between the two versions are clear. However, some scholars think that George Buchanan 's Rerum Scoticarum Historia matches Shakespeare's version more closely. Buchanan's work

16820-523: The throne in the coup that follows. In Shakespeare's day, Banquo was thought to be an ancestor of the Stuart King James I. (In the 19th century it was established that Banquo is an unhistorical character; the Stuarts are actually descended from a Breton family which migrated to Scotland slightly later than Macbeth's time.) The Banquo portrayed in earlier sources is significantly different from

16965-427: The title page. When James became king of England , a feeling of uncertainty settled over the nation. James was a Scottish king and the son of Mary, Queen of Scots , a staunch Catholic and English traitor. In the words of critic Robert Crawford , " Macbeth was a play for a post-Elizabethan England facing up to what it might mean to have a Scottish king. England seems comparatively benign, while its northern neighbour

17110-487: The title role. Houseman and Welles put on Horse Eats Hat (1936). Houseman, without Welles, helped in the direction of Leslie Howard 's production of Hamlet (1936). In June 1937, Project No. 891 produced their most controversial work with The Cradle Will Rock . Written by Marc Blitzstein , the musical was about Larry Foreman, a worker in Steeltown (played in the original production by Howard da Silva ), which

17255-560: The total U.S. population self-identified as "American" or "United States", this was counted under "not specified". This response is highly overrepresented in the Upland South , a region settled historically by the British. Those of mixed European ancestry may identify with a more recent and differentiated ethnic group. Of the top ten family names in the United States (2010), seven have English origins or having possible mixed British Isles heritage (such as Welsh, Scottish or Cornish),

17400-551: The total U.S. population self-identified as having British descent. In 1980, 16,418 Americans reported "Northern Islander". No Scots-Irish (descendants of Ulster-Scots ) ancestry was recorded, although over ten million people identified as Scottish. This figure fell to over 5 million each in the following census when the Scotch-Irish were first counted. Over 90.4% of the United States population reported at least one ancestry, 9.6% (23,921,371) individuals as "not stated" with

17545-419: The total list of the 101 communities, see references) As of 2020, the distribution of British Americans (combined English, Welsh, Scottish, Scotch-Irish, and British ancestry self-identification) across the 50 states and DC is as presented in the following table: The British diaspora consists of the scattering of British people and their descendants who emigrated from the United Kingdom. The diaspora

17690-412: The treasonous role of equivocation. The play even echoes certain keywords from the scandal—the 'vault' beneath the House of Parliament in which Guy Fawkes stored thirty kegs of gunpowder and the 'blow' about which one of the conspirators had secretly warned a relative who planned to attend the House of Parliament on 5 November...Even though the Plot is never alluded to directly, its presence is everywhere in

17835-518: The tyranny was preferable to the problems caused by rebellion which were even worse; Shakespeare by contrast in Macbeth argued for the right of the subjects to overthrow a tyrant king, in what appeared to be an implied criticism of James's theories if applied to England. Hadfield also noted a curious aspect of the play in that it implies that primogeniture is the norm in Scotland, but Duncan has to nominate his son Malcolm to be his successor while Macbeth

17980-497: The witches conjure a procession of eight crowned kings, all similar in appearance to Banquo, and the last carrying a mirror that reflects even more kings. Macbeth realises that these are all Banquo's descendants having acquired kingship in numerous countries. After the witches perform a dance and leave, Lennox enters and tells Macbeth that Macduff has fled to England. Macbeth orders Macduff's castle be seized and sends murderers to slaughter Macduff, his wife and children. Although Macduff

18125-481: The witches respond that he will father a line of kings, though he himself will not be one. While the two men wonder at these pronouncements, the witches vanish, and the thane of Ross arrives, informing Macbeth of his newly bestowed title: Thane of Cawdor. The first prophecy is thus fulfilled, and Macbeth, previously sceptical, immediately begins to harbour ambitions of becoming king. King Duncan welcomes and praises Macbeth and Banquo, and Duncan declares that he will spend

18270-484: The witches' words. Though he realises that he is doomed, and despite Macduff urging him to yield, Macbeth is unwilling to surrender and continues fighting. Macduff kills and beheads him, thus fulfilling the remaining prophecy. Macduff carries Macbeth's head onstage and Malcolm discusses how order has been restored. His last reference to Lady Macbeth reveals " 'tis thought, by self and violent hands / Took off her life" (V.ix.71–72), implying her death by suicide. Malcolm, now

18415-508: The witches, Banquo comments: New honours come upon him, Like our strange garments, cleave not to their mould, But with the aid of use And, at the end, when the tyrant is at bay at Dunsinane, Caithness sees him as a man trying in vain to fasten a large garment on him with too small a belt: He cannot buckle his distemper'd cause Within the belt of rule while Angus sums up what everybody thinks ever since Macbeth's accession to power: now does he feel his title Hang loose about him, like

18560-570: The witches, scolds the three witches for helping Macbeth, especially without consulting her. Hecate instructs the Witches to give Macbeth false security. Macbeth, disturbed, visits the three witches once more and asks them to reveal the truth of their prophecies to him. To answer his questions, they summon horrible apparitions, each of which offers predictions and further prophecies to put Macbeth's fears at rest. First, they conjure an armoured head, which tells him to beware of Macduff (IV.i.72). Second,

18705-481: The writing of Citizen Kane was a delicate subject: I think Welles has always sincerely felt that he, single-handed, wrote Citizen Kane and everything else that he has directed—except, possibly, the plays of Shakespeare . But the script of Kane was essentially Mankiewicz's. The conception and the structure were his, all the dramatic Hearstian mythology and the journalistic and political wisdom he had been carrying around with him for years and which he now poured into

18850-415: Was at the piano and started playing the introduction music. One of the amateur performers, Olive Stanton, who played the part of Moll, the prostitute, stood up in the audience, and began singing her part. All the other performers, in turn, stood up for their parts. Thus the "oratorio" version of the show was born. Apparently, Welles had designed some intricate scenery, which ended up never being used. The event

18995-583: Was available in Latin in Shakespeare's day. No medieval account of the reign of Macbeth mentions the Weird Sisters, Banquo, or Lady Macbeth, and with the exception of the latter none actually existed. The characters of Banquo, the Weird Sisters, and Lady Macbeth were first mentioned in 1527 by a Scottish historian Hector Boece in his book Historia Gentis Scotorum ( History of the Scottish People ) who wanted to denigrate Macbeth in order to strengthen

19140-521: Was dominated by East Anglian Calvinists, better known as the Puritans . Baking was a particular favorite of the New Englanders and was the origin of dishes seen today as quintessentially "American", such as apple pie and the oven-roasted Thanksgiving turkey. "As American as apple pie" is a well-known phrase used to suggest that something is all-American. Buick – David Dunbar Buick was

19285-516: Was estimated to be 63%, comprising 52% English and Welsh, 7.0% Scots-Irish, and 4% Scottish. The ancestry of the 3,929,214 population in 1790 has been estimated by various sources by sampling last names in the very first United States official census and assigning them a country of origin. There is debate over the accuracy between the studies with individual scholars and the Federal Government using different techniques and conclusion for

19430-785: Was indeed the rightful king of England, but owed his throne not to divine favour as James would have it, but rather due to the willingness of the English Parliament to accept the Protestant son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, as their king. Garry Wills provides further evidence that Macbeth is a Gunpowder Play (a type of play that emerged immediately following the events of the Gunpowder Plot). He points out that every Gunpowder Play contains "a necromancy scene, regicide attempted or completed, references to equivocation, scenes that test loyalty by use of deceptive language, and

19575-481: Was named after Catherine of Braganza (Queen Catherine), the wife of the King Charles II . Macbeth The Tragedy of Macbeth , often shortened to Macbeth ( / m ə k ˈ b ɛ θ / ), is a tragedy by William Shakespeare . It is thought to have been first performed in 1606 . It dramatises the damaging physical and psychological effects of political ambition on those who seek power. Of all

19720-419: Was no dramatic need for another accomplice to the murder; there was, however, a need to give a dramatic contrast to Macbeth—a role which many scholars argue is filled by Banquo. Other scholars maintain that a strong argument can be made for associating the tragedy with the Gunpowder Plot of 1605. As presented by Harold Bloom in 2008: "[S]cholars cite the existence of several topical references in Macbeth to

19865-452: Was of European heritage. Around 757,208 were of African descent with 697,624 being slaves. Estimated British American population in the Continental United States as of the 1790 Census . The 1909 Century of Population Growth report came under intense scrutiny in the 1920s; its methodology was subject to criticism over fundamental flaws that cast doubt on the accuracy of its conclusions. The catalyst for controversy had been passage of

20010-844: Was on the Chicago Board of Trade. Having just married actress, Zita Johann weeks before the 1929 stock market crash and with international markets in chaos, she encouraged him to reinvent himself with a new career path in the theater, where he took the stage name of John Houseman . He began by translating works in German and French into English for the New York stage. He became a United States citizen in 1943. On Broadway he co-wrote Three and One (1933) and And Be My Love (1934). Composer Virgil Thomson recruited him to direct Four Saints in Three Acts (1934), Thomson's collaboration with Gertrude Stein . He later directed The Lady from

20155-546: Was produced in 1909, the concept of independent Ireland did not even exist. CPG made no attempt to further classify its estimated 1.9% Irish population to distinguish Celtic Irish Catholics of Gaelic Ireland , who in 1922 formed the independent Irish Free State , from the Scotch-Irish descendants of Ulster Scots and Anglo-Irish of the Plantation of Ulster , which became Northern Ireland and remained part of

20300-462: Was so successful that it was repeated several times on subsequent nights, with everyone trying to remember and reproduce what had happened spontaneously the first night. The incident, however, led to Houseman being fired and Welles's resignation from Project No. 891. That same year, 1937, after detaching themselves from the Federal Theatre Project , Houseman and Welles did The Cradle Will Rock as an independent production on Broadway. They also founded

20445-562: Was supposedly a descendant of Banquo. A principal source comes from the Daemonologie of King James published in 1597 which included a news pamphlet titled Newes from Scotland that detailed the famous North Berwick witch trials of 1590. The publication of Daemonologie came just a few years before the tragedy of Macbeth with the themes and setting in a direct and comparative contrast with King James' personal obsessions with witchcraft, which developed following his conclusion that

20590-543: Was surpassed in rate and number by Scottish and Irish migrants. The British policy of salutary neglect for its North American colonies intended to minimize trade restrictions as a way of ensuring they stayed loyal to British interests. This permitted the development of the American Dream , a cultural spirit distinct from that of its European founders. The Thirteen Colonies of British America began an armed rebellion against British rule in 1775 when they rejected

20735-602: Was the only person qualified to play the leading role. Welles consented and, after preliminary conversations, agreed to leave the play he was in after a single night to take the lead in Houseman's production. Panic opened at the Imperial Theatre on March 15, 1935. Among the cast was Houseman's ex-wife, Zita Johann , who had co-starred with Boris Karloff three years earlier in Universal's The Mummy . Although

20880-504: Was thought to have survived. Footage was rediscovered in 2013. The Welles-Houseman collaboration continued in Hollywood. In the spring of 1939, Welles began preliminary discussions with RKO's head of production, George Schaefer, with Welles and his Mercury players being given a two-picture deal, in which Welles would produce, direct, perform, and have full creative control of his projects. For his motion picture debut, Welles first considered adapting Joseph Conrad 's Heart of Darkness for

21025-512: Was written in the year 1606. Lady Macbeth's instructions to her husband, "Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent under't" (1.5.74–75), may be an allusion to a medal that was struck in 1605 to commemorate King James' escape that depicted a serpent hiding among lilies and roses. Particularly, the Porter's speech (2.3.1–21) in which he welcomes an "equivocator", a farmer, and a tailor to hell (2.3.8–13), has been argued to be an allusion to

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