Macbeth

The three Weird Sisters await Macbeth and Banquo as the two warriors return home, victorious from battle. They greet the men with strange prophecies: Macbeth will be Thane of Cawdor and king, but it will be Banquo who fathers Scotland’s future monarchs. The men then learn that the first part of the prophecy is true: the treasonous Cawdor has been executed, and Macbeth’s bravery earns him the new title from the grateful king.

Learning of King Duncan’s visit to their castle that very night, Lady Macbeth presses her husband to take destiny into his own hands. In the morning, the king’s bloody body is discovered in his bed. Fearful that his own life is endangered, Duncan’s son Malcom flees, and Macbeth is crowned king.

Macbeth cannot stop thinking about the Weird Sister’s final prophecy: it will be Banquo, no he, who fathers Scotland’s royal lineage. And so Macbeth hires henchmen to slaughter Banquo and his son Fleance, but they boy escapes unharmed. That night at the coronation banquet, the ghost of Banquo appears before the guilty new king.

Tortured by his fears, Macbeth seeks out the Weird Sisters once more, and one more, mistakes their cryptic prophecies as assurance of success. Their paths covered in blood, Lady Macbeth is tormented into madness as Macbeth leads his country toward the abyss of civil war.

 And the Weird Sisters’ prophecies prove true, each more dark and dire than the last.

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