Macbeth

Three “Weird Sisters” await Macbeth and Banquo as the two warriors, victorious from battle, return home. They greet the two men with strange prophecies: Macbeth will be named Thane of Cawdor and king, but it will be Banquo who fathers Scotland’s future kings. The two men soon learn that the first part of the prophecy is true: the treasonous Cawdor is to be executed, and Macbeth’s bravery earns him the new title from the grateful King Duncan.

Learning of the king’s visit to their castle that same 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 their own lives are endangered, Duncan’s sons flee, and Macbeth is crowned king.

Still, Macbeth cannot stop thinking about the Weird Sisters’ final prophecy: it is Banquo, not he, who will father Scotland’s royal lineage. And so Macbeth hires henchmen to slaughter Banquo and his son Fleance, but the boy escapes. That night, at their coronation banquet, the ghost of Banquo appears before the guilty king.

Tortured by his fears, Macbeth seeks out the Weird Sisters once more and, once 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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