2-982-586 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Scene from "Macbeth", at the Princess' Theatre, 1858. London stage production, showing '...the Witch-Cauldron Scene...in the superb revival of "Macbeth," the most powerful of the reproductions of Mr. Charles Kean this season...He is at pains to show, in his notes to the play, the elements and circumstances that lend their aid in composing the infernal ceremonies that are so theatrically effective. He dwells much upon the propriety of the ingredients that are thrown into "the charmed pot" to boil and bubble...An air of mystery, solemnity, and grandeur is cast around the celebration of [the Weird Sisters'] magic rites...They are...the Oracles of Fate; they proclaim the destinies of kings and kingdoms; and, labouring in the cause of the demon whom they serve, their object is no less than the alienation from God of a soul...It is noticeable that Macbeth addresses them as "you secret, black, and midnight hags;"...They are creatures of the night; they are powers of darkness...They are foul anomalies, of whom we know not whence they are sprung, nor whether they have beginning or ending. As they are without human passions, so they seem to be without human relations. They come with thunder and lightning, and vanish to airy music'. From "Illustrated London News", 1858.