Chapter 8 - Davenant’s Lady Macduff and the Subversion of Normative Femininity in Twenty-First-Century Performance

Summary

Apart from its singing and dancing witches, Davenant’s adaptation of Macbeth is most famous for expanding the role of Lady Macduff. Augmenting the mere nineteen lines afforded the character in Shakespeare’s text, Davenant significantly enlarges and complicates the role, giving Lady Macduff an additional four scenes, in which she demonstrates agency in both familial and political matters. This chapter puts Shakespeare’s and Davenant’s Lady Macduffs into conversation, exploring the opportunities and challenges presented by both versions of the role in performance.  Combining theatre history, textual analysis, and practice-as-research methodologies, I begin by surveying the depiction of Lady Macduff in twenty-first century stagings of Shakespeare’s Macbeth.  I argue that concepts of the feminine, the victim, and the mother define the interpretation of Lady Macduff in performance. I then contrast Shakespeare’s depiction of the character with that of Davenant, drawing on Anne Greenfield’s argument to consider how Davenant’s Lady Macduff might be considered a ‘subversive tragic heroine’. Developing this idea through practical exploration of Davenant’s Lady Macduff in performance, this chapter concludes by considering what practitioners today can learn from Davenant’s adaptation.