macbeth essay about banquo

William Shakespeare

• Literature Notes
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• Summary and Analysis
• Act I: Scene 1
• Act I: Scene 2
• Act I: Scene 3
• Act I: Scene 4
• Act I: Scene 5
• Act I: Scene 6
• Act I: Scene 7
• Act II: Scene 1
• Act II: Scene 2
• Act II: Scene 3
• Act II: Scene 4
• Act III: Scene 1
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• Act III: Scene 3
• Act III: Scene 4
• Act III: Scene 5
• Act III: Scene 6
• Act IV: Scene 1
• Act IV: Scene 2
• Act IV: Scene 3
• Act V: Scene 1
• Act V: Scene 2
• Act V: Scene 3
• Act V: Scene 4
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• Act V: Scene 6
• Act V: Scene 7
• Act V: Scene 8
• Act V: Scene 9
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Character Analysis Banquo

Banquo's role in the original source for Macbeth was as Macbeth 's co-conspirator. In Shakespeare 's play, he is depicted instead as Macbeth's rival; the role of fellow plotter passed to Lady Macbeth . Like Macbeth, Banquo is open to human yearnings and desires: He is, for example, just as keen to hear what the Witches have in store for him in Act I, Scene 3. He is kept from sleep by his dreams of the Witches (Act II, Scene 1). And in his soliloquy at the start of Act III, Scene 1 — "Thou hast it now . . . " — there is more than a hint of resentment and, possibly, of the same naked ambition that leads Macbeth astray. Nevertheless, Banquo is a sympathetic figure for several reasons. First, he is ignorant of what the audience knows concerning the murder of the king and of his own impending doom. Second, he is a father whose relationship with his son is clearly an affectionate one.

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Banquo, Macbeth

Banquo is a character in Shakespeare’s Macbeth , and the ghost of Banquo is one of the most famous ghosts in English literature.

Banquo is Macbeth’s friend and fellow military commander. At the beginning of Macbeth we see them together, fighting and defeating the rebels against the king, Duncan.

Word of their victory reaches the camp where Duncan is waiting with his two sons, Malcolm and Donalbain. Macbeth and Banquo are his top officers and he is waiting to receive and honour them for their loyalty and their success in battle.

Paddy Considine as Banquo

On their way to Duncan’s camp the two men are stopped by three witches who show that they know who the two are. They predict that Macbeth will soon become Thane of Cawdor and, subsequently, king. They ignore Banquo but he asks them what they have to say to him.

They turn to him and tell him that he will not be king but will be the father of a long line of kings. The two men laugh about it but the idea stays with Macbeth and he is struck with a thought that he can’t bear to allow – that to become king he would have to kill Duncan.

Macbeth dismisses the thought but it becomes difficult when he is met by two messengers from the king, telling him that the king has awarded him the lands and title of the recently executed traitor, the Thane of Cawdor.

Macbeth writes to his wife, Lady Macbeth , and tells her about the encounters. That puts the same idea into her mind, that the king will have to be killed, and she quickly decides that she will work on it.

The king greets his two captains and tells Macbeth that he will be coming to spend the night at his castle at Inverness before going hunting the next day. When a messenger arrives at the castle and tells Lady Macbeth that the king is coming she knows that she will have to persuade her husband to act.

Macbeth returns to his castle and Banquo and his son, Fleace – a child – go with him. Lady Macbeth puts great pressure on Macbeth to murder Duncan. At first, he resists but she prevails and he agrees to stab Duncan in his sleep.

After the murder Macbeth is proclaimed king. He and his old friend chat and Macbeth tells Banquo that he had better make sure that he attends the state banquet he and the queen are holding to honour their ascent to the throne. Banquo suspects Macbeth of having murdered the king but expresses his loyalty. He tells Macbeth that he has to go away on business and will do his best to get back in time. He also tells him that Fleance, will be accompanying him.

By this time Macbeth is already sleepless as a result of the guilt he is experiencing. He is already paranoid and is about to embark on a reign of terror, murdering his rivals and opponents. Banquo is to be the first of these.

Macbeth hires some murderers and tells them to attack Banquo on the way back and to make sure that he kills his only son, Fleance, as well.

During the banquet one of the murderers arrives and Macbeth is called out of the hall. The murderer tells him that he has killed Banquo but that Fleance has escaped. That throws Macbeth into a state of panic.

But he pulls himself together and returns to the table and begins to make a welcome speech. He says that he wishes that Banquo could be there. There is a figure sitting at a table in Banquo’s place and when he turns to look at the king Macbeth sees the blood-drenched face of Banquo.

He starts yelling and cowering away from the ghost. Lady Macbeth calms him down. He apologises and returns to his speech. When he mentions Banquo again the ghost appears once more and this time Macbeth goes mad. Lady Macbeth dismisses the guests, telling them to leave as fast as they can.

Macbeth becomes increasingly bloodthirsty and Shakespeare gives us the onstage spectacle of one of the murderers killing a young child – a son of Macduff, the man who eventually defeats and kills Macbeth .

We see Banquo once more. Macbeth returns to the witches to ask them to predict the future. Their predictions come in riddles but the last prediction is an image of Banquo wearing a crown and leading an endless parade of his descendants.

Banquo is hardly a character in Macbeth . He has a function rather than a dramatic role in the play. It is his function to be the first victim in Macbeth’s reign of terror and his ghost’s is to pile on to the guilt that is already beginning to unsettle Macbeth.

He has the further function of appearing as an image in the witches’ prediction of what is going to happen as a result of Macbeth’s regicide. It is a dumb show, demonstrating that one of his descendents is going to ascend the throne of Scotland and that the dynasty is going to endure for a very long period of time.

And so, Banquo is important for other reasons than functioning as a dramatic character: Shakespeare hasn’t realized him as a character. All we can say about him is that he is a loyal supporter of Macbeth.

Although he strongly suspects Macbeth of the crime he does not show any resistance in the way most of the other characters do. He also does not actively support Macbeth in the sense of helping him against his opponents. Moreover, he does not live long enough to play any part in the great drama that follows the murder of Duncan.

However, his dying words “oh slave!” are a condemnation of Macbeth as he realizes in his last moments that he has been betrayed by his friend. As he dies he calls instructions to his son, running away from the murderers, to avenge his murder.

Top Banquo Quotes

That look not like th’ inhabitants o’ th’ Earth And yet are on ‘t?—Live you? Or are you aught That man may question? You should be women, And yet your beards forbid me to interpret That you are so. ( act 1, scene 3 )

If you can look into the seeds of time, And say which grain will grow and which will not, Speak, then, to me, who neither beg nor fear Your favours nor your hate.  ( act 1, scene 3 )

Were such things here as we do speak about? Or have we eaten on the insane root That takes the reason prisoner? ( act 1, scene 3 )

That, trusted home, Might yet enkindle you unto the crown, besides the thane of Cawdor. ( act 1, scene 3 )

Thou has it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all. As the weird women promised, and I fear. thou played’st most foully for ‘t.  ( act 3, scene 1 )

O treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! Thou may’st revenge – O slave! ( act 3, scene 3 )

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Character: Banquo

• Banquo introduction in the opening scenes portrays him as Macbeth’s comrade and earned equal merit in their successful battle.
• Banquo, known for his integrity , presents a stark contrast to Macbeth as he navigates the prophecy with caution.

Relationships

• Banquo shows a cordial relationship with Macbeth initially, but grows progressively doubtful and wary as Macbeth ascends to the throne.
• As a father, Banquo is shown to have a loving relationship with Fleance , which contrasts with Macbeth’s lack of legitimate heirs.

The Witches’ Prophecy

• The witches prophesy that Banquo will be the ‘father of kings’ , which forms a major part of his character arc. Buf he doesn’t interpret or manipulate these predictions as Macbeth does.

The Ghost of Banquo

• After his murder, Banquo’s ghost is seen by Macbeth, suggesting the guilt and terror haunting Macbeth’s conscience.

Loyalty and Courage

• Loyalty is a significant trait seen in Banquo. He stays loyal to his king and suspicions about Macbeth do not deviate him into treachery.
• Despite suspecting that Macbeth had a role in Duncan’s murder, Banquo shows courage in maintaining composure and not rushing into accusations.

Banquo as a Foil to Macbeth

• Banquo acts as a foil character for Macbeth; where Macbeth succumbs to ambition, Banquo remains loyal and virtuous.
• Banquo’s character highlights Macbeth’s lost morality and tragic deterioration.

Banquo’s Legacy

• Banquo’s lineage eventually takes the throne, fulfilling the witches’ prophecy, and correcting the damaging course set by Macbeth.
• Banquo’s character lives beyond his physical presence in the play, demonstrating the continued power of his integrity.

Themes Associated

• Ambition and its Consequences : Banquo’s response to the prophecy shows a contrasting approach to Macbeth’s ruthless ambition.
• Appearance vs Reality : Banquo’s scepticism towards the witches points to this central theme of the play.
• Banquo’s Ghost : The appearance of Banquo’s ghost serves to symbolise Macbeth’s guilt and the dire consequences of his actions.
• Fleance’s Escape : The escape of Banquo’s son Fleance symbolises the hope for justice and the future restoration of order in Scotland.

Characters - AQA Banquo in Macbeth

Macbeth has a small cast of characters. Macbeth and his wife, Lady Macbeth have the main roles and their ambition and eventual downfall is key to the storyline.

Part of English Literature Macbeth

Banquo in Macbeth

Banquo is another general in King Duncan's army and Macbeth's best friend. While both men have ambitious thoughts, Banquo is more cautious and does not resort to murder to get what he wants.

Banquo is aware that the Witches' predictions may be tricking Macbeth into evil actions and is the first to suspect Macbeth of murder. He dies while protecting his son, Fleance, and comes back as a ghost to haunt Macbeth.

More guides on this topic

• Plot summary - AQA
• Themes - AQA
• Form, structure and language - AQA
• Dramatisation - AQA
• Sample exam question - AQA

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Banquo - Distrusts the Supernatural

Banquo distrusts the witches and doesn't try to tempt fate.

Distrusts witches

• After hearing the witches' prophecies in Act 1, Scene 3, Banquo doesn’t know whether they should trust the witches or not.
• He fears that they may have made the prophecies (predictions) to hurt Macbeth: ‘Oftentimes, to win us to our harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us truths’ (1,3).
• As someone who distrusts and fears the witches throughout the whole play, Banquo is shown to be a good, God-fearing character in the play.
• Jacobean audiences feared the supernatural, and Banquo echoes this fear. He does not allow them to manipulate him and does not show a lot of interest in the prophecies.

Doesn't challenge fate

• Although Banquo hopes that the witches’ prophecies (predictions) will come true for him - ‘May they not be my oracles as well / And set me up in hope?’ (3,1) - he does not show any desire to force them.
• He does not really engage in the supernatural.

Banquo's Ghost

In Act 3, Scene 4 Banquo’s ghost appears to Macbeth. We don’t know whether this is real or something Macbeth imagines. The ghost appears in the seat where Macbeth should be sitting.

Accuses Macbeth

• From Macbeth’s words, we can work out that the ghost is shaking his head at Macbeth: ‘Thou canst not say I did it; never shake / Thy gory locks at me!’
• The ghost seems to be accusing him.
• We could suggest that Banquo’s ghost shakes his head at Macbeth because he knows that Macbeth will not secure his position as king by murdering him.

Macbeth's conscience?

• After being friends with Banquo, and holding his trust for a long time, Banquo's murder seems to be the death that affects Macbeth the most.
• Banquo almost acts as Macbeth’s conscience – Macbeth arguably feels the most guilt for betraying his friend and murdering him, just to make sure that he has power.

Macbeth and Banquo's Friendship

Banquo is Macbeth's close friend and ally at the start. But by Act 2, Macbeth and Banquo’s friendship is already questionable. They begin to have opposing views about the witches, and Macbeth shows a willingness to lie to Banquo with very little thought.

Macbeth's lie

• Banquo tells Macbeth that he has dreamed about the witches. Macbeth says he has given them no thought.
• This shows he is now lying to his friend. Macbeth tells him they will speak about it at a later time. (2,1)

Banquo's suspicions

• After Macbeth has been crowned king, Banquo suspects that he has gained the title through doing something bad.
• This suggests that he suspects him of murdering King Duncan: ‘Thou hast it now, King, Cawdor, Glamis, all, / As the weird women promis’d, and I fear / Thou played’st most foully for’t’ (3,1).

Macbeth's false appearance

• Macbeth gives Banquo lots of praise. He welcomes him as ‘chief guest’ to the celebrations (3,1).
• Macbeth is putting on a false appearance. He actually plans to have Banquo murdered.
• Although Banquo suspects that Macbeth has done something bad in order to gain the throne, he still seems to trust his friend. He does not seem to suspect that his own life is at stake.

Fear and murder

• Macbeth wishes Banquo a good ride (3,1). Then, after the guests have left him, meets the murderers to plan his murder.
• Macbeth fears Banquo. He says that Banquo is a good and clever man. This suggests he will see him as a real threat to his crown later on.
• He says Banquo has, 'royalty of nature' and 'wisdom' (3,1). He doesn’t want Banquo’s sons to benefit from his crimes (by becoming kings).
• The murderers attack Banquo in the woods. A third man arrives to do the same job – Macbeth must be making sure that Banquo will definitely die.
• They attack him and kill him, but Fleance (his son) manages to escape.

1 Literary & Cultural Context

1.1 Context

1.1.1 Tragedy

1.1.2 The Supernatural & Gender

1.1.3 Politics & Monarchy

1.1.4 End of Topic Test - Context

2 Plot Summary

2.1.1 Scenes 1 & 2

2.1.2 Scene 3

2.1.3 Scenes 4-5

2.1.4 Scenes 6-7

2.1.5 End of Topic Test - Act 1

2.2 Acts 2-4

2.2.1 Act 2

2.2.2 Act 3

2.2.3 Act 4

2.3.1 Scenes 1-3

2.3.2 Scenes 4-9

2.3.3 End of Topic Test - Acts 2-5

3 Characters

3.1 Macbeth

3.1.1 Hero vs Villain

3.1.2 Ambition & Fate

3.1.3 Relationship

3.1.4 Unstable

3.1.5 End of Topic Test - Macbeth

3.2 Lady Macbeth

3.2.1 Masculine & Ruthless

3.2.2 Manipulative & Disturbed

3.3 Other Characters

3.3.1 Banquo

3.3.2 The Witches

3.3.3 Exam-Style Questions - The Witches

3.3.4 King Duncan

3.3.5 Macduff

3.3.6 End of Topic Test - Lady Macbeth & Banquo

3.3.7 End of Topic Test - Witches, Duncan & Macduff

3.4 Grade 9 - Key Characters

3.4.1 Grade 9 - Lady Macbeth Questions

4.1.1 Power & Ambition

4.1.2 Power & Ambition HyperLearning

4.1.3 Violence

4.1.4 The Supernatural

4.1.5 Masculinity

4.1.6 Armour, Kingship & The Natural Order

4.1.7 Appearances & Deception

4.1.8 Madness & Blood

4.1.9 Women, Children & Sleep

4.1.10 End of Topic Test - Themes

4.1.11 End of Topic Test - Themes 2

4.2 Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.1 Grade 9 - Themes

4.2.2 Extract Analysis

5 Writer's Techniques

5.1 Structure, Meter & Other Literary Techniques

5.1.1 Structure, Meter & Dramatic Irony

5.1.2 Pathetic Fallacy & Symbolism

5.1.3 End of Topic Test - Writer's Techniques

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A Complex Victim: Banquo as a Figure of Loyalty and Clarity Anonymous 10th Grade

Throughout Macbeth, the character of Banquo is continually presented as a contrasting foil to the character of Macbeth himself, as a noble and perceptive ally of the Scottish royal line. His presence in the play is felt in contrast to Macbeth’s own actions, allowing Banquo to define himself as a complex and developed character upon the time of his death, despite the fact that Banquo’s inner thoughts are left somewhat to interpretation. Shakespeare primarily focuses on highlighting the similarities and differences between Banquo and Macbeth in their actions and decisions throughout the play. To show Banquo’s questioning personality, Shakespeare uses a clear contrasting approach in how Banquo reacts to the supernatural earlier on in the play. Finally, Banquo is presented as a considerably noble and loyal figure to the king, in Shakespeare’s use of drawing parallels between Macbeth himself, and Banquo, reinforced by Banquo’s hyperbolised demonstrations of loyalty and allegiance towards the king.

The differences between the characters of Macbeth and Banquo presented by Shakespeare amplifies and clarifies the audience’s impressions of Banquo as a character. Macbeth bottles up his conflict within himself, persistently attempting to...

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Ralph Fiennes Sidles His Way Into Power as Macbeth

By Helen Shaw

Simply getting to the almost totally sold-out monster hit “Macbeth” in Washington, D.C., which has already been staged in Liverpool, London, and Edinburgh, contains its own, particular adventure. Produced in the capital by the Shakespeare Theatre Company, which has two venues in D.C., the show is actually being mounted offsite, in an old television soundstage, basically a cavernous concrete hangar in one of the city’s industrial stretches. (This is perhaps why New York doesn’t get a stop on the “Macbeth” tour—our theatrical stock is insufficiently gritty.) Outside, audience members negotiate a wilderness of warehouses and big-box parking lots; inside, we spend time in a maze of dark, clubby rooms made luxe with velvety drapes. Finally, we walk to our seats via a path through a hyperrealistic no man’s land: rubble, the sound of distant bombs, and a soldier with a thousand-yard stare, sitting in front of a burnt-out car beneath a stunned and flickering street light.

Even just that lone taste of immersion promises both sensation and intimacy. The director Simon Godwin (who is also S.T.C.’s artistic director and an associate director at London’s National Theatre) delivers on the latter: the purpose-built theatre inside the more than forty-thousand-foot studio is actually relatively small, so the play’s stars—Ralph Fiennes as Macbeth and Indira Varma as his Lady—seem quite close. Both actors are also familiar, and come cloaked in associations of unalloyed evil and political homicide, respectively. Fiennes was nominated for an Oscar for his role as the Nazi Amon Göth in “Schindler’s List,” and is feared by legions of moviegoers for his viper-faced Voldemort in the “Harry Potter” films; Varma played the scheming mother of the murderous Sand Snakes on “Game of Thrones.” Of course this slithering pair will team up to kill their liege, King Duncan (Keith Fleming), at the vague prompting of three fortune-telling witches.

Up-to-date military trappings have become de rigueur when stars take on Shakespeare: Daniel Craig donned army fatigues for an Off Broadway production of “Othello”; Florence Pugh did the same, in a televised adaptation of “King Lear,” as did Fiennes himself, in his own film of “Coriolanus,” from 2011. This production, with costumes designed by Frankie Bradshaw, is no exception, but here, Fiennes, playing the ambitious Scottish thane, wants us to think he’s unworthy of his combat boots. His obsequious, unmilitary physicality, particularly in the first hour and a half of the play, can be extreme: he sneaks and sidles; he rotates his arms so that they swing like a monkey’s; he keeps his shoulders high and tucks his hips, appearing to recede even as he moves forward. In a company full of ramrod-straight spines, his convex slump makes him look like the one guy who hasn’t gone through basic training. (Maybe he had bone spurs?) Some of his intentionally strange performance is poor stagecraft: Godwin allows Fiennes to occasionally mime his lines, to a sometimes ridiculous degree. When Macbeth, whose guilt is making him insomniac, bemoans the loss of “sleep that knits up the ravelled sleave of care,” for example, Fiennes helpfully indicates his own sleeve. At least he didn’t mime “sleep.”

To misquote the wrong Shakespeare play, there’s method in much of this madness. Fiennes’s weedy Macbeth is no alpha, but nonetheless he gets what he wants. Nearly half a millennium after Shakespeare’s death, we still recognize the trend of absurd, unqualified leaders who accept the reins of power from sleepwalking aristocrats. In Washington, in an election year, one’s thoughts on that topic form an extra drumbeat underneath the text. Godwin’s contemporary interpretation seems to lean toward Russia—the doomed King Duncan wears fur on the collar of his royal greatcoat—and when Duncan passes by bluff, capable Banquo (Steffan Rhodri) to reward oily Macbeth for putting down a rebellion, it immediately seems suspicious. Is this how Duncan maintains power? Putin reportedly promotes weak men; perhaps, we think, Duncan does, too.

Godwin’s political reading is savvy, but the famously magical elements of the play don’t always seem to have the full force of his attention. The witches who corrupt Macbeth’s ready mind, wearing bleach-stained overalls and fingerless gloves while lounging about on the set’s faux-concrete stairs, for instance, look less like “midnight hags” than bored art students. The sound designer Christopher Shutt does fill the air with eerie screeches and compositions by Asaf Zohar that go heavy on the spooky strings, but so much reliance is placed on these atmospheric elements that they grow obtrusive. The Macbeths’ palace at Dunsinane is represented as a fancy brutalist condo—the set, with gray stairs leading to frosted glass doors, was also designed by Bradshaw—and in one underwhelming attempt at spectacle, a trickle of red-tinged water drips down its walls. What was probably envisioned as a tide of blood just looks like a problem with rising damp.

The performances Godwin elicits from his actors are more daring. Varma’s Lady Macbeth is brusque and goal-oriented, capable of bustling her sometimes balky spouse into action. She’s not overtly malevolent but, rather, she’s a real housewife intent on getting tasks—kill a king, order a crown—ticked off her checklist. (Varma’s touch with the language is exquisitely deft; she lets us see the moment her slow-moving conscience finally catches up to her too-efficient haste.) Godwin is offering a “banality of evil” reading of the gory old tragedy, which requires his leads to shuck off a great deal of their movie-star majesty. When Hannah Arendt was writing about the Adolf Eichmann trial in Jerusalem, she noted that the Nazi war criminal “was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliché.” His mind, she saw, had been smoothed by little sayings that allowed him to excuse his own monstrosity. Macbeth, having met the witches in what is surely the most astonishing encounter of his life, says, “Come what come may / Time, and the hour, runs through the roughest day.” Audaciously, Godwin and Fiennes interpret Shakespeare’s aphorism as the kind of meaningless cant that lubricates a man’s internal slide toward murder. At last, when Fiennes reaches the banquet scene at the play’s midpoint, and we see his nervous attempts at playing both gracious host and confident king, all his weird, capering, Ed Grimley-style anxiousness clicks into place. Ah, of course. Even after the four-star generals quit the cabinet, insecure clowns are the ones who will kill us all.

After intermission, the show gallops toward its ending. The adaptation, by Emily Burns, has cut a comic character and increased the number of defections from Macbeth’s administration, and Fiennes, as if shocked by his character’s loneliness, finally begins to deliver his speeches with simultaneous introspection and command. The culminating fights are fantastic, conducted not with swords but with machetes, which clang away in the smoky dark. So it’s odd that what I’ll actually remember from this blockbuster show is a moment of silence.

One of the puzzles of staging “Macbeth”—harder to solve than how to dress the witches—is the Macduff issue. Macduff (played here by Ben Turner) is one of Macbeth’s rough equals, another thane, but one who puts the interests of Scotland above personal ambition. Shakespeare reveals his villain-protagonist’s foil late in the plot: Macduff only stands out from a miscellaneous herd of Scottish lairds once Macbeth sends assassins after his family. Why should this be the guy to run Macbeth to earth and not, say, one of Duncan’s much aggrieved sons? To answer that question, Godwin finds a way to rebalance the play.

He does it entirely through timing. When, quite late in the drama, a man brings Macduff the news of his wife and children’s slaughter, Shakespeare gives the traveller an odd, misleading message to deliver: he first assures Macduff that his family is well, and then slowly, oblique phrase by oblique phrase, reveals that they are gone. Godwin has Turner stand stock still and silent, for what feels like minutes, as he takes in the information. He asks a clarifying question, then again falls silent. The ambient cello and night owls are quiet, for once, and the pace, at last, rests. Turner is nailed to the spot—“What, all my pretty chickens, and their dam / At one fell swoop?” Macduff plants himself like the steady leg of a compass, and the whole play must pivot around him. Agitated, scampering Macbeth doesn’t know it off in Dunsinane, but his headlong rush to power has been stopped, here, by one unmoving man. ♦

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Home — Essay Samples — Literature — Macbeth — Macbeth and Banquo: a Foil Relationship

Macbeth and Banquo: a Foil Relationship

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Published: Mar 20, 2024

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The Macbeth (1971) film production by Roman Polanski blends this classic Shakespearean tragedy to the film noir cinema genre creating a rich, dynamic combination. Classic film noir encapsulates "pessimism, bleakness, despair and [...]

Macbeth is about contradiction and ambition, the play was written by the famous play wright William Shakespeare. The play is about a Macbeth who is driven to become king, Macbeth kills all and any that get in his way of [...]

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Ralph Fiennes kills it in ‘Macbeth’

Shakespeare theatre company envisions a contemporary feel for the scottish play, evoking current wars with gripping emotions and, from actor ralph fiennes, a touch of wit.

In a deracinated, begrimed landscape, a cluster of trees marks the only sign of life. Among the rubble are a dusty tire, a car frame, wire netting, some tanks and other mangled implements, all of which testify to the presence of people who have recently fled a makeshift encampment. We think of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The war in Gaza . Violence in Tigray. The hell mouth we’ve stepped into is the pre-show for an “immersive” production of the Scottish play.

This version of “Macbeth,” running through May 5 (after earlier productions in London and Edinburgh), is directed with finesse by Shakespeare Theatre Company’s artistic director Simon Godwin. It takes place in a hangar-like sound stage in Washington’s Brentwood neighborhood, and transposes the setting from 11th-century Scotland to our contemporary world. The three witches who deliver punning prophecies to Macbeth ( Ralph Fiennes ) have been reconceived as people displaced by war. They wear scuffed sneakers, denim jackets and overalls (Frankie Bradshaw did the costumes) and their faces are streaked by dirt. The script, adapted by Emily Burns, specifies that these figures are awakened by a shared “premonition that their building is going to be hit” by a missile and that they discover their otherworldly powers after the cataclysm.

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Macbeth takes their incantations to heart. Rather than wait to share the witches’ paltering pronouncements with Lady M (Indira Varma) in person, the thane of Glamis chooses to send word to his wife in advance of his return from battle. Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “Macbeth” “the most rapid” of Shakespeare’s plays, and this production largely bears this out.

Fiennes, who delivers Shakespeare’s verse with a gripping naturalism, drinks his role to the lees. As one might expect from a man who has played both the fearsome Roman warrior Coriolanus and the dark lord Voldemort (whose name carries a similar verboten charge), he gives a strong performance as a man whose “vaulting ambition” leads inexorably to his downfall. More surprising, Fiennes’s Macbeth is one of the few I’ve seen with a sense of humor, which comes through in the banquet scene and again in his fatal fight with the nobleman Macduff.

Unlike Coriolanus, the Scottish thane is not a nihilistic “thing of blood” who wants to be “a kind of nothing.” Conversing with one of the murderers (there are two rather than the usual three in this production), he confesses to being “cabined, cribbed, confined, bound in / to saucy doubts and fears.” After a regicidal rampage, he finally cuts his engine when he realizes that he has been misled by the witches’ prophecies. After boughs from Birnam Wood descend on Dunsinane, Macbeth is felled as much by an error in interpretation as by his rival’s sword.

Matching her husband in soul sickness is Lady M, though her mind famously unravels in a different way. Varma’s murderous queen is more subdued than one wishes at certain points, but she makes us feel her closeness, in body and mind, with her husband, whom she reads like an open book. At times, Macbeth even concedes her power over him; when he charges her to “bring forth men-children only,” he speaks these lines to her womb on his knees. Tellingly, when they seize the throne, Lady M is the only one who dons a diadem.

She also deserves partial design credit for her advice “to beguile the time, Look like the time”; this production looks devastatingly of our time. The stage is largely devoid of furnishings. All we see is the befogged facade of a concrete-colored residence. A pair of frosted glass sliding doors occasionally open and close like a nictitating membrane. The blood that trickles down the top walls in one scene is easy to miss from certain seats. No one would confuse this production with the sumptuous, Stonehenge-esque Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh-conceived production at the Park Avenue Armory a decade ago, but Godwin’s fuss-free version more than makes up for the relative lack of visual spectacle by putting its actors within a few strides of spectators. At one point, a somnambulating Lady M even reaches out to touch a member of the audience.

Less satisfying are the cuts that have been made to some minor roles. There’s no seriocomic porter invoking an “equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale servant.” The line may be a somewhat obscure reference to the Gunpowder Plot that racked England in 1605, but “equivocate” has other thematically relevant meanings. One also rues the loss of Hecate in a play that ventures new interpretations of the witches.

As it happens, another “Macbeth”-derived psychodrama is concurrently running at Theatre for a New Audience in Brooklyn. Compared with the elisions in Godwin’s production, those in Zinnie Harris’s “ Macbeth (an undoing) ” will likely have Shakespeare scholars stabbing their eyes out.

In this version, Lady M (Nicole Cooper) and Lady Macduff are close cousins, the latter is pregnant with Banquo’s child, the three witches are impecunious neighbors rather than supernal beings, Lady M has had five failed births, and it is Macbeth rather than his wife who sleepwalks. The “undoing” in this revisionist work turns out to be a Chinese finger trap: the more the play tries to psychologize its protagonist and thicken our understanding of the other female characters by building entirely new scenes and subplots around them, the more fragmented it becomes. The idea of a schizoid Lady M is not entirely without appeal, but despite strong performances across the board, the work runs aground fast.

Macbeth, through May 5 at 1301 W St. NE. About 2 hours and 45 minutes, with intermission. Tickets and info at shakespearetheatre.org .

Macbeth (an undoing), through May 4 at Theatre for a New Audience, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, N.Y. About 2½ hours, with intermission. Tickets and info at tfana.org .

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Roni Horn, a Restless Artist With 4 Shows and More Identities

The spring exhibitions display Horn’s work across many mediums — a reflection of how the artist, known for her serene glass sculptures, sees herself.

By Ted Loos

The artist Roni Horn considers herself an “off brand” in more ways than one.

“I’m not even sure I’m a visual artist,” she said recently during a visit to her large Manhattan studio, incongruously located in a high-end Chelsea apartment building.

Those statements may sound self-deprecating coming from someone with four solo exhibitions at galleries and museums this spring, an unusual number for any artist.

But Horn, 68, an intellectually peripatetic Conceptualist, has an innate confidence, which may stem from the fact that she does not feel she fits in anywhere, personally or professionally, and never has. So she simply follows her ideas wherever they lead her — what’s the worst that could happen?

The results she achieves seem to have few stylistic similarities. The serene, Minimalist cast-glass sculptures do not seem to be by the same person who produced those playful text-based drawings, or the suites of paired photographs. Sometimes her work reveals her hand; more often it is fabricated to her specifications.

“So much of the art world is about branding, and Roni’s work isn’t that,” said Poul Erik Tojner, the director of the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebaek, Denmark, the site of one of her upcoming shows.

Her great subject turns out to be the malleability of identity itself, which may help explain why Horn describes an exhibition as a “group show of myself.”

Over a nearly 50-year career, she has returned again and again to the concept of doubling, as in her 1997 diptych “Dead Owl,” twin photographs of a stuffed snowy owl. A solo show organized by the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Tate Modern, which ran from 2009 to 2010, was called “ Roni Horn aka Roni Horn .”

“Fluidity of identity was always something I always related to myself,” Horn said. “I was not a fixed thing. I was very stable, but I wasn’t fixed.”

From that complex idea comes work with a pared-down quality. “Her work is so distilled,” said the artist Matthew Barney, a friend of Horn’s. “She hones it down until what’s left is presence. There’s no extra baggage.”

Horn’s longtime gallery Hauser & Wirth is featuring her twice this season. At one of the gallery’s New York locations, in SoHo, a show of her work (through June 28) features six luminous cast-glass pieces as well as 14 works on paper made with graphite and watercolor, which she calls “diced” because she cuts them up and reassembles them.

A show at the gallery’s branch on the Spanish island of Minorca opens on May 11 with a variety of installations and sculptures, including “Asphere” (1988/2006), a patinated copper sphere that is slightly askew.

In addition, she has two major European museum surveys. “ Roni Horn: Give Me Paradox or Give Me Death ” is on view through Aug. 11 at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne, Germany, while “Roni Horn: The Detour of Identity” runs from May 2 to Sept. 1 at Denmark’s Louisiana Museum of Modern Art. “Detour” pairs her work with clips from classic films.

That both museum shows are outside the United States does not surprise Horn.

“Most of my work has not been collected here, with the exception of Glenstone ,” she said, referring to the art museum in Potomac, Md., founded by the collectors Mitchell P. Rales and Emily Wei Rales. “I’m not a must-have artist. I’ve never been hot.”

Horn lives in Greenwich Village, and has a home on Maine’s Mount Desert Island, too. She loves remote places, and for many years spent much time working in Iceland.

Seated in a separate room of her studio hung with works by other artists — including Matthew Barney, Philip Guston, Weegee, Ed Ruscha, Louise Bourgeois and Vija Celmins — Horn fidgeted as she talked about her life and career. She kept picking up a notebook, but never made a single mark. If her muse happened to call, she was ready.

“Most of my art I see as a workaround,” she said of the circuitous routes she takes to a finished piece. “Improvisation and workarounds.”

That day she was working on what she called a “weird drawing”: The letters of the word “spirals” had been rearranged on it over and over.

“It just came out of nowhere,” she said. “Even if it ends up making no sense, I thought, ‘Let’s check it out.’”

Even at a time when attitudes about sexuality and gender norms are shifting, Horn’s way of talking about herself stands out. She has long eschewed most labels. Asked if she is married, she said, “Technically, yes, but I don’t partake of the institution.” (Julia Todoli, whom Horn prefers to call her partner rather than wife, is a schoolteacher.)

Horn, who came of age in the 1970s, recalled navigating a culture that did not seem to have a place for her. “I was kicked out of women’s bars plenty of times, because people thought I was a man,” she said, adding, “I was not able to not be androgynous.”

Instead of picking a subculture, “I just floated,” she said, partly because she’s not a very social person to begin with.

“She made gender a theme in her work,” said Glenstone’s director, Emily Wei Rales, adding, “and she fought for it.” Rales, who organized a 2017-18 show of Horn’s work, observed: “She is who she is, and she’s not apologetic about it.” The museum’s collection includes the cylindrical cast glass work “Water Double, v. 3” (2013-15), another twinned piece.

Horn’s glass works have become a signature, and they appear in all four of her spring shows. Made with optical glass, they can weigh up to five tons. Horn, returning to the idea of doubling, said, “It has this mischievous appearance as a solid, but technically it’s a supercooled liquid.”

Viewers often think the pieces are made of water, and they elicit a strong response. “They are ineffably beautiful,” said Horn’s friend Tacita Dean, the British artist. “And I just think they’re unbelievably, sensually female , too.”

Giving aesthetic pleasure is not always considered a plus for a Conceptual artist.

“I get criticized for their being beautiful,” Horn said. “But I think that the beauty in them is a manifestation or an artifact of this concept that I’ve developed.” In other words, it’s a byproduct and not the point of the work.

Horn was born in Queens and raised partly in Rockland County in New York. Her mother had various jobs, and her father was a pawnbroker; his dealing in jewelry helped inspire an important early work, “Gold Field” (1980/1994), a sculpture made out of thin sheetlike layers of gold foil. “Maybe I got the pawnbroker’s daughter thing out of my system with that one,” she said.

Horn’s father gave her a camera from his pawnshop, and her parents “set a value” on things like taking her to the Museum of Modern Art.

Seeing the Northern Lights as a child also made an impression, setting her on a course of nature-themed works, notably “You Are the Weather” (1994-96): 100 photographs of a woman sitting in hot springs in Iceland, with a slightly different expression in each image. A series of related photographs, “Untitled (Weather)” (2010-11), are in the Louisiana Museum show.

“The works use weather as a barometer of feeling,” said Donna De Salvo, a former chief curator at the Whitney who helped curate Horn’s solo show there.

“She has different weapons, and repetition is one of them,” Tojner of the Louisiana Museum said of Horn’s penchant for iteration. At the show in Denmark, visitors will find “Portrait of an Image (with Isabelle Huppert)” (2005-06) — 50 images of the French actress stacked in rows.

When Horn was pursuing her B.F.A. at the Rhode Island School of Design, her thesis project, titled “Ant Farm,” used real ants, which she said was probably the earliest sign of her fearlessness in trying new materials.

“The ants were really about social culture,” Horn said. “The ants created, in effect, a drawing in the earth.” She added, “Drawing, for me, is the core activity.”

For her M.F.A. at Yale, Horn chose sculpture as a focus partly because that meant she would not be tied down to a specific material, keeping her options open as always.

She had her first solo exhibition, in 1980, at Kunstraum, a nonprofit space in Munich. Later that year she had a show at the Institute for Art and Urban Resources (the predecessor of MoMA PS1), where she exhibited her first doubled work, “Pair Object I” (1980), made from two copper rods.

She has returned frequently to installations of leaning rods against a wall, often covered with text, as in “When Dickinson Shut Her Eyes: No. 859 A DOUBT IF IT BE US” (1993/2007). That work, from her series highlighting the poet, is included in the Cologne show.

Over the years, Horn has become particular about how her art is installed; just because she has mined ambiguity in her work does not mean she lacks strong opinions. “Anybody who works with me knows that I’m the curator,” she said.

Rales recalled that for the 2017 Glenstone show, Horn made a detailed drawing of exact measurements of the space.

“When she got here, she said, ‘That ceiling height has got to change, and that wall has to go here,’” said Rales, who has become a close friend of Horn’s, as has her husband. “She likes control, but I could also sense that she was right.”

De Salvo said that Horn’s outward toughness contrasted with the work itself: “Roni infuses it all with tenderness and vulnerability. She lays bare quite a lot.”

But the form of that expression may well change from piece to piece, summed up by the work that gives the Louisiana show its name, a text-based gouache titled “The Detour of Identity” (1984-85).

Horn acknowledged that for casual viewers, she “doesn’t maintain an entrance point to the work” — visually speaking — “and that’s why I lose my audience.”

The prospect of losing viewers might make some artists zig or zag, but Horn is already in the detour business.

“Even if something is popular,” she said, “I’m still moving on to something else.”

An earlier version of this article misstated the year attributed to “Gold Field,” a work by Roni Horn. It is 1980/1994, not 1982. An earlier version of a picture caption with the article also misstated the year attributed to the work.

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