Darkness, witchcraft, and bloody daggers; spells, apparitions, and shrieks of the night owl; a drunken Porter, the ghost of a dead friend, and a bubbling cauldron; a stolen crown, the slaughter of the innocents, terrible dreams, and even the smoke of Hell itself. Whatever our impressions of Macbeth, Shakespeare's drama set in eleventh-century Scotland is packed with superlative and richly resonant images that stretch way and beyond the mere printed text, beyond the dialogue spoken on a stage. Poetic impressionism, however powerful, does not make great drama. The impact that Shakespeare achieves with Macbeth is inextricably bound up with raw human emotions, portrayed through an intensely economic dialogue. The Weird Sisters provide a useful key into the exploring the dramatic crises which lie at the heart of Macbeth, but how these might become manifest in a production?

It is not clear where we are at the beginning of Macbeth. Typically, the First Folio of 1623, in which this Scottish play first appeared, leaves the question of scenic location open to actors', producers' and directors' interpretations. ‘Thunder and lightning. Enter three witches' are the only clues that are offered. No one, it seems, can approach Macbeth, play or man, except through the unholy trinity of these figures. A production will need to decide how far it wants to explore the degree of control that the witches are shown to have over dramatic events, and how far, if at all, they might appear in other ways and forms, perhaps when least expected, as the narrative unfolds. The opening might decide to attach greater prominence to the political landscape, so that when we hear of ‘When the battle's lost and won', we already have a sense of that combat, and who is involved. Certainly, though, Macbeth is presenting a world in which the supernatural governs the natural; in which all things visible and invisible compete for cosmic, as well as worldly power; and in which a King shows deep fascination in witchcraft: just as James I himself did.

The dominant twentieth/twenty-first-century perception of the appearance of witches is probably largely determined, at least in our Western world, by films such as M.G.M.'s The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Walt Disney's Snow White (1938). A potent illustration of theatrical fear is connected to the second of these two films. Cinema's all over America had to purchase new seating because of the amount of damage done to their upholstery by children who wet themselves out of fear on the appearance of the Wicked Queen in Snow White, who turns herself into an ugly witch. Directors have, traditionally, been much more careful in Stratford.

Witches are supposed to be every bit as frightening to grown-ups in Shakespeare's play as they are to a childish imagination. How the witches appear, speak, and move are all crucial to the effect of fear they might achieve live in a theatre. Are they old, young, or do they encompass a range of ages that might then speak to a range of worldly experience? Do they appear to others on stage in the same way as they appear to the audience when they are alone? How do they interact with each other and respond to the vocal challenges of their roles, especially their metrically distinct and varied spells? Do they speak out to the audience and make us part of their world, casting a spell over our imaginary forces? Witches they might be in the stage directions, but Weird Sisters (or sisters of Fate) is their most common form of reference in the dialogue.

The non-specific imaginary and theatrical locations in which these Weird Sisters appear relate interestingly to the way in which the three figures determine the political events of the play. Their enigmatic prophesies, which, like riddles in a fairy-tale nightmare, proffer something either paradoxical - ‘Lesser than Macbeth, and greater / Not so happy, yet much happier' (1.3.64-65) - or impossible - ‘none of woman born / Shall harm Macbeth' (4.1.79-80) - invite the receiver to construct the most straightforward interpretation. The Weird Sisters, then, are not just characters in the play, they are the very fibres which underpin the play and weave any production of it, together. 'Infected be the air whereon they ride', says Macbeth in act four, 'And damned all those that trust them.' (4.1.138-139). It seems that they also infect successfully both the narrative and its structure with their controlling presence. Unfortunately, the audience has no choice but to trust them, and therefore risks their curse, like the protagonist himself.

The Weird Sisters are also a rich site of theatrical meaning in the opportunities they afford for doubling with other characters. Since they apparently straddle both genders in appearance - ‘You should be women; / And yet your beards forbid me to interpret / That you are so' (1.3.44-46) - their appearance also raises questions about how far a production might explore issues of gender in relation to tragedy. One of them could double with Lady Macbeth (who turns herself into a virtual witch after reading her husband's report of them), or she herself might double with Hecate, the Wicked Queen of the Witches, thus portraying an altogether deeper and even more sinister control of Macbeth on his wife's part. The portrayal of the Weird Sisters might become associated with other areas of a production through the use of lighting and sound. The role of the Devil-Porter could be easily doubled with one of them and they might enter and exit through the same trap door. It would be possible to double Macduff and Lennox with the other two, so that all three can appear on stage, inside the Castle of Inverness to welcome Macbeth a few moments before the discovery of Duncan's body: ‘Our knocking has awaked him: here he comes' (2. 3. 40). This would also mean that one of the Weird Sisters (Macduff) would also be responsible for the death of Macbeth. So, the abstract nature of the opening scene of Macbeth raises many questions and issues that a production will need to think through very carefully, the answers to which will affect levels of meaning throughout in relation to the Weird Sisters, who after all, underpin not only the story, but the entire structure of the drama.

Macbeth requires a dramatic momentum of fear. Caught up in this ‘supernatural soliciting' are Shakespeare's original underpinning framework of the Weird Sisters, the political well-being of a nation state, the marriage of the Macbeths, and their interconnected, but in the end distinct tragic journeys. The old Lord Lafeu in All's Well That Ends Well opens act two scene three with some lines of which is tempting to think represent Shakespeare's own world view. Whether or not they do will never be known, but they are, worth pencilling in the margins of how we approach Macbeth as both a text and as a performance.
'They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar things supernatural and causeless. Hence it is that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear'.
(All's Well That Ends Well, 2. 3. 1-6)

The challenges implicit in Shakespeare's shortest tragedy, not least in relation to the Weird Sisters, have been requiring actors and audiences to submit to the fear it instills for four hundred years. And it is up to each new production of Macbeth to help us sup full of horrors afresh, and taste its fears, as the terrible tale unfolds.

Why not contact our specialist Shakespeare Bookshop for some audio-visual versions of 'Macbeth'? Trevor Nunn's production for the RSC, starring Sir Ian McKellen and Dame Judi Dench (Thames Television DVD £12.99, VHS video £10.99) The Naxos audio recording starring Stephen Dillane and Fiona Shaw (Cambridge University Press CD £16.95, Cassette £13.95), or the BBC Radio Collection version starring Ken Stott and Phyllis Logan (BBC CD £14.99, Cassette £10.99).