' Dramatic Convention and the Play of Macbeth'
Mr. MORDAUNT SHAIRP
Mr. Mordaunt Shairp is the author of two plays that have achieved success on the London stage: The Crime at Blossoms and The Green Bay Tree, both subtle analyses of the psychology of character that succeed within the modern dramatic convention. In this talk he analyses, from the modern dramatists' standpoint, the character given to Shakespeare's 'Maebeth ' by its use of the dramatic conventions of the Elizabethan theatre; blank verse that painted a scene, described an action or conveyed a thought : contrasted use of prose and verse : a stage halfway between classical formalism and modern ' peep-show ' naturalism. His contention that no play is completely comprehensible unless presented in the type of theatre for which it was written, throws an interesting challenge to the modem producer and actor who follow him in discussing the way this masterpiece should be presented to-day.