Overview

This macabre comedy is partly in parody of Shakespeare. It is like and yet quite unlike Macbeth. There is ambition and there are the ambitious: Macbett, Banco, Glamiss and Candor. But on the other hand the witches are quite diabolical, and Duncan's wife turns out to be the prod that Lady Macbeth had been for Shakespeare. She, Banco and Macbett kill Duncan, and she and Macbett wed. It is Duncan's son who revenges the bloody deeds, but in true absurdism, to prove that justice is an illusion, the son declares he will out Herod Macbett and become the bloodiest tyrant of all. The roles are ironically devised so that one woman plays the three parts of Lady Macbett, Lady Duncan, and the first witch.

Published in Exit the King, The Killer, Macbett.