Shakespearean Resonances in Contemporary British Drama: Political and Adaptational Borders in William Shakespeare’s Macbeth and David Greig’s Dunsinane

Abstract

Abstract: Using Wai Chee Dimock’s theory of “resonance,” this article argues that the potential of Shakespeare’s works to reverberate across centuries and across contexts resides not so much in their universality as in their historical specificity and therefore in the ways in which the meaning and significance of the plays have necessarily changed over time. This argument is illustrated through Scottish playwright David Greig’s 2010 play Dunsinane , a sequel to Shakespeare’s Macbeth . Dimock’s concept of resonance helps to identify specific concerns that the two plays share—above all, an interest in nationhood that is expressed through the border. At the same time, it draws attention to Dunsinane ’s considerable dissonances with Macbeth , which are above all evident in Greig’s rewriting of major parts of Shakespeare’s plot. As such, the border is not only a central theme and aesthetic device in both plays, but also an apt metaphor for Greig’s adaptational approach. As an example of a textual borderscape (in Chiara Brambilla’s sense of the term), Dunsinane probes the borders of adaptation—and of adapting Shakespeare—in the current moment.