ABSTRACT
Shakespeare used some version of Macbeth's structure in at least a quarter of his plays. This chapter focuses on elements of Shakespeare's dramaturgy that are often overlooked because they disappear on the page. The power of nonverbal reactions becomes apparent in the three dimensions of a rehearsal room when a director puts a scene on its feet. The chapter examines how the relationship between actor and audience changes the function of words in soliloquies, and explores the variety of ways that actions define a play. It then shows how repeated actions create the dramatic structure of a play, and what one can learn about a play by examining its structure. Aristotle wrote that the plot of a play is the arrangement of outward events that point to the inner actions from which they spring. The chapter also analyzes the narrative structure of Macbeth.
