What is the play Macbeth about?

Answer 1

It is about a man who is called Macbeth who murders King Duncan, the current ruler, in order to take the throne. He is a tyrannical ruler, who goes on to kill many other people out of fear that they pose a threat to his power. Meanwhile, his guilt at his crimes eats away at him until he is finally killed at the end of the play.

Answer 2

It's about nothing. Actually King Lear is the play whose key word is "nothing". Macbeth's key word is "blood".

Macbeth is about the corrosive effect of wrongdoing. A couple conspire to kill the king so they can become king and queen and it works, or appears to work, but then they find that their ability to enjoy it or do the job is compromised because they are psychologically compromised by what they have done.

Answer 3

The Tragedy of Macbeth (commonly called Macbeth) is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607. The earliest account of a performance of what was probably Shakespeare's play is April 1611, when Simon Forman recorded seeing such a play at the Globe Theatre. It was first published in the Folio of 1623, possibly from a prompt book for a specific performance.

Shakespeare's source for the tragedy are the accounts of King Macbeth of Scotland, Macduff, and Duncan in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), a history of England, Scotland and Ireland familiar to Shakespeare and his contemporaries. However, the story of Macbeth as told by Shakespeare bears little relation to real events in Scottish history, as Macbeth was an admired and able monarch.

In the backstage world of theatre, some believe that the play is cursed, and will not mention its title aloud, referring to it instead as "the Scottish play". Over the course of many centuries, the play has attracted some of the greatest actors in the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It has been adapted to film, television, opera, novels, comic books, and other media.