You have to go back to 1596, (when this play was written).
The 'audience', was made up of all kinds of people. Those visiting from the surrounding Home Counties. Those attracted by London's various lifestyles, who were now living there. Passing professions, of which there were many. Lords and ladies, eager to be 'seen', at this, the latest of London's attractions, the theatre, the list goes on.
All of them were subjected, to what we now know, was Shakespeare's brilliance, for he was writing THEN, not now! Everything was fresh, and new!
He held audiences in his thrall, with plays such as Macbeth, which begins with three witches, appearing and disappearing at will. Witches, (or old, sometimes infirm widows, that after their husband had died and their children left the village for a better life, were left to fend for themselves as best they could, often taking in a small pet, a cat, for company and living in a small cottage at the end of the village), were subjected to the most vilest form of hatred from the villagers, who, after getting drunk at the nearest inn, would swear to a sheriff that they saw her flying around the village on a broomstick!
Many worn out old widows were burned at the stake, or drowned, because of this abject stupidity.
Now, being confronted with witches, in this most blood letting play then, the audience would gasp and cringe in fear as the witches delivered their terrifying chants and incantations, seemingly in complete control of everybody's destiny.
Shakespeare wrote this play, in a rhyming metre which his audiences were unused to.
Macbeth is written to four beats to the bar, where he would generally use iambic pentameter, five beats to the bar, (the rhythym of the heartbeat), thus putting everybody's 'mind clock' out!
What with the gloomy and often dark surrounds of the play, with everything important happening in the half light, the witches instilling fear and confusion to all, Macbeth, even now, has to be seen to be believed!
It was a smash hit when first produced!
