Macbeth Street (Stratford)

Macbeth Street runs off Bianca Crescent in Stratford, with the name chosen to keep with the town’s tradition of calling streets after Shakespearean plays. This began in 1878 with dozens of roads now honouring characters and places drawn from the works of The Bard.

Stratford District Council ran a “Name Thy Street” competition in 2018 so members of the public could make suggestions for a new subdivision off Pembroke Road West. They received 127 entries, with the longlist eventually whittled down to four winners: Benvolio (Romeo’s cousin in Romeo and Juliet), Bianca (meaning “pure” in Italian and a character in both The Taming of the Shrew and Othello), Midsummer (after the comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream) and Macbeth.

Shakespeare wrote Macbeth sometime before 1606, when it was first performed for King James I of England, patron of Shakespeare’s acting company. The play deals with the terrible damage wrought by political ambition. A trio of witches prophesy that Macbeth, Lord of Glamis, will one day become King of Scotland. Consumed by his lust for power and encouraged to commit violence by his wife, Macbeth murders the real king and takes the throne. Stricken with guilt and paranoia, he then commits more murders to protect himself, becoming a tyrant in the process. This bloody chain of events leads to insanity and death for Macbeth and his wife.

One of Shakespeare’s shortest plays at just 2086 lines, Macbeth was based on a real 11^th century Scottish king. Macbethad mac Findláech, whose first name means “son of life”, reigned from 1040 to 1057 but unlike the fictional Macbeth his time on the throne was mostly peaceful.

The play gave us several invented phrases – including “steal my thunder”, “something wicked this way comes”, “be-all and end-all”, “crack of doom” and “at one fell swoop” – which have entered popular usage. It has also inspired artists like Henry Fuseli, film directors including Akira Kurosawa and authors from Ngaio Marsh to Terry Pratchett.

There are two other streets named after Macbeth in New Zealand, one on Auckland’s North Shore and one in the Dunedin suburb of Caversham.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.