This unearths some thoughts, back from my English degree twenty years ago
But basically I don't think those problems are all meant to be solved
Yes, the supernatural events described on stage are very difficult to pull off even with modern effects. But they were impossible with Jacobean setups. And that's kind of the point
There is always a tension between what is seen and spoken in that play. We're meant to get the sense that Macbeth is partly talking himself into his frenzy
Supernatural events happen but they kind of have a bathetic, eye-rolling quality to them, like the prophecy that "Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him"
Which YEAH, it does, in that Macbeth's enemies construct a bunch of battering rams from the forest timber. You are supposed to groan at that. Magic is way weaker than any of the human beings and their ordinary vices
But basically I don't think those problems are all meant to be solved
Yes, the supernatural events described on stage are very difficult to pull off even with modern effects. But they were impossible with Jacobean setups. And that's kind of the point
There is always a tension between what is seen and spoken in that play. We're meant to get the sense that Macbeth is partly talking himself into his frenzy
Supernatural events happen but they kind of have a bathetic, eye-rolling quality to them, like the prophecy that "Great Birnam Wood to high Dunsinane Hill / Shall come against him"
Which YEAH, it does, in that Macbeth's enemies construct a bunch of battering rams from the forest timber. You are supposed to groan at that. Magic is way weaker than any of the human beings and their ordinary vices