David Greig’s Dunsinane: Reconstructing the Relationship between England and Scotland in Macbeth

David Greig’s Dunsinane, a sequel to Shakespeare’s Macbeth, captures the political and cultural feelings of Scottish independence in the 21st century. The critical tendency to link the play with a Scottish longing for independence has become more prominent with the pro-independence Scottish National Party’s landslide victory in the 2011 Scottish Parliament election. In contrast to the 2010 London premier, where Siward, the ‘tragic’ commander in the invading English army, had a monopoly on the audience’s sympathy, the focus completely shifted to the colonized Scottish characters in the Scottish productions in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Therefore, Dunsinane stands as a work urging for Scottish independence with an emphasis on the insurmountable cultural difference between Scotland and England. When the formidable and effective Scottish queen Gruoch, a dramatic reinvention of the character of Lady Macbeth, advises Siward to leave Scotland immediately, the play is no less than an indisputable metaphor for disengagement. It is Siward, a failed Englishman, who has to learn the steps in ‘a dance of leaving.’ With the growing divide between Scotland and England in mind, this paper argues that Dunsinane writes back to Shakespeare, challenging and rectifying the ideological bias in the representation of Scotland in Macbeth. For this purpose, it examines how Greig readjusts or subverts some of the premises, the central characters and linear narrative structure in the orignal play. The reconstruction of England-Scotland relationship in Dunsinane is investigated in three parts: Scottish landscape and politics, reinterpretation of Macbeth and Malcolm, and the relation between Gruoch and Siward.