Macbeth Dagger Scene (If i were the director)

If i were the director i would use the dagger scene to make Macbeth seem as Mad as possible. I would take full advantage of the pending madness shown in the speech. There wouldn't be a dagger in the scene just an actor who reaches for something in front of him claiming its a dagger. the actor would look utterly confused when he reaches for a dagger and pulls back empty handed. He would look as if he were talking to someone even tho there's no one else around. When he says "Hear not my steps, which way they walk for fear/ Thy very stones prate of my whereabout." 2.1.57-58. Macbeth would look down at the floor with a pleading look on his face begging the floor to stay silent. For the closing of the scene Macbeth would recite "Hear it not Duncan; for it is a knell/ That summons thee to heaven or to hell." 2.1.62-63 as he was walking down the hallway and he would grab a real dagger off a hall table and slink away into the darkness towards Duncan's room.  

Macbeth Dagger Scene (Mad or Sane)

In Macbeth scene one act two Macbeth is clearly mad. Lady Macbeth Has just gone to the kings chamber to drug the guards while Macbeth waits patiently for her to give the signal. Macbeth 'sees' an imaginary dagger floating in front of him and that's when the famous dagger scene starts. "Is this a dagger which I see before me/ The handle toward my hand?" 2.1.33-34. Macbeth sees this dagger offering itself to him to aid in the murder of the king. "Or art tho but/ A dagger of the mind, a false creation," 2.1.37-38. Macbeth realized that the dagger could be an illusion, that the stress of killing the king is making him hallucinate. Macbeth is mad, throughout the play there are many passages that question Macbeth's sanity. The dagger scene is the one that where most readers know that he is indeed mad.