Summary: Macbeth goes crazy and ruins dinner. Then Hecate shows up.
Commentary: Ok, I know I whine about the specific selections from pieces a lot, but this one is really weird.
1. "Is this a dagger..." is the headline quote in the reading guide, but comes in the beginning of the previous act, over 15 pages earlier. Macbeth is only like 80 pages, so that's pretty significant. If not that one I'm surprised we didn't get one of the (either earlier or later) famous soliloquies. Especially since, unlike Hamlet, this is the only Macbeth selection we get.
2. Scene 4 (the dinner) is pretty good. "You have displaced the mirth," is one of the underrated lines in all of Shakespeare. Still not really a key/famous scene.
3. Scene 5 is a Hecate scene. There's some pretty credible speculation that Hecate isn't even in the original play (and slightly less that she was originally larger role, since the version of Macbeth that survived is probably an abridged/working copy). A fair number of productions I've seen cut her (and this entire scene) entirely, or occasionally cut her but preserve some of the her lines and give them to the witches.
4. Scene 6 is basically just Lennox serving as a narrator to set up some future events. No reason at all to include it in a small selection like this.
If nothing else, (assuming he wanted the dinner, the only worthwhile scene here) Elliot could've done the first half of Act III. You still wouldn't get "Is this a dagger?" but you do get the murderers, a strong Macbeth and Banquo scene, and a good Macbeth and Lady Macbeth one.
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