QUESTION 1 / How does this version of Macbeth challenge the traditional versions of Macbeth?

Originally, Macbeth is a tragedy as it is about the misfortune of political ambition. A brave Scottish general named Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches/unknowns that one day he will become King of Scotland. Consumed by ambition and spurred to action by his wife, Macbeth murders King Duncan and soon becomes a tyrannical ruler.

During Drama Production, we learned that there were many different ways in which a performance/piece can be perceived and that there were many paths that we could take in our rehearsal process. Most of the scenes in the production followed the Splendid Company style of changing it from a tragedy to a comedic performance. One of the ways we did this through the use of song, using songs helped to punctuate the action to make the audience laugh as well as the songs having further meaning that could be delivered in an interesting and engaging way. Another way our class changed the performance from a tragedy to a comedy was through the use of Bouffons (The Bouffons are the chorus, they tell the story, interrupt it to draw the audience’s attention to moments of contradiction and revealing subtext). The Splendid Company was influenced stylistically by Bertolt Brecht who was a German practitioner.

Another way our version of Macbeth challenged the traditional versions was through our staging choices. Rather than having our performance on a stage with the audience in front of us, we did it in the round, as well as in a black box theatre. Performing in the round made it more interesting for the audience as they were up close, and we could engage with them more throughout the scenes. Using a black box theatre also made it more appealing to the audience, the dark room also helps to give the aura of any place. It’s easy to transport the audience somewhere else even with the limited use of effect.

QUESTION 2 / How do you think they have attempted to engage an audience, given that this is a school touring production in the UK?

There were several ways that our class attempted to make it more engaging for the audience. One of the ways we tried to achieve this was through the use of symbolic props, such as the red scarf. The red scarf was used throughout several scenes and was one of the only colourful items as we were all wearing theatre blacks, which was another attempt to make it more engaging. Wearing theatre blacks was a stylistic choice that helped to make it more interesting as the characters would be able to come up with their own ideas for each character, and it made the main focus about the performer rather than what was going on around them. Another thing that we did to make the performance more engaging for the audience was miming certain objects. By miming objects, the audience was given the opportunity to think about what was happening during the play and what that object might look like.

QUESTION 3 / What are some of the artistic choices you like?

There were several artistic choices I liked about our version/performance of Macbeth, such as performing in the round. Performing in the round was really fascinating as I had never done it before, and it gave me an opportunity to try/learn something new. Another thing that I liked was the use of symbolic props as it was interesting to come up with different ways we could use them throughout the performance as a class, feeding of each other’s ideas and making them better as we continued to rehearse.

QUESTION 4 / What are some of the artistic choices you do not like?

There wasn’t really anything I didn’t like from our performance as it was all quite interesting.

QUESTION 5 / Write a 100-200 word review of this production.

I think that the production was put together quite well with the time we had, and it was great to be able to watch it come together and to have some input on how it would be viewed/delivered to the audience. There were many elements of our performance that helped make the play entertaining and our own, such as the use of staging and our artistic choices. Although it is quite hard to perform a Shakespearian play well, due to the fact that we had to go through each line to understand its meaning and what was going on, I think it ended up being very interesting and really good to watch.