Macbeth

Spotlight’s take on Macbeth intends to bring the Scottish Play closer to home. Set just after the Second World War, Macbeth—war veteran and politician—conspires to kill the King, and take the crown for himself with the help of Lady Macbeth, his loving wife. As paranoia and guilt begin to consume them both, they must try their best to stay in power and conceal their madness from enemy forces.

I would first like to thank you for supporting this exceptional cast and crew by coming to see this production. Macbeth is a very unique entry in Shakespeare’s works, being the second shortest of his plays, and the shortest tragedy. It is also considered one of his easiest plays to understand. This is very interesting to me, because I believe that at their core, all of Shakespeare’s plays are easy to understand. At the end of the day, they’re all fairly simple stories; even a single sentence can instantly communicate which play is being summarized. At its core, Macbeth is simply about a man and a woman conspiring to kill the King and take his throne, at the expense of their own sanity.

The beautiful simplicity of Shakespeare’s work is what makes it so entertaining. The simplicity of the story is also a gateway for different interpretations of the play to create a never-beforeseen version of the story each and every time it is produced. I have chosen to set this play not in any particular year, but an ambiguous time between 1945 and 1955. In other terms, the decade after two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan. Even though Macbeth is famously (or perhaps infamously) known as “The Scottish Play,” our production will take place in The United States of America. This production of Macbeth is meant to be a look behind the curtain of 1940s and ’50s politics, and an allegory for the awful acts that humans are willing to make in order to stay at the top of the food chain, and the consequences of those actions. Our production also hopes to convey important messages about trauma, equality, and war.

Some may say that this play is too dark or too graphic for a youth theatre, and my only reply is maybe that’s the point. Plenty of young people in this country could experience, or maybe already have experienced, similar horrors that are depicted in this play in their very own schools. Macbeth is just as relevant in the 21st century as it was in the 17th. Betrayal, political conspiracies, corrupt world leaders, violence against children; sounds to me like Macbeth could have easily been a major political figure in America today.

I hope I haven’t shared too much. I’ve already cut this director’s note down quite a bit. I love this play, and I’m immensely thankful for this cast and crew, and the work they have done to help me put on a show that we all can be proud of. Thanks for reading, thanks for supporting, and enjoy Macbeth!

Jack Taylor, Director