Hephaestus's Blog

Yesterday I went  to a production of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, also known as “The Scottish play”. Ever since Macbeth was first performed, people have often set it in the present day, so for this performance the group (there are only 6 actors [ three men and three women] )  chose the conflict in Yugoslavia in the 1990s.  The lines were in the original Shakespearean English, but the characters had automatic rifles instead of  swords, and the king wore a general’s cap. Personally, I liked hearing the actors say lines like “I feel a pricking at my thumb, something wicked this way comes” ;  “Double, double, toil and trouble” ; and “Out, damned spot!”. My favorite scene is where Macbeth comes upon the witches in a cave and they are saying, “Double, double,toil and trouble, fire burn and cauldron bubble” and they show him 3 apparitions which say “Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth” and warn him “Beware Macduff”  and reassure him that “None of woman born shall harm Macbeth” and “Macbeth shall never vanquished be until great Birnam wood shall come to high Dunsinane hill against him.” All in all, I liked The Scottish play so much that I would like to see another performance of it.