Spring Break
'In Spite of Thunder: The Macbeth Project'
Sam Sheffield
Issue date: 1/28/08 Section: Culture
"Double, double, toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble!" screeched the Weird Sisters at the Coterie Theatre's UMKC production, "In Spite of Thunder: The Macbeth Project."
And it bubbled right over with eight lead actors switching parts; a fun experience with sounds, theatrical special effects, and fast-moving action.
It was a great way to introduce Shakespeare to those who don't really know him well or who don't get along with "thee's" and "thou's" and "eth's" at the end of words.
In the cast, six out of eight leads were from UMKC so it was truly was a Roo affair.
Macbeth and his wife were played by four different actors and actresses each. They switched roles from lead to support at the end of each act. Each actor brought their own interpretation of the characters and portrayed the rise and fall from absolute power to abject destruction, with different sequences and portrayals of personality.
The original idea for a cycle of lead parts came from the combined text-adapting playwright team of Suzan Zeder and Jim Hancock during the first stage debut of the script at the University of Texas at Austin.
They started out with four men and four women.
"Some people were better for this some people were better for that," Zeder said, "It was not an original idea…It came out of the actors."
The main theme of Macbeth is ambition and power, unchecked by moral restraints, leads to corruption, and that the use of violence leads to the ultimate demise of those who use it.
The play, as in with most Shakespeare plays, resonates across time and deals with human nature as it was, is, and will ever be.
Though the words were taken from the original text, "The Macbeth Project" is much shorter than the original. It runs just an hour and 15 minutes, as opposed to the original three to four hour running time.
Parts were combined, and scenes were cut to make it faster paced and exciting. Director Sidonie Garrett said there's a major difference between Shakespeare's text and "The Macbeth Project"
And it bubbled right over with eight lead actors switching parts; a fun experience with sounds, theatrical special effects, and fast-moving action.
It was a great way to introduce Shakespeare to those who don't really know him well or who don't get along with "thee's" and "thou's" and "eth's" at the end of words.
In the cast, six out of eight leads were from UMKC so it was truly was a Roo affair.
Macbeth and his wife were played by four different actors and actresses each. They switched roles from lead to support at the end of each act. Each actor brought their own interpretation of the characters and portrayed the rise and fall from absolute power to abject destruction, with different sequences and portrayals of personality.
The original idea for a cycle of lead parts came from the combined text-adapting playwright team of Suzan Zeder and Jim Hancock during the first stage debut of the script at the University of Texas at Austin.
They started out with four men and four women.
"Some people were better for this some people were better for that," Zeder said, "It was not an original idea…It came out of the actors."
The main theme of Macbeth is ambition and power, unchecked by moral restraints, leads to corruption, and that the use of violence leads to the ultimate demise of those who use it.
The play, as in with most Shakespeare plays, resonates across time and deals with human nature as it was, is, and will ever be.
Though the words were taken from the original text, "The Macbeth Project" is much shorter than the original. It runs just an hour and 15 minutes, as opposed to the original three to four hour running time.
Parts were combined, and scenes were cut to make it faster paced and exciting. Director Sidonie Garrett said there's a major difference between Shakespeare's text and "The Macbeth Project"
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