I struggled, at first, to see the big picture of this play. I know these characters. I know what they want and why they fail or succeed throughout the course of the play. We had done extensive table work and text analysis, but I still didn’t quite understand what exactly the world of our version of “Macbeth” was going to be, until we really started really exploring the witches.
Without giving too much away, we decided in initial meetings about this production that we wanted the witches to be the storytellers. This is from their perspective; their version of the story of “Macbeth.” Then the questions really begin: who are these witches? What does it mean to be a witch? Why are they telling this story?
Lindsay, our wonderful director, told us to start thinking of these witches as outsiders. For whatever reason, choice or force, they live outside of normal society. Maybe they are deformed or maybe something happened to them that has forced them out of society. The more we explore the life of these witches the more I understand why they are telling the story and what their “Scotland” looks like. It is deformed. It is a co-dependent community of outsiders that need to tell this story.
I am very excited to explore this further. I am very excited to bring this all together!
Holly for The Tempest Ladies!
