“Loved it,” Jessica Vallejor, junior English education major, said. “There were moments where I forgot to breathe.”
On April 10, the West Texas A&M University Theatre Department began its performances of Macbeth in the Happy State Bank Studio Theatre . Macbeth is one of Shakespeare’s tragedies in which a Scottish Thane is prophesized to about becoming king of Scotland. Macbeth then takes actions to make the prophecy come true and must deal with the consequences.
“I was impressed with the production overall I loved the fights scenes, and felt that the monochromatic color scheme set an appropriately dark tone,” Summer Baker, senior English major, said. “I felt that they made some bold moves by making the witches appear sensual and feline, and I really appreciated how the banquet scene included a moment where Macbeth cries. I felt that that moment perfectly highlighted the changes in the Macbeths–Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness and Macbeth’s descent into monstrosity.”
Shakespeare plays are different from many plays, because Shakespeare only wrote minimal stage directions such as exits room or dies. Because of this, no two acting companies that preform a Shakespeare play do it in the same way.
“His plays can be interpreted in many different ways,” Dr. Doty, the Shakespeare professor at WT, said. “The witches (or Weird Sisters) in the WTAMU production were creepy looking but they were beautiful in a way also. They wanted [the witches] to be both foul and fair.”
“It was the best thing I’ve ever seen,” Bethany Jones, a senior English major, said.
The unique thing about how the WT theatre department chose to perform Macbeth was the space that they chose to perform it in.
The last Shakespeare play that the theatre department preformed was in the Branding Iron Theatre that contains the traditional stage. The black box theatre was set up so that the audience faced each other from opposite sides of the room and the performance took place between them.
“I could tell that a lot of work had gone into the costuming, the choreography, the acting, and the mood between the characters around the dialogue (such as facial expressions), and that worked paid off in a wonderful production,” Baker said. “I had only ever read the play, but I feel that this production of Macbeth brought the play to life for me in the best way possible.”
This play not only took part mere inches from away from the audience, the play also contained live action sword fights and plenty of fake blood. The actresses who played the three weird sisters liked to stare at audience members on the first row with their white contacts to creep them out.
“It was great, I get to work with blood,” Melissa McCallum, senior Theatre major with emphasis in design technology, said. “The most fun was when I got to dip the ‘beheaded Macbeth’ in blood.”
For the Macbeth performances the art students in the glass blowing class made lanterns that were hung in the theatre. These lanterns were auctioned off at each performance and the funds went to the art department.
“[Macbeth was] extremely impressive for a college performance, [especially] how they were able to utilize the lighting,” Lance Lomax, senior English major, said.
