Macbeth

Massasoit Community College
By William Shakespeare
​Directed + Choreographed by Andrew Child

Scenic Design by
Nathan Fogg

​Projections by
​Phil Grenier

Properties Design by
​Gail Gilman

Photo Credit
Jim Lynch

Costumes by
​Jennifer Spagone

Lighting Design by
​Kasey Sheehan

Thoughts on directing Macbeth...

    In tackling as highly recognizable and familiar a work as Macbeth, it was important to me that we explore something in the text other than the darkness and the violence we find readily accessible and almost necessary in associative imagery. A major jumping off point came when I stumbled upon research arguing that the first folio’s denotation of “three wayard sisters”, which for centuries has been accepted as “weird sisters” could actually have meant “three wayward sisters”. We have deliberately embraced this possibility and explored it in this production, creating a society in which Shakespeare’s characters can exist believably, but in which any form of wayward-ness would be discouraged, forbidden, and certainly not tolerated or praised. Although the society we have created is not wholly based upon any religious order, we drew heavily from the customs and cultures of the Puritans, the Amish, the Shakers, the Oneida Complex, and many similar groups who sought simplicity by enforcing uniformity and separation. Additionally, we have explored the idea of a cultural obsession with fertility. Macbeth’s longings for a line of descendants are constantly evoked by the ever-present wheat field on the stage, ripe and ready to be harvested. The witch's associations with sand seem to taunt Macbeth and Lady Macbeth about the possibility of their barren lineage.