tbt: It's a Macbeth year!

It's truly been a Macbeth year for me so far and it continues with the announcement of the next play I'm going to be in this upcoming spring - a retelling of The Tragedy of Macbeth!

I couldn't help but be inspired to reminisce on my other Macbeth experiences this year - a short film I worked on with Tangerine Isle was released just a few weeks ago, Last Call for Macbeth, and my honeymoon in October, 2023, when my husband and I got to see Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe in London!

It was truly an amazing experience for two actors married to one another to get to see and share where the original Globe theatre stood during Shakespeare's time!

Then, to get over the Thames to see where they have built the Globe theatre replica and where they produce Shakespeare's plays on a replica stage! My husband and I not only got to see the show, we also got to do a grand tour of the theatre and it was amazing. Full of history of the theatre guild, their roles and Shakespeare's role as actor and playwright! We even got to learn so much about how the theatre was "across the river," which, at that time, was deemed the "bad part of town." And how it used to take at least 2-3 hours just to cross London Bridge! It was also astounding to learn about the history of the current Globe Theatre and how an American actor, Sam Wanamaker, was in such disbelief that, at the time, London had no Globe theatre and barely anything even paying tribute to the playwright that us actors all know and love, William Shakespeare himself! It took him about 50 years, but he got it done!

Shakespeare's Globe also truly celebrates Shakespeare's work and their artistry in bringing it to life. I got to see costumes from one of my absolute favorite Shakespeare shows, Much Ado About Nothing!

Of course, they even had a first folio, fittingly flipped to Macbeth!

And, in this day and age, with the importance of hand sanitizing, they had the funniest hand sanitizing stations at the theatre!

But the magic was really and truly in the theatre space. My husband and I did get box seats and I just pretended we were some type of lower nobility in the early 1600s. My husband even got us cushions for the wooden benches!

Looking out at the Groundlings was honestly very cool, all of whom seemed to truly respect the space and the show. None of them even looked all that tired from standing the entire show! Nothing like we heard about the groundlings of yesteryear, shouting at and trying to interact with the actors or throwing things onto the stage or at the actors, though, apparently, those things were rarely vegetables, as they needed those to EAT!

This performance of Macbeth was honestly the best I've ever seen. To be honest, I haven't often considered myself a fan of the show, but after seeing The Globe's telling, I actually enjoyed the show for the first time. It was so refreshing because they cut the story and presented it in a way that was actually understandable to me, I could keep track of all the characters, even with similar Scottish sounding names like MACduff, MAlColm and MACbeth, Banquo and Macbeth were portrayed as best friends, which really illuminated and helped me to understand their actual relationship and what they each spend on and in spite of each other, Lady Macbeth and Macbeth actually loved one another and sort of fed off of one another's greed and lust, which I have rarely seen, Lady MacDuff and her children were introduced way earlier in the play so I actually cared what happened when Ross came to speak with her later, and Macbeth was honestly just perfect. I felt as if the actor portrayed him as that fun guy at a party, entitled, but it's okay, because he's a pretty good time, until he becomes too entitled and too engrossed with the power he feels he deserves. His wife barely had to talk him into doing what he does, it's as if he asked her to talk him into it so it wasn't his fault. He reminded me a great deal of Jonathan Groff as King George III in Hamilton. And his ending was completely cowardly, vain and pathetic. It was perfect.

And the witches (one of whom was portrayed by Ben Caplan, one of my favorite actors from Band of Brothers and Call the Midwife) were outstanding. Letting Macbeth do what he does and almost seeming to comment on it with judgment, almost like some of the men in the #MeToo movement, seeing another man take advantage of his power and trying to tell him exactly that by showing him the consequences of his actions. Or in these days of Covid, seeing someone not wash their hands, or wear a mask when they should. While I am not a believer that the witches push Macbeth to do what he does, I loved the idea of the witches knowing all they can do is give Macbeth information and, while maybe thinking it may help him to not make the wrong choice, Macbeth is the only one that can choose to use the information as he does. My husband said it perfectly, "It's not that he can't escape what's going to happen to him, it's that he can't escape what he's going to do."

It was a thoroughly refreshing, modern interpretation of this story that made it accessible and actually worthwhile. Which I haven't felt about the story of Macbeth really ever.

After the show, Mike and I couldn't wait to get into the groundlings area and touch the stage that those amazing actors touched and walked on themselves!

So, it's been a very pleasing Macbeth year so far! I am excited to tell the story as an actor myself and I can only hope to be as meaningful to an audience as Shakespeare's Globe's performance and as Tangerine Isle's short film about being an actor was to me! (Let's hope all this Macbeth in one year is a good sign! No room to be "skittish about the Scottish tragedy" this year! lol)