Comments on: Behind the Scenes of Macbeth

By: mri

mri — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 23:56:00 +0000

ok, i PERFORMED this in college. it was…a different production. let’s just call it “Male Fantasy Shakespeare” which meant the guys looked like GI Joe and the women were naked for all intents and purposes. 4 nights of the show, 4 witches (the three witches + Hecate), something terrible happened to each witch on each night. won’t share the others’ stories, but my (after this EX) boyfriend got drunk and was mad that i wasn’t home and trashed my place. i mean he broke my phone, violent trashing of my apartment. it was ugly. this happened after midnight, the night before opening, so i was the first witch to go down. it sucked.

we called the show The Scottish Play, or MacDougal, or MacJospeh, and pretty much Mac-”fill in the blank.” anything but the name of the show.

agree with you Drama Nerd, don’t mess with it!

By: Drama Nerd

Drama Nerd — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 20:19:00 +0000

So I did not used to believe in the Scottish Play. Used to being the operative word. During our High School’s production of Our Town, the stage manager and I were being Jerks and running around saying M*c***h. During tech week, 3 of our leads (myself being one of them) got sick. I also got a concussion from getting hit by a falling hanging mic. Two of the extras had allergic reactions to make up. And Finally, we didn’t have enough chairs for the wedding scene and people had to fake sitting. THE CURSE IS REAL!

By: KJ

KJ — Wed, 07 May 2008 13:15:25 +0000

I am very glad to see this feature. Although I do read the “Feel Art” series, my interest does not lie there. However, as an avid reader, I am looking forward to learning more “behind the scenes” stories of my favorite works.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 07 May 2008 02:34:52 +0000

I have to agree with those who love the column and those who also think a different name would’ve been better (I mean, now there’s *two* columns with ‘Feel’ in their names… maybe a bit of originality is needed for the next one?)

By: Tommy

Tommy — Tue, 06 May 2008 18:59:37 +0000

I love this, but I have to say, “Thespian Lovers” was so much cooler. Risqué, sure, but way cooler.

By: Amy

Amy — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:45:21 +0000

love the new feature! keep ‘em coming!

By: Elizabeth Lunday

Elizabeth Lunday — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:22:37 +0000

Gary makes a good point about James’ family–no one knew that the fertility on display early in the reign wouldn’t last. James’ first son and heir Henry died in 1612 at age 18. Four other children, three daughters and a son, all died within a year of birth. James’ only children to live to adulthood were Charles, later Charles I, who lost his head in the English Revolution, and Elizabeth, later Queen of Bohemia, from whom the current ruling of house of England is descended.

Nevertheless, in 1606, England had a king, two princes, and a frequently pregnant queen, something the country hadn’t known for more than a century.

By: D.

D. — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:05:08 +0000

The inclusions of Hecate and her songs are no coincidence; those songs (named in the earliest texts only by their titles) are from “The Witch,” and Hecate’s scenes were probably not written by Shakespeare.
(I’ve read, however, that those scenes may have been included in the earliest performances because of the popular spectacle of witches in at the time, but somebody who knows better, please correct me.)

I love the new feature!

By: Gary Sargent

Gary Sargent — Tue, 06 May 2008 12:44:37 +0000

I was amused by the last sentence of point 4 “James brought with him two sons and a fertile wife, reassuring the English there would be no messy power struggle or civil war.”
When was the great rebellion again?

By: bob

bob — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:26:24 +0000

Courtney – I’ve heard a variation on that as well, though I can’t back it up either. The reasoning given was that since the play was put on so often by nearly bankrupt companies, the sets were often shoddy, contributing to the seemingly high frequency of (sometimes fatal) accidents.