Sleep No More...

Spring blooms in Glasgow

I have long had a deep and abiding love for Shakespeare, but it was not always so. My first experience with the Bard was Julius Caesar and I made the decision that I did not like reading plays, having to memorize Brutus’s monologue didn’t help my feelings towards it either. But it was later when my amazing high school English teacher had us read Macbeth that my feelings changed, albeit gradually.

Side eye for Caesar

Upon first reading, much like Julius Caesar, I hated the play and found it hard to understand or relate to. But she challenged me to read it again, so I did. It was upon a third read through that I found the humor and epic beauty in the Scottish play and it came alive for me. If not for falling in love with this gruesome tragedy I might have never found the great fascination with the world’s most prolific writer, nor would I have found my own spark for writing and history in the way that I did. For that, I will always have Mrs. Qualls to thank for encouraging me and nurturing a very difficult student to find something within that I didn’t know was there. You are an inspiration to me and always will be! 

Macbeth is known also as the cursed play or by those in the theatre world just the Scottish play as it is very taboo to say the name inside of the theater. While it is a tragedy, I do hold it as one of my all-time favorites, so seeing it live in Scotland was the most amazing experience.

Shakespeare’s plays have been done countless times, but the interpretation of them is always up to the imagination and the director for this version of the Scottish play was a brilliant rendition. Set in a post-apocalyptic Scotland by use of costumes, set, lighting, and sound; we were transported to a new and jarring world that set the stage for a story of ambition and blood.

The lighting design struck me almost immediately for its cleverness and how well it worked with the set design, ghastly yellow shone on the victims of Macbeth and his Lady when they saw them in visions giving such a vivid realism to their deaths and the paranoia that the couple slipped into. The entire production had an ill feeling to it, the grey and blue tones gave it a deathly pallor and fit the setting perfectly.

This was a closed-captioned performance

The set itself was made up of an enormous moving piece, that added levels to the stage and created an illusion of traveling great distances. It also was the source of the clever way of ‘beheading’ characters by a slot that opened for an actor to put their head in while a double of their bloody head was lifted to be shown to us. The use of old industrial pieces really made the dystopian setting clear, everything from cardboard boxes, filthy tables, and chairs, to tapped up plastic bags, it all furthered the idea of where this was set. Most impressive to me though was the three poles that the witches climbed with seemingly no safety harnesses! And these poles were as tall as telephone poles, once again adding levels of height to the stage and an unearthly supernatural movement to the three weird sisters. The curtains seemingly made of ripped and tattered black plastic catered to the lights that bounced off them in a very threatening way. 

An alleyway outside the theatre, taken by my friend Zachariah.
It fit the setting of the play very nicely.  

The sound design was also incredible, jarring brass that almost sounded like sick jazz music alongside low eerie pulsing that invaded your own heartbeat, forcing it to beat alongside the actors, drawing you in even further with this brilliant trick of sound.

The actors were amazing, so passionate and alive that you felt their pain and passion in each line. As always, the death of Lady Macduff was heartbreaking and the staging of it made it even more emotional and of course, the murder of Banquo was so tragic. The yellow lighting on them for the remainder of the play gave just the effect they wanted and was excellent.

Overall it really was a dream come true to finally see a Shakespearean play in person, much less for it to be one of my favorites in the place it was originally set in. How better to experience Scotland than this, and with a wonderful Scottish friend made it all the more special for me. We had such an amazing time and the discussion of the play afterward was fantastic. 

 I will never forget that night and how amazing it was to be there and experience it as the Bard intended. Only the first of many more, but what a way to start. Falling more and more in love with this city and country every passing day. 

Here is the trailer for the version I saw to get a better idea!