“Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble.”
These famous words will come to the Bellevue College stage this summer in Shakespeare’s “Macbeth.”
Auditions will be held 10:00 a.m. to noon on May 17, with callbacks 2:00 – 6:00 p.m. Sign-up and instructions are located on the bulletin board in the lobby of the theater building.
Tammi Doyle, chair of the theater arts department, hopes that everyone from the most inexperienced actors to the seasoned thespians will come and audition, especially since this is the summer show.
“In the summer, things run very differently,” Doyle said, “almost no one is here, so it’s a nice atmosphere for a rehearsal. We have five hours of rehearsal a day, and the actors help out a lot with the [technical] production side.” During rehearsal the actors will assist with the sets and lights, which Doyle says is nice for an all-around theater experience.
“Macbeth,” is about a Scottish general told by witches that he will one day be king. BC’s rendition will be directed by Cynthia White, an experienced director who has worked throughout the country. This will be White’s first time directing “Macbeth,” and she is excited for the opportunity. “I am very passionate about the language of this play,” she said. “The text is muscular and vital and pulses with desire. If we can tell this tale letting the language do the work for us, we can unleash one of Shakespeare’s most contemporary tales.” White said that there is plenty to enjoy in this play for everyone. “Passion and magic interact and spark each other in this play [it] glows with a passion for life. It’s hot, it’s intense, and bloody, and violent. What’s not to like?”
Another thing that has the theater excited about “Macbeth” is its famous curse. Superstitious theater folk refuse to say the name of the play out loud, which is believed to bring bad luck or harm to those who do so, especially if they say it in a theater. Instead they use euphemisms such as “The Scottish Play” or “Mackers.” Doyle recalled that the avoidance of the name got so intense during the play’s announcement that she had to interrupt to say, for clarity’s sake, “We are doing ‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare.”
White admits that she holds the superstition. “I’ve always felt a little tinge of fear or guilt when I said the word ‘Macbeth’ around the theatre,” she said. However, White doesn’t just subscribe to the superstition out of fear, she believes that such superstitions actually make the play more powerful. “I found when teaching a workshop on the play recently, that not casually saying the name gave the name more power when it was spoken in the text.”
Rehearsals will begin on July 1, and performance dates are Aug. 6-9.