Macbeth

Voodoo Macbeth: Magic, Madness, and Murder

art, Plans, Theatrical Process

Coming up soon: I play Lennox in The Voodoo Macbeth with TACT!  We’re performing at Gunston Theatre 2 in Arlington, VA.

 

This show is pretty cool – it’s like the original Macbeth, only with Even More Magic.  Hekate’s a bigger character, and the witches appear more frequently, or rather… well… okay:

What I really enjoy about it is that, in our rendition, the combination of roles means that the witches are playing multiple characters.  This leads to the question: are the witches the base character (the root of the other onstage manifestations) or are they a character which imposes itself over another base ( maybe possession, maybe inner id, what have you, take your pick…)?

For our rendition, the witches are not their own base, but more a state of being (to see how we get there, you’ll have to see the show!).  What I love about this is that my base character is a priest.  This means that the witchery he undergoes deals a good deal with a crisis of faith, with the question of prayer versus magic, and from there, the question of madness.  What happens to him in the work, you’ll have to see to know…

I have had a fantastic building this character.  I invite you all to come see me perform, starting the 22nd of March.  Tickets are on sale here!

 

Thanks again for reading!

Macbeth, Religion, and Pain

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I’m playing a witch in Kathleen Akerley’s redux of Voodoo Macbeth.  Super stoked, the cast is all actors I know/ know of and highly respect, and the concept is really thrilling.  I’m honored just to be in the room.

Our big pitch for tonight started with the idea of creating a belief based on some parameters.  I chose my relationship to ‘what came before.’  And, as a philosophy hobbyist with friends of many faiths and lack thereof, I really enjoy the idea of pain as a basis for religion rather than a counterpoint to it.  So, I figured I’d make a belief based on pain.  

I figured, what if I am the pain of the thing that came before?  What if the ‘nothingness before everything’ felt that existence was a cancer – what if the void could feel and was being oppressed by existence?  This was kind of my starting ground.  One of the issues was that, whatever the relationship, we had to somehow glorify that ‘thing before’, etc, and create a method of worship.  So I had to simultaneously find a way to celebrate the thing I was, by existing, causing pain.  This lead to a huge philosophical game of point-counterpoint, of easily foreseeable schisms and sects within the belief, and… well, over all, I’m also a hobby gamer who plays Dark Eldar and Call of Cthulu, and really, it was a fun way to play off of those religious mechanics as well.

Image

Image Yeah, they’re pretty well understood.

So. Yeah. Great first rehearsal.  Looking forward to the rest.

Overall it really reminded me of the excellent imersiveness of the artistic process, and why I am so stoked to be working with Avalanche Theatre this coming year.  To help us out, check out my donate! page, or just follow this link here: http://kck.st/ULb8iX