Maureen (Mel) Fitz

Macbeth: The Inevitable Nature of Time

The story of Macbeth, like many Shakespearean tales, can still relate to modern day. With the specific lens of nature versus industry, we can connect to this story of man’s ambition falling way to fate. No matter what he tries, Macbeth can never stop what is going to happen to him, no matter how hard he tries. Time will continue to move on, and what has be set in motion cannot be stopped. Placing this play in the mindset of industry representing man’s ego and nature representing destiny, no matter what the focus, time will continue.

With the combined stage design techniques of a rotating audience and scrim walls, the play literally revolved around the viewer in a giant clock. However, much like the ill fate for Macbeth, this clock carries the bad luck of the number 13. The thirteenth stage, set above the entrance, is where all the murders take place, due to the actor’s movement. The actors move from gear to gear, stage to stage, reenacting Shakespeare’s words. Just as the clock doesn’t stop, the actors move through space and time.

To create the Scrim walls where the settings are projected, I looked at the 13 hour clock and used the 27.65 etc angle to create different angles not only in space but in the wall themselves. Each hour is perpendicular to the stage at each hour, based on the views of the audience. While the scenes are not always perfectly angled to the walls, the view is there for the audience as they move through the story

Additionally, I used the angles on the clock to make cuts out of the tops of the walls, based on the 13th hour as a north arrow. Based on the placement of the wall and the number it represents, the angle is cut out to give even more of a sense of this time.