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Health & Fitness

Central High School's Macbeth Promises Scary Good Entertainment Halloween Night

Cumming—Instead of sitting at home passing out candy this Halloween, Forsyth Central High School invites one and all to a “wicked” night of theater with its production of Macbeth, which promises spooky entertainment at its best.  In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, theater-goers are encouraged to “dress up” for the October 31st performance, in which prizes will be awarded for the most creative costumes, and then to sit back and experience what has been called William Shakespeare’s darkest and greatest tragedy.

In addition to the 7 p.m. performance on Halloween, the show also runs Thursday October 24th at 7 p.m. and Friday October 25th at 6:30 p.m.  Advanced tickets are now on sale for $10/$5 for students and can be purchased online at http://www.forsythcentralstage.com/now-showing.htm or at the door the night of each performance.

The show, widely known in theater circles as “The Scottish Play” due to superstitions surrounding the vocalization of the word, Macbeth, is set in 10th Century Scotland and tells the tale of a good man who slowly yields himself to the tempting voice of his murderous wife, his own ambition, and three supernatural witches. Through each bloody deed he becomes a butcher, leaving his wife and his kingdom in his wake of destruction.

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According to Adam Pingel, Macbeth director and theater teacher at Central, the show is a perfect Halloween night activity full of sword-play, tricks and special effects, including holographic images of the actors to portray ghosts.  He said, “the show will be exciting to watch from an audience stand point.”

In addition to entertaining theater-goers, the show is also being used as an educational tool for theater and English students alike.  Pingel said that he has teamed up with the English department in order to leverage the educational value of a live Shakespeare performance.  Pingel said that Shakespeare's plays are often left untouched in high school theatres, so this is a rare chance for students to experience one of the great plays they often only ever read in their English classes.

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 “Seeing these characters come to life and feeling their energy offers unparalleled understanding.  Reading about three ‘weird sisters’ is one thing, but seeing three tattered hags dance around the cauldron is another. While the script says, ‘Fight. Alarum!’ it's just not the same as seeing Macbeth and Macduff fight to the death!” Pingel said. 

 In addition to experiencing the play come to life on stage, Pingel said that students will have the opportunity to witness firsthand the various aspects and intricacies of putting together the Shakespeare production.  He said the cast has agreed to hold "talk-backs" after each show to discuss the "curse," characters, story, production process, and anything else the audience wants to address involving bringing the show to life.  English classes will also participate in private back stage tours.

 “Not many high school students have the opportunity to perform any Shakespeare play let alone one as deep and emotionally demanding as Macbeth,” Pingel said.  He said his 34-plus member cast has really had to work hard to get the right emotion behind the characters, since a typical high school student cannot relate to the depth of emotion in this play.  “I’m really proud of how these kids are growing as actors and individuals.”

“Connor Wood who plays the title character in the show said the most difficult part of playing Macbeth is the emotion involved.  “He’s a dark character and is so physically and mentally draining,” he said.

The young cast has been training all summer in preparation for the intense combat scenes.  Pingel said the sword fighting choreography “is very intricate and impressive.  The kids have been well trained and are very dedicated and very responsible.”

Wood said that the cast used sticks in the beginning stages of training in order to learn the various offensive and defensive moves and proper stances so as to live up to their mantra of “perfect technique”.  About the “Macbeth” experience as a whole, Wood said, “It’s a lot of hard work, but a lot of fun.  The cast feels like a family.”

Although the play typically runs more than two hours, Central’s production is a condensed version where all the action takes place in one act and is set to run less than an hour.  The school plans to perform this at the Georgia High School Regional One-Act Play Competition on October 26, which they won last year with their highly acclaimed production of “Roshomon”.  “Roshomon” was awarded second at the 2012 State One Act Competition.   

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