They do now. Bare Theatre is putting on a two-week run of “Macbeth” at the Forest Theatre in Chapel Hill starting Friday. This particular version, directed by Rebecca Blum, Bare Theatre associate director, will include an entirely new character: a teenage Macbeth.
Blum said she played Lady Macbeth in Bare Theatre’s production back in 2006, and there was a line of text that bothered her. In the line, Lady Macbeth says she knows what it’s like to nurse a baby, but that is the only mention of Lady Macbeth’s child in the entire play.
“Some people will say that line is a metaphor for the conception of the idea to kill Duncan, and there was no baby at all,” Blum said. “Some say a baby died at some point before the story on stage begins; I just found it interesting that there is only one line in the original script that mentions the existence of a child at all.”
When managing director Todd Buker approached Blum a year and a half ago about directing a show for Bare Theatre, Blum agreed — but only if she could direct this new idea of “Macbeth,” to which he obliged.
“She is very mindful of the choices her actors have to make, and she is extremely nurturing creatively,” Buker said about Blum in an email. “She knows every detail (of “Macbeth”) and probably most of the lines by heart.”
The Macbeth son is not named in the show, nor does he have any lines created for him — Blum said she had taken some messenger lines to give to him to keep the play true to Shakespeare.
“At this point, I sometimes forget that it’s even new,” Wade Newhouse, who plays Macbeth, said of the additional character. “Once we decided we would do that and understood what it meant, carrying it out has not been difficult.”
Benji Jones, who plays Lady Macbeth, said she agreed that there wasn’t much of an adjustment, especially for her, because she had never been in a production of “Macbeth” before.
