Student Review Of 'Macbeth' On Stage At James Madison High School

FAIRFAX CITY, VA - From The Cappies: Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in the cursed Scottish tragedy at James Madison High School! Macbeth is an iconic Shakespeare tale of greed, corruption, and what power can do to a person. It follows the title character through his devastating decline into insanity and pure evilness. The play involves an abundance of strange, mysterious magic and carries an eerie feeling that James Madison did not fail to bring throughout their production of it.

Starting from the beginning of the show, the three witches, or Weird Sisters, open the play with a chill-inducing and ominous energy that they would continue for the rest of the times that they took the stage. Although they did not have individual names and they looked for the most part exactly the same, they all had separate characters and made distinct character choices which added every little bit of creepy to their scenes. If the Weird Sisters weren't creepy enough, or needed any help, the lights were executed to perfection in many of the scenes. When the light glinted off the floating dagger, it really made it feel as though Macbeth was dreaming as he spoke to it. Another technical aspect that helped keep the fast pace of the show and propel it to the end was the sound. The number of musical soundtracks that were used was more than expected for a high school show, but certainly not too much. They were timed perfectly and fit the mood of their respective scenes extremely well.

Moving from technical aspects back to acting, almost the entire cast spoke with great vocal clarity and minded their diction. However, there were two stand out characters that can by no means be forgotten. Max Jackson (Macbeth) and Charlotte Reed (Lady Macbeth) acted their scenes together with incredible chemistry and both had great individual performances. It was clear that they had done their Shakespeare homework and understood fully what they were saying and portrayed it beautifully (and at times, hideously, in a good way). Jackson displayed amazing character development by appearing gradually more evil in each scene, and made the audience love to hate him. Reed showed great emotion and seduced Macbeth into his evil state with remarkable enthusiasm and passion.

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