Avon Old Farms, Miss Porter's Stage 'Macbeth' in the Round

The first play ever done at Avon Old Farms School was "Hamlet" in 1936 and it was performed in the refectory, or dining hall. 

Now, the Avon all-boys private school's theater program, along with Miss Porter's School actresses from Farmington, is bringing Shakespeare back to the refectory for a theater-in-the-round production of "Macbeth."

When Co-Director Gayle Robinson chose the location instead of the usual Adams Theater stage, she admits she had her hesitations. She contemplated having the audience move around with the play in different parts of the refectory like she had seen in New York Classical Theatre's  production of "The Tempest" at Battery Park in New York. But she saw that as too complicated. 

Yet, she wanted to stage the show differently than usual in her 10th year running the theater program at Avon Old Farms. "Macbeth" is one of her favorite shows.

"I felt if I was going to do Macbeth, it had to be something very special," said Robinson, who is co-directing with Brad Carpenter, an Avon Old Farms English teacher.  

So, she worked with set designer Sarah Sullivan to make a show in the refectory happen. 

"If it wasn't for Sarah, I don't know if we would have followed through on this," Robinson said. "I'm excited about it. It's definitely been scary."

Initially, they looked at a thrust stage with audience on three sides, like at Shakespeare's Globe Theatre in London. She traveled to London to watch Shakespearean shows there as professional development training. But she decided a theater-in-the-round, with the audience on all sides, was the way to go. Robinson wanted the audience to have the "experience of what a lot of Shakespeare is really like."

A challenge of theatre in the round includes the fact that there is no backstage or wing space next to the stage. In the refectory production, there are rows of benches on all four sides of a contained floor space. The actors are visible as they exit and enter from the closest doors, sometimes from the back of the room, but the audience will hide 

Since there is no wing space, that limits set changes, so Robinson went with a minimalistic set. While the set itself is bare, the grandeur and historical architecture of the refectory fits the setting of the play in a Scottish castle. The darkness of the room adds to the atmosphere as the actors portray the story of Macbeth's rise to the thrown and the dark means he uses to att. 

And that's just the set logistics. A bigger feat yet for the actors is how close the audience is, eliminating the metaphorical wall and distance there usually is between the actors and the public. In some cases, that means coming face to face with an audience member or being aware of how props like swords are held in the limited space. In a run-thru rehearsal on Monday, some production crew members sat in the front row seats to give the actors a sense of how close they will be to the audience. 

Avon Old Farms junior Charles Carpenter, Brad's son, plays Macbeth and Miss Porter's sophomore Genevieve Guimond plays his wife, the infamous Lady Macbeth. The actors haven't performed the show with much of an audience at rehearsals, but they are preparing themselves so they won't break character. 

"If I do my job correctly as an actor, they're not going to want to distract the play," Charles Carpenter said. 

While the stage space is small, it removes limitations on movement with the circular feel. Normally, in a show on a stage facing the audience, the actors have to consciously avoid "upstaging," or having their back to the audience or blocking other actors from view. That is no longer an issue with a theatre in the round stage because the audience is on all sides.

"It lends itself to my character," Carpenter said, given his character grows maniacal by the end of the play. "There is no upstaging. Once you get over the fear of it, it's really quite liberating."

Guimond said the different movements required for theatre in the round were challenging. 

"It was a bit confusing at first because I had to swivel," Guimond. 

Avon Old Farms and Miss Porter's often partner for shows and Guimond said that it expands the scope of theater for her. A show like Macbeth has mostly male roles.  

"I wouldn't be able to do Macbeth at Miss Porter's," she said. 

The cast went to see a version of "Macbeth" at the Hartford Stage, which is also in an intimate theater space, to get a feel for the show. Carpenter has also seen other versions like the Rupert Gold rendition with Patrick Stewart as Macbeth. 

But both Carpenter and Guimond tried to bring their own flavor to characters that have been played for centuries. 

Carpenter said that many Macbeths go crazy more quickly, but he chose to wait longer and play his character more manically, with bursts of insanity along the way. 

Speaking of crazy, that is one adjective people familiar with the play might use to describe Lady Macbeth. Guimond said that many might see her as "dark" and "seductive" in other version. But she sees her as someone learning guilt and the consequences of certain means to get what she wants, or in this case, her stature as queen.

"I sort of think of her as a woman who doesn't understand what it means to kill someone," Guimond said. "At the beginning, she is a woman who knows what she wants, but she doesn't imagine the means."

She said she tries to "bring this sort of shocked terror" to the role and that playing such an eccentric role gives her a "rush after."

When the Avon Old Farms student body comes to see the show, Carpenter hopes that it will open their eyes to Shakespeare and how its intended to be performed just as he experienced. He joked about the "innate quality" teenage boys like himself seem to have driving them to "hate Shakespeare."

But being in the show has brought a whole new understanding and appreciation for Shakespearean drama. 

"It's a chance to see theater in a way they haven't seen it before," Carpenter said. 

"Macbeth" will be open to students Thursday and Friday to students and Saturday night to families and friends of the actors. Showtime starts at 8 p.m. There is no admission charge. 

Click here to see more photographs of the production!