A student-led Shakespeare company, What You Will Theatre, staged a production of “Macbeth” with a Wild West twist. It held performances at the Illini Union on Friday and Saturday.
According to What You Will’s website, the company “presents the works of William Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and other relevant productions in a humanistic and accessible light.”
“It’s basically a bunch of students from all different backgrounds, coming together,” said Silas Kampwerth, assistant director and sophomore in LAS. “We’re working together and having a lot of fun on the show.”
After working on a couple of productions with What You Will, Al Gurgone, director and senior in FAA, came up with the twist for this production.
“Around that time, I started getting really into westerns, and I noticed a lot of overlap with the themes about morals and free will, and that’s sort of where the production was born,” Gurgone said.
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The production featured the iconic original Shakespearean language and stuck to the show’s original plot of witches and a Scottish general. However, it was set in a world inspired by Western horror and gothic elements.
“They’ve managed to build this world in a really interesting way, in this fantasy Western horror setting,” said Francis Moffatt, the actor who portrayed the titular Macbeth.
In the original play, three witches played a pivotal role, but in What You Will’s production, various animals — including a coyote, rattlesnake and vulture — were featured instead.
Standout moments came from these three witches, whose Western animal-themed costumes elicited laughter from the audience during every scene. Other standouts included the solo scenes from Macbeth (Moffatt) and Lady Macbeth (Kelli Medina), with their command over Shakespeare’s writing evident in their monologues.
The Western aesthetic was not only visible in the witches — all cast members wore Western-themed costumes, and the actors performed with country accents.
Western influences carried over into the plot in ways that would not alter Shakespeare’s language. For example, in the end, Macbeth (Moffatt) and Macduff (Thomas O’Sullivan) dueled with guns instead of swords.
With the rehearsal process beginning two months ago, the project was a large undertaking for the student actors.
“I have loved ‘Macbeth’ for so many years, to actually step into those boots, in this case, it’s such a gift,” Moffatt said. “I love everyone I’m working with, and they make it less stressful.”
