The backstage story of how the witches of “Macbeth” change the course of theater history serves as a rough plot outline of a new comedy by Utah writer L.L. West.
Pygmalion Productions’ “The Weyward Sisters” will play Nov. 3-18 at the Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center.
The focus on minor characters draws upon the conceit of Tom Stoppard’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” which unfolds the story of the spear carriers from “Hamlet.” Under West’s pen, the witches of “Macbeth” come alive. They are characters mostly remembered for their “Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and caldron bubble” incantations.
The comedy plays around with the cultural archetypes of witches, while considering the ideas of fate and theater superstitions, such as why some actors are loath to say the name of the Scottish play inside a theater.
West says he comes by his interest in witches naturally, inspired by an ancestor, Bridget Bishop, who was the first woman to be executed in 1692 as part of the frenzy of the Salem Witch trials. He selected the names for the characters — Leandra, Skye and Fioon (played by West’s wife, Betsy, Ali Lente and Tamara Howell) — from a witch-naming website.
“The Weyward Sisters” is set in an imaginary contemporary time, while also based in Elizabethan England. The actors have been hired by Thomas Middleton to perform in a new play, “Macbeth,” that he’s written with a playwright, William Shakespeare, whom they only know as The Brad. Theatergoers eavesdrop on the stage performances, and see the actors backstage with scripts learning lines.
“You see who these witches are when they’re not being witches, they’re actually trying to make a living, and they have lives that are not far from our own,” said director Jeremy Chase. “You see them without masks literally and figuratively.”
It’s Shakespeare-adjacent in a very tongue-in-cheek way, Chase says, and that humorous approach includes a five-minute comic Power Point prologue outlining the “Macbeth” story for anyone who might have fallen asleep in 10th-grade English class.
“It’s fun to see that story through the eyes of these three very weird sisters. There’s no higher artistic objective then to laugh,” says Chase, praising the comedic talent of the Utah-based cast who have helped develop the show. “The rules of reality are suspended a bit, time and space gets a little murky, and we have fun with that. We don’t have a lot of ‘thees’ and ‘thous,’ and that’s by intention.”
“The Weyward Sisters”<br>Utah playwright L.L. West’s new comedy explores the backstage story of witches who change theater history.<br>When • Nov. 3-18, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 7:30 p.m., Sunday 2 p.m.; additional matinee: Saturday, Nov. 18 at 2 p.m.<br>Where • Rose Wagner Performing Arts Center’s Black Box Theatre, 138 W. 300 South, Salt Lake City.<br>Tickets • $15-$20 at 801-355-2787 or artssaltlake.org.