Macbeth Meets the Fifth Grade
by Ernst Schneidereit
This article first appeared as the "Editor's Notes" for the March 1992 issue of Arts Up!, the journal of the Yolo County Arts Council. While it does not feature any actors or actresses who were prominent at the time, I wonder if any of the players featured are famous now. At the least, the weather mentioned here fits the weather California is experiencing right now.
So foul and fair a day I have not seen. -- William Shakespeare
'Twas a dark and stormy night.
No wait, that's no way to start a story.
It all began when by chance I met a man who told me that he was constructing a stage for a fifth grade performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth at the North Davis Elementary School. I marveled at the thought of fifth graders tackling the Bard's form of English, but I realized that it was definitely possible.
You see, I was in a school play when I was a fifth grader. I played the Second Knight from the Broadway musical that served as Carol Burnett's first break, Once Upon a Mattress. I wore a white tunic with a lightning bolt emblem and thoroughly embarrassing leggings that all we young boys considered the horrid equal of girl's tights. "Knights didn't wear this stuff!" we were certain, but our teachers had pictorial proof, so we had to submit.
I only had two lines: "Ho, Sir Harry!" and "We had to get a rope and pull her out!" It wasn't much, and I got my thumb smashed in a back stage accident, but it was all worth getting to strut around with a sword strapped to my waist.
So I wished the man good fortune, thought back to my childhood and figured that the children would have the time of their lives. Macbeth no less -- good and bloody stuff.
Then I found out that a friend of my wife, Jackie Rogers, had a son, Nick, who was playing Lennox, a Scottish nobleman in Macbeth's castle. As a Shakespearean character might say, it was an omen. I had to attend.
I feared disappointment for the students -- that they'd see a partly empty hall -- when I saw that February 19th was "a dark and stormy night," but parents are made of sterner stuff, and the multi-purpose room was filled by the 7:30 showtime.
Thanks to the man I first met (I never did get his name), the scenery was pretty impressive, with a thoroughly nasty witches cave and a highly utilitarian set of castle walls. What fun painting that must've been!
Narrators Liani Moore, Jeff Rott (great coat, Jeff!) and Lisa Yackzan led the audience through the action, speeding the play along to little more than an hour. Chris Morrill was a very imperious and rightly tousled Macbeth, while his Lady, played by Caitlin Smith, was quite the convincing schemer. I'd mention all the players if it wasn't for the fact that the cast filled the stage by the time they were gathered for the final bows -- truly a Shakespearean production!
Afterwards, these one-time students, now turned actors, milled about and crowed over their success. Rightly so, for the play went off without a hitch. It was an admirable effort, an enjoyable work of entertainment and an evening they'll never forget.
I wish my schedule had allowed me to see their beaming faces again the next evening, which was closing night. The mixture of joy and sadness that signals "it's over" has few equals in life, and I think it's the thing that gets a person hooked, making him or her want to go on stage one more time.
So to the teacher-directors Robert Newman and Mary Schembri, and all the adults and volunteers who made this happen, I say "thank you." You've done the arts a great favor. Somewhere in that group is a young person who will now go on to act, a child who will make this Macbeth his or her first step in a career of drama. What's more, you've shown them the exhilaration of the stage, and an experience they'll always cherish.
Take it from a Second Knight. I may be older, but I still remember.
Postscript: Musician Liani Moore in Sacramento appears to be the correct age for this article, while Lisa Yackzan works in the business office of Maloof Sports and Entertainment. I say that working for the Maloof's is a type of acting.