An inside look at We Players’, The Trio, three women who have worked together for over a year and a half developing their dynamic. The result: A bewitching, mesmerizing portrayal of the Weyard Sisters in Macbeth at Fort Point 2014
When Ava gathered a small group of actors to brew work in the off season – that’s the time when We Players is not working to put on a full production – Maria, Julie and I showed up. Ava brought in the concept of working with Classical trios of women to fit our trio of actors. We went away and researched furiously and then came back to share the sordid details of these mythical women, salivating with the same rapturous delight that many people experience watching an episode of Game of Thrones. The Furies, who sprung from a drop of blood, avenge crimes against nature by causing tormenting madness or illness, their wrath placated only by ritual atonement and purification. When the Furies are not angered, they are known as the Fates, a Maiden, Mother and crone who sit together spinning, weaving and cutting under the trees of life. Their yarn is not of ordinary material: it is the measure of one individual life, and when they have cut it… your time is up. These are just two of the trios that we explored, putting them in our bodies, using various materials for them to play with, and wondering how they exist today. And one day, Ava had the revelation: “You three are the Witches for Macbeth!” The foundation was already laid to work with the Weyard Sisters who are the interpreters of the natural forces, who deliver the fateful message to Macbeth about his future success, and who let him know when he has gone against the natural order. We had already done half the work for the three sisters by trying on the many archetypal aspects of their trio! Layered in to the Witches that you see in Macbeth are many other powerful and time worn women. Time to get out the book of classical mythology? Or take a gander on Google? I hope you take the time to enjoy some of these stories, and come see one incarnation in our production of Macbeth at Fort Point in June 2014.
-Caroline Parsons
Wart covered and haggish stirring the steaming cauldron. Cartoons of female power. This is not what we saw, we sisters, we Weyard Sisters. Connected as kin, as different as individuals. We’ve become sisters through expeditions in myth, archetype, stereotype, connection, polarities, the natural, the supernatural, trust, tension, locomotion, stillness, power, and vulnerability. Drawn into the tornado that is Macbeth to find these sisters, these forces of nature that truth-tell, witness and cycle as seasons. Creation is messy, imperfect and filled with sweet dissatisfaction that drives. As we weave our web gets stronger, more intricate, more layered. We return to what we’ve learned and search for the unknown. Spinning back into these Weyard Sisters once again to follow the trail of their complexity and simplicity. The history of all our sister trios at our back awakening us to the promise of what’s to come.
-Julie Douglas
Our work in Macbeth is so deeply informed by our trio work that to try to follow the thread of creation back to its beginning is virtually impossible. So, I’m offering some fibers that seem meaningful to me:
TIME: We have gotten to know one another as artists and a people over the course of years and hundreds of hours of rehearsals. We have lived together, eaten together, laughed and cried together. We have had the luxury of being able to build and refine our ideas over time and they have had time to sink from the surface into our very bones.
SISTERHOOD: We experience the best of this relationship and some of its challenges. Sometimes we are impenetrably unified and sometimes we struggle to be seen and heard as individuals. We love and support one another fiercely but we also disagree and find compromise. And we usually know what the others are thinking without anyone having to say a word.
THE NATURAL WORLD: We have spend at least a portion of every gathering exploring an element of the natural world, whether it be experiencing, engaging with and relating to a field trip location, or working with collected plants, wool, or food. Connecting with these natural elements connects us both to our past through following in the footsteps of ancestors who have used these elements and to what might be as we find imaginative ways to interact with these elements and forge our own personal connections that we will carry with us through Macbeth and beyond.
-Maria Leigh