Local troupe to stage Shakespeare tragedy ‘Macbeth’

WASILLA — Just before 7 p.m., Thomas G. Jacobs walks into the theater at the Alaska Club and sets down his things.

He catches the last line and replies, “Had I three ears I would hear thee!” before he even manages to get on stage.

And just like that, Jacobs is “Macbeth,” Shakespeare’s mad king of Scotland.

“Filthy hags! Why do you show me this?” he seethes later in the same scene.

Jacobs is one of the founding members of Homeless Actors of Mat-Su, though with two performances scheduled for the Alaska Club’s small theater, perhaps the group is due for a name change.

These days, leadership of the group has passed to Mathew Firman and Elizabeth Clausen, both of whom are in Macbeth. Firman is also directing the play and Clausen is producing. Clausen said that Firman cut the play down to a run-time of an hour and 45 minutes.

“It’s the bare bones, cut and dried, with the original language,” she said.

Costumes are all modern rather than period. A set is on the way, but set pieces have all been put together.

Both Clausen and Firman seemed pleased with the production at a rehearsal Tuesday. Firman said it was a shame the show wasn’t opening for another week.

“This is kind of our comeback season,” Clausen said.

In addition to Macbeth, the theater company has a play called “Lightning Bug” slated for June, also in the theater at the Alaska Club.

HAMS is a community theater company in the most literal sense of the phrase. It’s community in that everyone is local and comes from all kinds of backgrounds. Even Clausen’s 8-year-old son, Kevin, is in the play. He has the role of Fleance.

“He doesn’t have any lines, but he really wanted to be in the play,” she said.

She said that HAMS is also a company that doesn’t have commercialism in mind.

“It’s an art-for-art’s-sake company,” she said.

HAMS hasn’t done any Shakespeare, though, at least not that Clausen could recall. But they wanted to perform something from the Bard because this year is the 425th anniversary of his death.

If you’re not familiar with “Macbeth,” it’s a ghost story, a tragedy centered around Macbeth, a general who murdered his way onto the throne of Scotland and is wracked with guilt and paranoia as a result.

It’s the one that gives us the “double, double, toil and trouble” scene with witches brewing up a potion using eye of newt as an ingredient. It’s also the one that has Lady Macbeth furiously washing her hands and saying, “out, out damn spot.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270

or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.