My Macbeth vs Tempest experience

I had two very different experiences last weekend.  I saw Macbeth in a small amphitheater, and The Tempest in a large venue at the University of Utah.  The actors in the Macbeth performance were dedicated to getting the audience involved; to them audience involvement was an integral part of their experience and what they wanted for us as well.  The Tempest up at the U had a much different scope in mind.  They were much more elaborate with set and stage direction.  The set was a main stage surrounded by a three story set.  As you can see in the picture, a huge focus of The Tempest was spectacle.

I was able to have two conversations with Macbeth, one before the performance and one after.  Before they began, the actors in the play spent time walking around and talking to members of the audience; they spent time laying the foundation for what they "expected" of us as an audience.  They wanted us to be a part of that evenings performance.  To the right is man who played Macbeth.  They had their final performance on Halloween night at midnight; I hope some of you were able to go see it.  I imagine that could have been their best performance.

I was wondering how they were going to pull off a few of the scenes with such a simple set.  On the left is a picture of their stage that they set up wherever they are performing.  In our case, they set it up in a amphitheater that felt like a castle.  It was quite perfect actually.  There are several features to this simple stage that allow for a surprising amount of variation.  1-there are three levels; the ground level, the stage and the ladders.  2-there are two trap doors in the floor allowing for some clever entrances and exits and intense scenes.  3-you'll notice that the back drop is a whit sheet.  This allows them to project shadows onto the sheet; they can do a scene that is behind the scenes.  4-there are three slits cut in the sheet for more options in their stage direction/exits; one is in the middle of the stage, and the other two are in the middle of the ladders.

In my conversation with Macbeth before the performance I asked him a few questions; I was wondering how they were going to pull off the scene when Macbeth is debating within himself as to whether or not he is going to kill King Duncan.  In that scene, Macbeth hallucinates as he sees a dagger in the air.  It's an eery scene because of what he is contemplating, and for how he responds to the intangible dagger.  The Macbeth I spoke to said that they would project the shadow of a dagger onto the sheet; he said that they had debated as to how they would do that.  They have no director, because that's how it was done in Shakespeare's day, and so just work things out amongst themselves.

I also asked him about his character; "What was it like for you to portray a character like that?"  "How do you manage to portray a good sane man who goes crazy?"  He stopped me there because he had a different perspective on his character.  He said that his interpretation of Macbeth was that he was driven by fear.  It was not so much that he just went crazy, but that it was the intensity of the fear that Macbeth laid upon himself that drove him to all of the murderous acts he did following his murder of King Duncan.

To bring this back to The Tempest, I have an observation that seems to me a stark contrast to stage performances of our day compared to Shakespeare's day.  It seems to me that it is typical for the people our day to view a stage performance more like a movie than they realize; come to be entertained. From my experience at the Macbeth venue, it seemed that a member of the audience came to be a part of the performance.  Or at least that was what the members of the cast were trying to help us do; to them they were trying to change our mindset of our role as members of the audience.  In a sentence, a member of the audience goes to a performance to be a part of the play, and to have influence on the characterization of the players on the stage.

Both performances were wonderful, but I liked the involvement, and the influence we could have on the actors on the stage, and how they responded to us.