Her Hour Upon The Stage begins after the final act of Macbeth, with bodies on a battlefield. The Witches creep in to raise the dead, giving them an awareness of the way they have been portrayed for the last 400 years.

Having seen many productions of Macbeth, playwright Lucy Seale was inspired to write this adaptation to explore the unanswered questions Shakespeare’s play left in her mind, particularly details surrounding Lady Macbeth: whether she had children, whether she really “went mad”, and how she died. Lady Macbeth is touted as one of Shakespeare’s strongest female characters, yet these glaring holes litter her narrative. In writing the play, Lucy’s focus expanded to The Witches, exploring the erasure and misrepresentation they have suffered as non-binary characters. Though the text describes them as failing to conform to the category of “man” or “woman”, many interpretations of the Scottish play insist on staging The Witches as gruesome, supernatural, evil women; Her Hour Upon The Stage questions the damage this does to both women and gender non-conforming individuals.

In the rehearsal room, the text launched a broader examination of representation beyond Macbeth. Various discussion ensued, unpacking the ways stories conveyed through literature and media shape our dominant cultural narratives. Her Hour pulls back the curtain on one well-known story, displaying parts of it which always occur offstage or are omitted entirely. The show aims to push its audience beyond binary thinking and inspire them to interact more critically with the stories they consume, considering the ways they influence their reality. These characters may be fictional, but they have been performed into existence and have an effect beyond the confines of the source text.

A group of seven highly skilled, passionate and generous actors, as well as a hard-working, talented production team, are responsible for bringing Her Hour Upon The Stage to life. For Shakespearean Jeans, working with such an open, giving team has meant that from the early days of this production, to its final hour, the process has been so collaborative and very rewarding for all involved.