The Weyard Sisters

ENTER STAGE LEFT

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THE WEYARD SISTERS is the first in a trilogy of sequels to ‘The Scottish Play’; a darkly funny, but brutal legend, focusing on the motivations, misunderstanding and persecution of female servants accused of witchcraft. It also reveals the ingenuity and resilience of the late Lady Macbeth’s gentlewomen, KATHRYN and AGATHA; when faced with both MACDUFF’s obsessive need for vengeance, and MALCOLM CANMORE’s lazy, misogynistic, lack of ambition for the crown.

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The script is a historically accurate, physical, steampunk fantasy, written in bardic verse, presented both in fourth-wall and commedia styles, which highlights some of the unresolved questions extant in  Shakespeare’s original work… Who are these mischievous women? What purpose did they have for provoking MacBeth into regicide? Who were the murderers? What’s the explanation for Malcolm’s contradictory reluctance to claim the throne?

 

On the way, the play illustrates the part drama has played both in informing perceptions and perpetuating prejudice; also, the influence of religion, in trying to rationalise the unexplainable; Catholicism versus paganism, and the church’s justification for abusive injustice. The plot addresses issues of loyalty, betrayal, responsibility, revenge and animal abuse; while some of the subtext hints at the ‘protective silence’ of the gay characters, and the dialogue is punctuated with descriptive passages by the voice of the (female) tree spirit GAULLISH –

  

GAULLISH: A roaring war erupted then, ‘tween rooks and ravens,                                        

Reeling and squealing round the rooves and turrets,                                              

Screeching with righteous rage for their stolen eggs and ruined roosts,                                

Blaming each other for their broken nests –                                                                           

As Birnam Wood – did march – on Dunsinane.    

 

   

 

 

 

 

       

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​​THE WOMEN OF DUNSINANE

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The WEYARD Sisters - ERLYNN, housekeeper at Castle Dunsinane; her adopted sister, MARLIN the swaine;  and their alcoholic sister-in-law, PORTIA, the Porter’s daughter; use their guile and opportunist initiative in their own best interests, until they risk a confrontation with MALCOLM in his paranoid prejudice. One of them dodges arrest, and one attempts to extricate herself from captivity, by menacing her guard with threats of bad magic, but the third is forced to endure MACDUFF’s ruthless interrogation.

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GAELEN MACDUFF’s obsessive compulsion for vengeance, drives him in pursuit of the murderers who slaughtered his family, & those unnatural women who were rumoured to have provoked MACBETH into the crime.

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MARLIN - keeper of the King’s pigs, was born with a disability 40 or so years earlier. Identified as a dangerous, faerie ‘changeling’ from birth, she’s learned what it’s like to be suspected and bullied. Changeling is a title she’s fully embraced, for the fear it generates and the security that offers from abuse. She’s watchful and prescient - the real magic behind the threesome.

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HILDA – 'the rump-fed ronyon sailor’s wife, with chestnuts in her lap', who believes her husband to have been shipwrecked by witchcraft, has malicious reason to point the finger of blame.

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KATHRYN BUCHANNON - proud, dedicated lady-in-waiting to the late Queen Gruach Macbeth, drowning in profound grief, and loss of purpose; nevertheless, resolves to undertake her final duty to her mistress and transport the royal remains for interment at St. Serf’s Inch island on Loch Leven. Caught in the act and imprisoned by MACDUFF, she learns of the birth of KING LULACH’s third child. In a castle full of battle-hardened combatants, and fearful of their potential motives for harming the newborn prince, KATHRYN enlists the help of midwife HESTER CORMAC (HECATE) and FRANCES GANCE (Lady M’s former spy who works undercover as the court prostitute). Between them, they formulate a plan to protect the baby.

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AGATHA ATHELING – a shrewd, level-headed royal diplomat, former gentlewoman to Gruach Macbeth. She’s enticingly perceptive, with a tactical strategy for the future of her daughter, MARGARET, as a means to bring peace and détente between England and Scotland. Agatha was a real person, born into the Hungarian royal family during 11th century, widow of Edward Atheling (cousin and former heir to Edward the Confessor) mother to crown prince Edgar of England, and to 12 year old MARGARET, who Scottish audience members will know, became the future wife and queen to KING MALCOLM.  MARGARET was eventually canonised as Saint Margaret of Scotland, patron saint of childbirth and pregnant women. MALCOLM takes an instant dislike to MARGARET, but despite his suspicions about AGATHA’s intent, he nonetheless opts to keep her close, as an advisor, so as to utilise her astute observations on matters regal.

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On the way, the story employs the ‘play-within-the play’ convention, to highlight the role drama has played in perpetuating prejudice; and a PTSD ‘nightmare’ sequence, to juxtapose the age-old masculinity of warfare, with the feminine sufferance of childbirth. Offset with comedy & love - an absorbing, multi-faceted portrait of the women of Dunsinane.

 

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WEYARD SCIENCE

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Most modern editions of Macbeth have generally regularised the ‘sisters’ description of themselves to ‘weird’ (meaning peculiar). A word which evolved from a Germanic term, unknown in Britain prior to the 17th century.  In Shakespeare’s First Folio edition, the women’s self-identification is three times spelt ‘weyword’, three times ‘weyard’ (meaning wayward) and once only, in a stage direction, ‘wyrd’ (referring to the three female fates or destinies). Terry Pratchet wrote a Discworld novel, adapted into a play entitled ‘Wyrd Sisters’ by Stephen Briggs. Being Discworld it really is weird! But weirder still, is the fact that the word ‘weird’ appears only to have come into existence because of a play which never printed it!   Theatre Database

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MAGICAL COINCIDENCES

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When I started to write the Weyard Sisters, in the early summer of 2022, I began, as you’d expect, with ACT 1 SCENE 1 (15th August 1057). This is the historical date of Macbeth’s death in battle (fictionally, in Shakespeare’s play, at the hands of MacDuff).

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I had no idea at the time what weird and co-incidental significance this date would have in the unfolding journey of my research, and creation of the script.

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As I drafted the first half of Scene 1, which introduces the three ‘sisters’ scavenging on the battlefield, I was also trying to tap my brain bank for an idea to illustrate their pagan ‘rituals’. This wasn’t immediately forthcoming, so I continued on to subsequent scenes, intending to insert this material when my ideas lightbulb inspired me to do so…

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Many years ago, early in my acting career, I played Lady Macbeth (twice) and 2nd Witch in one of those productions; for which I’d researched a backstory, by way of explanation for the gruesome, narcotic ingredients of the cauldron, the cause of Macbeth’s futuristic hallucinations (Mac Act IV Sc I). I concluded, with the other members of that company, that the potion they cooked up, was part of the protective ritual traditionally conducted at Hallowmas Eve, to distract and placate the troublesome spirits which are able to cross the foggy boundary into the corporal world on Halloween (Scottish Samhain). Two feasts would have been prepared on that night, one for the Harvest Festival, and another, less wholesome one, for the ‘faeries’.

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…with this in mind, I began to research summer rituals and came across ‘The Feriae Augusta’ (still practiced today in some parts of Italy as ‘Ferragosto’ (which translates as August holiday). This is an ancient celebration of Diana and Juno, Roman goddesses of fecundity and fertility and of the practice of midwifery. The Italian festival is still conducted on the 1st August, now in honour of the Virgin Mary; but to my amazement, I discovered that, when the Roman occupation introduced the ceremony to Britain, in the 1st century AD, its function was combined with that of a similar Viking ritual and the date changed… yes… to 15th August!

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Oh wow! What a fantastic co-incidence! But that wasn’t the end of it. The next morning I wrote the 2nd half of scene one, having Googled ‘standing stone circles near Collace Village’ and discovering, to my delight, the Bandirran stones, not a stones’throw away from Dunsinane.

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Job done, I turned my attention to the washing up. Standing at the kitchen sink, and thinking of my next mortgage direct debit (due on the 15th of the month) I thought, I wonder date it is today?… I was absolutely blown away when I realised I’d written that scene on 15th August. Yep really! I can’t prove it unless I employ some forensic computer buff, but I said ‘Thanks Will’, out loud to Shakepeare’s spirit, because it felt like magic, as if I been given official permission to write and produce this sequel to the Bard’s brilliant play.

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Wait – there’s more… In autumn, having completed the first draft of the script, I was compiling additional material, which included the character profiles, and I wanted to check Malcolm’s date of birth. OMG! I discovered the real historical significance of the date. Malcolm’s father Duncan is recorded as having been killed on 14th August 1040. Given that he was fictionally murdered by Macbeth during the night, his body would have been ‘discovered’ on the morning of 15th August, the date therefore when Malcolm fled to England.

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For a moment I thought that this was yet another amazing coincidence, but in all the research I’ve conducted, which included reading the academic editorial notes to the Arden, Penguin, Signet and BBC publications of Macbeth, I’ve not read anything which associates the relative dates in 1040 and 1057. I doubt though, that I’m the only one to have noticed that Malcolm chose to avenge his father’s death on the 17th anniversary of his murder. So I’ve chosen 15th August 2024 to be press night for THE WEYARD SISTERS.

 

GAULLISH: Birnam Wood – broken, shaken, wracked with grief,                                          

A shell of its former glorious self,                                                                         

Holding its breath in its branches and leaves,                                                  

Cradling its rotting dead in its roots,                                                               

Waiting for the seasons or the axeman                                                                         

To resolve its destiny - for better - or worse.

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Featuring:

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• JULIA MUNROW (Erlynn Weyard – 1st Witch)

• JAN SHEPHERD (Portia the Porter's daughter  - 3rd Witch)

• BRADLEY BENJAMIN (MacDuff)

• JONATHON CAMPBELL (Malcolm)

• PIPPA CADDICK (Frances Gance - Courtesan and former spy to Lady Macbeth)

• CIARAN CORSAIR (Gordon – a pike-man, Gilbert – a former gravedigger +)

• Plus 8 further cast members.

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Production Team:

•  Written and  Directed by Helen Alexander

• Assistant Director - Tara Lacey​

• Production Designer - Dana Pinto

• Costumes by Vegan Vestments

• Stage Managers - Gareth McLeod (Sfx), Marcus Groves (Lfx)

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The script is under consideration for publication, with Nick Herne Books.

The second script, THE WEYARD DAUGHTERS is on the drawing board, and the trilogy will conclude with THE WEYARD CHILD.