MACBETH

Heroic Macbeth has just won two victorious battles for Scotland, when he encounters three weird sisters who tell him this is only the beginning of his path to glory. They foresee that Macbeth will become the Thane of Cawdor, and then, ultimately, the King of all Scotland. At first, the honest and upright Macbeth ignores the predictions, but when he is bestowed with the first of those two titles, he starts to yearn for the second. Drunk on his own success, Macbeth feels invincible, and--with the encouragement of his ambitious wife--he takes the realization of his predicted fate into his own hands. After murdering his friend and sovereign, King Duncan, Macbeth disappears further down the path toward destruction and despair, even as he is tortured by questions of conscience. He has always been a masterful warrior, but applying the rules of war to life at home becomes much more complex. Shakespeare’s Macbeth reveals to us the danger of ambition, crafting a terrifying parable in which great people are destroyed by the power of their own success.

BRING UP THE BODIES

Picking up where its prequel, Wolf Hall, left off, Bring Up the Bodies is the second installment of plays based on the trilogy by Hilary Mantel. These plays detail the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, a key player and powerful minister in the court of King Henry VIII of England.

Anne Boleyn has been crowned Queen of England. Despite her victory, she is still unable to provide Henry with a male heir. While she grows ever more desperate for his attentions, he turns his eye upon plain Jane Seymour, a lady-in-waiting. Cromwell, meanwhile is forced to navigate perilous waters as a chief minister in Henry’s court.