As the sun set over the Plaza of the Americas on Saturday night, three women with dirt-smudged faces, torn clothes and leaves in their tangled hair gathered around a tire.
“Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn, and cauldron bubble,” they said as smoke bubbled over the black rubber.
A few minutes later, the three women backed away from the cauldron to make room for Macbeth.
Bright white lights flashed behind Macbeth as a man crept forward like a zombie. It was Banquo, the man whose death Macbeth himself had ordered. His shirt and neck were stained with his own blood.
This was one of the darkest scenes in Shakespeare’s play “Macbeth,” which UF students performed for audiences seated on blankets and foldout chairs on the Plaza of the Americas over the weekend.
The students were members of Shakespeare in the Park, a UF club that reenacts the noted playwright’s work with a personal twist. Their performance of “Macbeth” called for the use of leather jackets, hubcaps, hammers, baseball bats and a fake severed head.
The club, which includes students from a variety of majors, performs one Shakespearean play each year. While in the past they have done comedies, such as “Much Ado About Nothing,” the students chose the darker “Macbeth” to challenge themselves, said Noah Camenker, the club’s secretary.
“We want to be a complete Shakespeare organization,” said Camenker, who acts as one of Macbeth’s handpicked hit men in the performance. “We want to branch out.”
The play revolves around a Scottish general, Macbeth, who claws his way to the throne through murder and deceit with the help of his wife. After killing the King of Scotland, Duncan, Macbeth goes on a warpath, eliminating all who get in his way until he himself is beheaded.
About 100 people attended Saturday night’s performance, which Bethany Koch, one of the club’s directors, described as its best yet.
Casting for “Macbeth” took place in the middle of the fall semester, she said. The students practiced twice a week for the remainder of the term. In the spring, they practiced three times a week to prepare.
Since its formation in 2006, Shakespeare in the Park has grown every year, Camenker said.
“Every year we get a little bigger, a little better organized,” he said. “I want to come back in 10 years and see a Shakespeare in the Park show.”
Pamela Cayemitte, a UF senior who attended the play, said it picked up the pace in the second half. She was impressed with the students’ commitment to the play despite other responsibilities they had.
After killing the men at his wife’s insistence, Macbeth, played by UF sophomore Andrew Habibzadegan, stood before the crowd holding a handful of “bloody” butter knives.
Turning to the audience, he raised his hands toward the sky. “But wherefore could I not pronounce ‘Amen’?” he yelled. “I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’ stuck in my throat!”
