Carran Waterfield

‘Birnam Wood’ is a radical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s Macbeth
Conceived by Carran Waterfield and devised and performed in various guises over a 16-year period, the most recent being January 2019.

The most recent work on ‘Birnam Wood’ was with students from University of Salford between October 2018 and January 2019. Extracts from the live performance.Below is a ‘short’ of rehearsals and development. The essence of this project began as ‘Beastly Beauties’ (2004) working with drama students from the University of Birmingham.It was further developed with students from Melton College in Leicestershire as ‘The Hoarse Raven’.
Then in 2010 the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford commissioned further work. During the RSC phase ‘There to Meet With….’ was a further development with Year 6 pupils in a primary school in Staffordshire. This was followed by a further development called ‘The Feast’ with HND students at the University of Salford in 2011. Then followed a video essay from a natural world study in a Southport Park: ‘Birnam Wood Comes to Hesketh Park’ ‘The Session’ in 2012 was another incarnation with Drama students from the University of Manchester.

Each incarnation has taught me something more about Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, a play I studied at 0 Level along with almost every other teenager through the 20th and 21st centuries.

The three sisters and the problem of the supplementary scene with Hecate has become the focus of this ongoing work.