Ayub had a field trip with school to watch ‘A Tale That Must Be Told: Macbeth’ at DPAC in Damansara Perdana. I was super excited to follow because I love the theatre! A children-friendly version of Macbeth? I had to see this.

It did not disappoint. In fact, it totally exceeded my expectations. I super loved the production and more importantly, Ayub did too.

Our first time at DPAC Damansara

Located in Empire Damansara, the place is super cool. Also, I finally got a new phone. Look at all my nice pictures.

There’s this giant swing that the kids were going to town on and I was scared it would break midair and send them flying out the back window. But they were ok.

There’s a cafe too but I don’t know why I didn’t take a picture of it. Lol.

Experiencing ‘A Tale That Must Be Told: Macbeth’

Because it’s targeted at kids, the show started at 9.30am and was an hour long. We got our tickets and made our way upstairs to the Black Box.

It’s a super simple production. Three amazing actors. The director was also the percussionist/SFX guy. The set consisted of many coloured cardboard boxes, three shawls, and a lot of white, blank, cotton dolls.

There were lots of school kids there. The actors were engaging and interacting with them, and making everyone laugh. It was awesome.

Ayub was excited to watch a play for the first time. I’m so happy I got to be there with him 🙂

 

The play was incredible

Obviously I didn’t take any pictures of the actual play, so you’ll just have to imagine how good it was.

‘A Tale That Must Be Told: Macbeth’ stays true to William Shakespeare’s source material, which was so amazing considering how gory and violent the play is. I mean, everyone dies. It’s like a very detailed summary of the plot, with a lot of Shakespeare’s lines incorporated in creative ways.

For example, this quote from Lady Macbeth when they’re planning to murder the king :

Bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue. Look like th’ innocent flower,

But be the serpent under ’t

They used the elements of the eye, hand, flower, and serpent, and adapted it into a dance. The simple dance is taught to the audience, and we did it together during the banquet. It helps the kids to understand Shakespeare’s words visually. It was so perfect.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention. It’s very interactive with the audience. Great way to keep the kids engaged. Ayub was so into it, it was super cute. I mean, I was super into it too. I think the two of us were the loudest and most semangat.

We shouted battle cries when Macbeth went to war. We made galloping noises when Banquo and his son, Fleance, go riding in the woods. When the three witches cast that infamous spell, it was taught to the audience with accompanying hand movements and we chanted in unison over and over.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn and caldron bubble.

I mean, this production got Ayub to memorise lines from a Shakespeare play. It’s amazing.

Ayub fully understood and enjoyed the production

One of the things that Ayub struggles with the most is comprehension. All stemming from his struggles with language. His auditory comprehension is quite poor, meaning he has difficulties understanding audio, whether from a person speaking directly to him or listening to the radio (for example).

Ayub understood EVEYTHING about the play. Not only did he fully understand the plot of Macbeth, he understood the messages, morals, and meaning behind the story. I just love him soooo much, I wanna eat him up.

This is a big deal because Ayub has trouble understand cartoons, you know what I mean? He could watch an episode of like The Powerpuff Girls and not understand that the bad guy is pretending to be a good guy as part of an evil plan. Ayub is very literal and pure like that. He takes everything at face value and doesn’t understand why anyone would have a hidden agenda.

So anyway, for Ayub to understand Macbeth, it’s huge. I asked him what he thought the story was about and he said:

Macbeth is a good guy like a good soldier. Thennnn the witches tell him he’s gonna be the king and thennnnn he becomes like so greedy and KILLS THE KING and becomes the villain!

Ayub’s moral of the story is: don’t murder people. Haha.

A Q&A session with the director and actors to wrap it up

At the end of the play, the director and the cast talked to the kids and opened up the floor for questions. It was wonderful.

Ayub’s new favourite book

They also created “A Tale That Must Be Told: Macbeth” comic book. Ayub asked for one so we bought it for RM20. He loves it. I actually haven’t looked through it yet. But I think they use Shakespeare’s lines in it. Which is dope.

Here’s Ayub on a horse.

‘A Tale That Must Be Told: Macbeth’ details:

The play’s run has already ended at DPAC, however they are touring (if I’m not mistaken). The company is called Shakespeare Demystified and I am a HUGE fan now. Like them on Facebook for updates!