“Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and cauldron bubble.” These are some of Shakespeare’s most iconic lines and they are easily recited by young and old alike. The rhyme from Macbeth’s witches has endured since it was first published in 1623. It is part of pop culture and fits neatly into modern Halloween revelry.

Right from the start, those “midnight hags” offer a foreshadowing of what’s to come. They tell us “fair is foul, and foul is fair” and that motif runs throughout the play. The deception, tyranny and gruesome acts of violence know no bounds, even when it comes to children.

An adaptation of this brutal spectacle is being presented by The Mickee Faust Club. The youngest cast members of “Murderous Moveable Macbeth” are eager to explore the show’s dark themes.

“I get stabbed and they throw me on the ground and kick me,” announced 9-year-old Ilex Grenat. “Getting stabbed is my favorite,” he added. “I’m going to have a blood pack and blood pills in my mouth.”

Ilex is playing one of Lady Macduff’s children and he gleefully anticipates his big death scene but advises audience members to use discretion. “Probably, I don’t think 2 or 3-yearsolds should come to see the play but my grandmom is coming to see it.”

In keeping with the dynastic content of the play, this production is a family affair. Stella Tice, 7, and her mother both appear in the play. A selfproclaimed theater kid, Stella has been in other Faust shows and is especially enamored by the theater group’s originality.

For this staging of Macbeth, the audience moves throughout the outdoor and indoor theatrical spaces, led by the action of the narrative. During the banquet scene, the audience will be served an actual feast.

Even though the play was written nearly 400 years ago, Stella says the innovation and novelty Faust is adding inspires her. “The world doesn’t want the same thing over and over again, it wants new things of new people and I love it when theaters do that. It feels like I’m a part of it.”

Stella revels in the creative process and enjoys stepping into her character, Fleance. “I close my eyes and I image that I’m there and I imagine what I would do. I try to make it look the best that I can because I love, love, love the theater and what we do because it’s just awesome.”

Quinn Ward, 6, and his sister Maddie May, 9, feel similarly about their roles as Lady Macduff’s children. Maddie May said that taking the stage is “fun and it makes me agog. It gets the adrenaline going.”

Though Shakespeare’s words can trip anyone up, Maddie May mastered her lines, and everyone else’s, with ease. “I got the script and read it over and over. Then I say it without looking at it, little by little, and then I say it all and then I’m done.”

The children’s mastery of the language has proven to be helpful to Donna Marie Nudd who plays Lady Macduff. “I kind of thought, going into it, that I’m going to have to really know mylines because if the kids freeze, I’m going tohave to improvise around

them. Now on our fourth rehearsal, I find myself having a blank moment and the kids whisper to me my line. I love them for that.”

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