Care, Collectivism, Midsummer, and Macbeth

I will go ahead now and out myself as “not much of a Shakespeare person” and also as a lesbian, both of which I promise will soon be relevant. It’s not that I don’t respect the strength of Shakespeare’s legacy; I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of his texts existing as a sacred lingua franca across Western theatre. But, in practice, I usually end up feeling alienated by Shakespeare—like a peasant looking on as the bishops of the Bard converse in some incomprehensible, holier-than-thou tongue. Deliberate defiance became the easiest way to frame what I was ashamed others might call ignorance. After all, I argued to a friend in college, could some long-dead straight man really speak with any honesty to my own lived experience today? (I will spare you the ensuing treatise I received on “Sonnet 18” in response to my description of Shakespeare as “straight,” as it ultimately failed to sway me.)

In short, there is very little that could have tempted me to make the two-and-a-half-hour round-trip to Prospect Lefferts Gardens last August to attend not one, but two Shakespeare plays—but I found myself lured in by the unique premise of Double Feature’s productions of Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A brand-new company co-founded by directors Mikhaela Mahony and Katherine Wilkinson, Double Feature offered back-to-back presentations of two of Shakespeare’s most tonally antipodal works, both performed within (and, indeed, throughout) the same Brooklyn brownstone.

For me, however, the most intriguing aspect of Double Feature was not the structure of its performances, but the framework of its production process. As intended from the conception of their partnership, Mahoney and Wilkinson collaborated and shared resources—including their funds, producers, venue, dramaturg, and even certain designers—throughout the entire production period, all while maintaining and showcasing their distinct directing styles. By defying the all-too-common expectation that directors (especially those of marginalized genders) must work in competition with each other for increasingly limited opportunities, the pair was able to create a unique and unrestricted platform through which to present their work.

I have historically felt like an apprehensive trespasser when arriving at a Shakespeare performance, but stepping over the threshold of the Double Feature brownstone felt like being welcomed home.

This ambiance of playful freedom was immediately apparent upon arrival. Double Feature had fully occupied all four floors of the warmly lit brownstone, rented to the company at a discount by an enthusiastically supportive local visual artist. I have historically felt like an apprehensive trespasser when arriving at a Shakespeare performance, but stepping over the threshold of the Double Feature brownstone felt like being welcomed home. For Macbeth, the building’s “lobby” was a living room with a cozy sofa and kookily patterned tile floor, while for Midsummer, the audience gathered out front in the garden while sipping beers and White Claws as we waited for the show to begin.

As a quick contextual aside, I should note that I went through the Double Feature experience a bit backwards, starting with an evening performance of Macbeth and then attending a daytime performance of Midsummer a few days later. I should also explain that my familiarity with Shakespeare’s work is as lopsided as it is fraught: because I worked on a production of Macbeth in college and later used this experience as inspiration for my play macbitches, it is the sole work of Shakespeare’s with which I’m intimately familiar. As such, my attendance at Double Feature marked the twentieth time I would see Macbeth and my first-ever time seeing Midsummer.

Double Feature defines itself as site-specific rather than immersive. As their website cheekily explains, “Our venues are not theatrical, they don’t have a pre-defined audience area, and you might be surrounded by actors. You might not. You might be asked to change your location. You might not.” For those uncomfortable with the prospect of being directly involved in the performance, they clearly state that the shows are not interactive theatre, and that audience members “will never be required to interact with a performer, be touched by a performer, or required to have a conversation during the show.” I appreciated this clarifying gesture for its use in helping those with sensory issues decide whether or not to engage with the production while still preserving its surprises—of which there were many.

Mahoney’s Macbeth inhabited the dank unfinished basement of the brownstone. Our audience was led down a creaky set of wooden stairs and seated on a hodgepodge arrangement of sofas for the duration of the performance, which was conducted by a doubled (and occasionally re-doubled) cast of six actors. The action largely unfolded before us in the cellar—save for the murder of Banquo, which was cleverly staged in the adjoining back yard. The narrow windows caught flickers of Banquo’s flashlight, framing glimpses of the tumult unfolding just outside. Every inch of the basement was used to its maximum dramatic potential, from the initially unassuming fridge in the corner stocked with beer and Cheez Balls to the stark fluorescent ceiling fixtures upon which Macbeth developed an unnerving obsessive fixation.

Wilkinson’s Midsummer sprawled across the upper stories of the house, winding from the front garden to the back yard, then up to the balcony and into the dining room, where we shared a feast of orange wedges with the cast. From there, the Rude Mechanicals cheerfully nudged us back and forth and up and down between a second-floor living room and a third-floor bedroom. The latter location included one of those only-in-New-York architectural anomalies: a weird, elongated, double-doored closet with which Wilkinson created a delightful door-slamming chase scene straight out of an episode of Scooby-Doo. Midsummer concluded with a hearty full-cast song-and-dance number before Puck led us down the stairs one final time to bid us a gentle adieu in the foyer.

Despite the delectably divergent tones of Midsummer and Macbeth, there was something beyond their shared location that firmly united the two shows: an atmosphere of camaraderie and joy. Anyone who regularly attends theatre is probably familiar with the indefinable but palpable zest that actors who are truly enjoying themselves bring to the experience. A bond of genuine friendship and respect between castmates deepens the moments of danger in addition to the moments of levity: after all, it requires a certain amount of trust to put yourself in physically and emotionally vulnerable positions. It was clear throughout both performances that Mahoney and Wilkinson’s actors trusted each other and their directors implicitly. It was equally obvious that they were genuinely having an excellent time—and because of that, so did everyone in attendance.

Both of us came into the room trying to ask, “How can we completely throw away those power structures and build something that feels like there is no ego inside of it?”

In conversation with Mahoney and Wilkinson after the joint runs of Midsummer and Macbeth had ended, they explained that the curation of this dynamic was not only purposeful, but in fact one of their main objectives in founding Double Feature. Their approach hinged on establishing a non-hierarchical structure, one intended to foster a clear exchange of communication and place equal value on the needs and voices of all artists involved. “Directing comes with all of these assumptions about preset positions and power structures,” remarked Mahoney. “And both of us came into the room trying to ask, ‘How can we completely throw away those power structures and build something that feels like there is no ego inside of it?’”

Both directors emphasized that a lack of hierarchy is not equivalent to a lack of accountability. “You don't need a hierarchy for people to have responsibilities,” Wilkinson explained. “Mikhaela and I are really clear about what we put forward and what we expect back. Everybody knows their responsibilities, and it doesn't mean there has to be power attached to it.” Rather than being accountable to a single authority figure, each member of the group was accountable to the entire ensemble. “If you create a space where you are listening to everyone, then everyone also listens to each other,” said Mahoney.

Mahoney and Wilkinson were well aware that they were embarking on an experiment, and that their methods might be branded as idealistic by those accustomed to a more regimented chain of command. The pair approached this challenge with a grounded practicality. “It's not a utopia,” Mahoney shared candidly. “We're just doing our best. We don't have as many resources as we’d want to give people. And that can often feel like a barrier to even starting.” When moments of conflict did arise in the production process, they were indeed often related to a strain on their time, funds, and supplies. “In a moment where there are two people who need the same thing, and no one is more in charge than the other, how do you actually do that?” Wilkinson asked. “By having deep conversations, being really clear about what you need, and also being willing to, in that moment, think beyond yourself and put care forward.”

This emphasis on care extended beyond Mahoney and Wilkinson to encompass every person involved in the production. Each team member’s role and specific duties were laid out explicitly from the beginning of the process “so that people can have freedom inside of that structure,” according to Wilkinson. This not only helped to provide an organizational backbone, but allowed actors the flexibility to continue taking on other work to support themselves economically during rehearsals and performances. “The big thing I think that also builds community is transparency,” said Wilkinson. “When I was emailing actors, I was like, ‘This is how much I can pay you. I know that I can't pay you what you're worth. And we understand what your life is going to look like. We understand that you're going to maybe be working another job.’” Essentially, Mahoney and Wilkinson made every possible effort to make participation in Double Feature accessible for their actors and crew.

As Mahoney and Wilkinson discussed how they built the community that brought Midsummer and Macbeth to life, I couldn’t help but think of the many larger theatre companies that pay their artists much greater sums of money but offer the absolute minimum (and sometimes even less than that) in establishing a humane and happy space in which to work. Does there come a point at which a theatrical institution becomes too large to effectively function as a community? Or is it not a question of scale, but of consistent and care-driven communication? And, if practices like Double Feature’s were adopted, might these larger institutions be better able to avoid all-too-common acts of accidental mistreatment toward those involved in their productions?

I can’t claim to know for sure, but I can speak to the overall effect that Mahoney and Wilkinson’s approach had on the experience of their audiences—and especially on me. As I watched Macbeth and his banquet guests dissect putrid globs of orange Jell-O and dodged a popsicle lobbed from the balcony by a rowdy Athenian youth, I found myself not only having fun at a Shakespeare performance for one of the first times in my life, but actually connecting with Shakespeare’s work on a joyful, visceral level. The beautiful vivacity infused into these pieces came not only from the writer himself but from the artists breathing life into his words, queering and modernizing them and unabashedly claiming the experience as their own. And as I watched, I had a dazzling realization: I didn’t know that this was allowed to be for me.

It was for this very reason that Double Feature chose to take on Shakespeare. “That moment of, ‘I understand, and I see, I am seen;’ I think that kind of relationship is sort of particular to classics,” Mahoney said. “Because they have this baggage, there's exciting things to dismantle.” Wilkinson agreed. “Accessibility is everything. And also knowing that accessibility is actually not about dumbing it down. It's about ‘how do we bring people closer into it?’”

Double Feature is far from the first company to have played with gender and contemporizing in their productions of Shakespearean texts, or to have done so in a nontraditional location. But Midsummer and Macbeth successfully straddled a very fine line: they preserved the liveliness and elation of a ragtag group of friends throwing up a show purely out of a love of their craft, while achieving the same polished professionalism in their technical design and actors’ performances that you’d expect to witness at a multimillion dollar nonprofit. The queering of the text did not feel performative, or like a shallow attempt to present themselves as woke while reliably bringing back unadventurous donors. It felt like a genuine exploration undertaken out of curiosity and passion. It felt like an invitation.