Sunday afternoon Theater

What do you get when you take one Stage, a closet-full of costumes, a bit of inspiration from Grandma Palmer and three performance-hungry children on a lazy Sunday afternoon?

Shakespeare!

Macbeth, to be specific.

My charming children were busy all afternoon practicing and memorizing the scene with the Three Witches - you know the one - "Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn, and caldron bubble...." When we finally all sat down at the same time for them, we were blown away!

Ivy's line in a creaky little voice was my favorite: "Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!"

Witch #3:

Round about the caldron go;
In the poison'd entrails throw.—

Cool it with a baboon's blood,
Then the charm is firm and good.

Of course, we had to reprise the scene for the Family Gathering in the Canyons the next night. This time, up in the mountains, it seemed all the more sinister...

Eli and Ivy (Witches #1 and #3) dutifully put the ingredients into the cauldron as Lizzie (Witch #2) rattles them off.
"Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;"

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble."
Lizzie, who is much too proper to use words like "hell-broth," substituted "bad-broth." See, she's not such a bad witch after all.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Fire burn, and caldron bubble!!