Tyranny has a cost. Everyone from the tyrant to the youngest child must pay that bill in some way. Fascism and autocracy are always self-consuming beasts so that the Tyrant themselves often pay with their lives. We see it throughout history; the worst regimes only die when you cut the head off the snake. The Great Terror ended when they took Robespierre’s head, Maga will die soon when it’s cult leader finally ceases to exist and the genocide in Gaza will only end when the current prime minister of Israel is no longer in office. This is a truth that history shows us time and again. Unfortunately, there is the cost the people must pay, often as victims and collateral damage inflicted by the cruelty of the self-serving tyrant. Putin now must stay at war, or he will lose his iron grip on power and the people of both Russia and Ukraine suffer because of it. Who will be next? Shakespeare lived in a time of autocracy and knew all too well the effects of living under the yoke of oppression, censorship was strong and one wrong rhyming couplet could get you put in the Tower for an extended stay. Macbeth is a tyrant of his own making; he has free will and chooses to be the perpetrator of violence and cruelty to stay in power. Like all tyrants, in the end he fails. The cost of doing the right thing and fighting back against tyranny has many permutations, sometimes it’s with resources, sometimes, it’s one’s sanity and many times the cost is in blood. This production focuses on the cost and hopefully reminds our audiences that there is light and hope, but chaos, represented by the witches, is always ready to come back and rear its ugly head to help create an environment rich for tyrants to gain control and subjugate our societies. Now is a time of tyranny, we must have empathy and we must fight for all to keep the cyclical nature of evil at bay once again.

– PJ Escobio

October 29 2025