When Shall we three Meet Again
A reimagining of Macbeth. It’s 1950 and the Macbeth’s run a racket for Queenie from a cafe in Brighton. There’s daggers in men’s smiles and the tarot cards hold a prophesy which fuels their ambition.
Suitcase Theatre follow up their sell out show Lear’s Daughters and continue to put women centre stage.

“When our actions do not
Our fears do make us traitors“

Review by Mike Aiken in The Source May 2022

” SuitcaseTheatre presents a stripped-down version of Macbeth. The themes remain contemporary, from Ukraine to Syria, Afganistan and beyond. What is going on in the mind of the despot? Death is all off-stage. We never see the knives….there is a tension, a stillness, and a disbelief which is barely expressed, but hangs in the air as the play reaches its denouement. In this version, Shakespeare’s drama is cleverly transposed to a Brighton Rock era of gambling and racketeering…behind a cafe ‘front’ organisation. How would we feel to hear there were troops invading from the west, with battles in Worthing and Angmering and reaching the boundaries of Hove…? We would know more evil was to come. Mobile phones had not been invented back then: so the tarot cards are checked for updates. In this convincing three-women adaption, Tess Garrett told us she ‘reimagined the play to put women centre stage and give them the opportunity to play the great roles’ She points to the dynamic between the characters when portrayed by women. There were superb performances and scene changes and dramatic shifts were punctuated by the elegant and tangled chords of guitar. The performance was complimented by the minimal props, sparse lighting and cabaret style created in Starfish & Coffee. The play is selling out fast but watch out for Suitcase Theatre’s other shows.”

Directors notes for ‘When Shall We Three Meet Again?’

Who hasn’t studied Shakespeare’s, Macbeth? Who doesn’t know some of the most famous lines from this play? What actor hasn’t wanted to say some of them during their career?

This version of the play was created in 2019/2020, but like much of our lives got put on hold. I have to admit I have never really enjoyed the ‘Scottish play’ finding too many flaws in the plot. After ‘Lear’s Daughter’s’, a cast member asked what Shakespeare play we might think of recreating next and suggested Macbeth, saying that it had some of the most famous speeches for an actor to perform. She subsequently went on to pastures new, and I enjoyed the challenge of adapting a version for three players. I want to dedicate this play to her – she knows who she is!

I became fascinated with how to make the witches prophesy believable, and found my answer on visiting the tarot card reader’s caravan on the pier, realising this might be a way to create a witch who might influence folk …after all who hasn’t read something more into a star sign forecast or seen the significance of a dream … how we see what we want to see, hear what we want to hear. I followed this through in the character of the waitress, who makes herself ‘more than indispensable’ in the lives of Macbeth and Lucy.

I very much wanted the play to be set in the underground world of horse racing, racketeering Brighton, having enjoyed, ‘Brighton Rock’ by Graham Greene, and imagined the café as a front for the wheeler-dealing of Queenie’s mob. As a company we appreciated a similar world in the series ‘Peaky Blinders’ with its matriarchal characters driving some of the storylines. We have drawn on this for the creation of our own characters.

As with ‘Lear’s Daughters’, I have reimagined the play to put women centre stage and given them the opportunity to play the great roles which have traditionally been acted by men. I wanted to explore the dynamic, when you make these roles female. With this in mind, I hoped to bring a greater depth to Lucy (Lady Macbeth) by borrowing some of Lady Macduff’s lines and incorporating her story into the character of Queenie.

Pretty much all the words in our version of the play can be found in Shakespeare’s,’Macbeth’, however I have taken poetic licence in giving them to different characters in our play; only adding place names to set our story firmly in the world of Brighton.

I always saw this version of the play in a café and was excited when one of the cast suggested Starfish and Coffee, and delighted when Tony the owner more than agreed to support our venture. We are indebted to his generosity in offering us such a fabulous rehearsal and performance venue. (Tess Garrett)

Creative Team

Beth Macbeth Liz Stapleton

Lucy Mac Tess Garrett

Hatty Jessica Whatley

Musician Matt Whatley

Director Tess Garrett

Outside Eye Donna Edmead

Stage Manager Jonah Jago

Make up Ripley Fletcher

Costume Advisers Morwenna Hope and Martina Bizoti

Poster and Programme Jonah Jago

Photoshop photo Josef Cabey

Front of House Simon Bannister

Lucy Mac exploratory character research Heather Shann-Williams and Kicki Rinqivist

A huge shout out and thank you to Tony and Nick and all the staff at Starfish and Coffee for all their support!