For the City Times

STEVENS POINT — William Shakespeare’s classic tragedy about the deadly costs of ambition will be staged by the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point’s Department of Theatre and Dance next month.

“Macbeth” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, March 1-2, and Thursday through Saturday, March 7-9 in Jenkins Theatre in the Noel Fine Arts Center, 1800 Portage St., Stevens Point. A matinee show will be performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 3. The show is not recommended for younger audiences because of graphic violence and sexual themes.

The play centers on a Scottish general, Macbeth, who hears three witches prophesy that he will be king. He and his wife stop at nothing to make that happen, leading them down a path of guilt and madness. The UW-Stevens Point production sets the action in post-apocalyptic Scotland, where the destruction of the world has caused people to return to a violent, feudal society.

“This is a thrilling, action-packed story of power, ambition and consequences,” said the show’s director, Associate Professor Jared Hanlin. “It’s always been fascinating to me as a story about what drives a person to be so focused on achieving power at the expense of the lives of others, including young children.”

While producing works by Shakespeare can be challenging, the UW-Stevens Point student actors, designers and technicians have stepped up to make the story accessible to the audience, Hanlin said. The play’s staging and action sequences are easy for an audience to follow so that they can draw comparisons to the anxieties and threats that occupy the world today.

“Macbeth demonstrates how ambition and violence are cyclical and a part of our nature and history,” Hanlin said. “The show reinforces how that part of our nature has to be checked.”

Tickets for “Macbeth” are $23 for adults and seniors or $13 for age 17 and under, and are available at the UW-Stevens Point Information and Tickets Office in the Dreyfus University Center concourse, by calling 715-346-4100 or at http://tickets.uwsp.edu. Discounts are available for UW-Stevens Point students, faculty and staff.

Tickets are also available for the First Nighters package Friday, March 1, which includes dinner before the performance (www.uwsp.edu/theatre-dance/Pages/First-Nighters.aspx).