The real show stealer, however, has no lines. Here the marriage of excellent costume, make-up, and special effects are on display the demon arises in a cloud of fog, delivers a few lines with great drama, and descends again to – on the two nights I saw the show – applause from the audience. The youngest cast member, Clara Holland, plays the demon. She’s one to watch – her facial expressions as the Duke talks are hilarious, and she is able to convey with body language alone frustration, anger, and despair. McCloskey does a terrific Nixon impersonation and gets the audience squirming in their seats as he tries – in increasingly dramatic measures – to wash the blood off his hands. The play’s villains are the Duke and Duchess Felmet, played by John McCloskey and Cathy Barth respectively. She is particularly amusing when being threatened with torture she delivers her cheeky lines with a twinkle in her eye that would have made Pratchett proud. I could easily believe Pratchett met Pattison and then developed Nanny Ogg based on that meeting, so perfect was she for the role. Terry Pratchett fans know Nanny Ogg as a joyful, rosy-cheeked, rogue Pattison plays her with gusto. These prop-driven scenes work the setting for each scene is clear and the changes between them happen quickly. A wheeled cart is a table for a magic ball in one scene and a cauldron for another the throne room is created by a chair with a golden cushion upon it. Instead, the scene changes – and there are a lot of them, twenty-two! – are done with props and a large screen TV on one wall providing images of the settings. Because there’s no stage, there’s no set. No matter where you sit, at some point actors will be facing you and at another point they may well have their backs to you this is a play which uses all 360 degrees.
There is no stage for this production the action takes place on the floor. And the MAD players keep the rollicking play crackling along like lightning. Wyrd Sisters tells of three witches and their efforts to meddle – without really meddling – in the affairs of the kingdom of Lancre after the King is murdered and the throne usurped. Photo by Jon Gardner.ĭirected by Jon Gardner, the play includes the joyful word play that makes Terry Pratchett so delightful. John McCloskey and Cathy Barth play the evil duke and duchess. So it was with some excitement that I learned that the MAD club at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center was putting on the play from that novel, adapted for the stage by Stephen Briggs.
I opened it up and saw “the night was as black as the inside of a cat” – a line that immediately became, and remains, my favorite sentence of all time. In 1999, living in Denmark, I happened upon Terry Pratchett’s novel Wyrd Sisters on a friend’s bookshelf.
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