THE WEYARD SISTERS Comes to Riverside Theatres in August

The Weyard Sisters, a new play by Helen Alexander and her company Effemera Theatre, imagines what happened to the women in Macbeth after Shakespeare’s play ends. The Weyard Sisters will receive its world premiere at Riverside Studios from Tuesday 13 August - Sunday 22 September.

On 15 August 1057, Malcolm and Macduff took their revenge on Macbeth. What happened next? The Weyard Sisters is a darkly funny but brutal legend, focusing on the motivations, misunderstanding and persecution of female servants accused of witchcraft.

The play tells the story of Erlynn, housekeeper at Castle Dunsinane, her adopted changeling sister, Marlin the swaine, and their alcoholic sister-in-law, Portia, the Porter’s daughter as they apply their guile and opportunist initiative in their own best interests, blithely risking confrontation with Malcolm in his paranoid prejudice. 

The drama also reveals the ingenuity and resilience of the late Lady Macbeth’s gentlewomen, Kathryn Buchanan and Agatha Atheling, when faced with Malcolm’s lazy, misogynistic, lack of ambition for the crown, and Macduff’s obsessive need for vengeance on his family’s murderers.

The Weyard Sisters is written and directed by Helen Alexander, with Assistant Director Tara Lacey. It is designed by Dana Pinto.

The cast includes Julia Munrow, Pippa Caddick, Jan Shepherd, Bradley Benjamin, Ciaran Corsar, Jonathon Campbell, Claire Morrisey, Kiera Murray, Louie Wanless, Samantha Kay, Rob Alexander-Adams, Andrea Miller and Max Panx.

Helen Alexander said: “The Weyard Sisters reveals the factual and fictional herstory of women accused of witchcraft – and their sense of humour!”

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