Bright Ideas: Play Analysis

The play “Bright Ideas”, is a parody spin-off of the classic Scottish Shakespeare play, Macbeth. In the play, a young couple try to get their three year old son into the new prestigious preschool. After not having very good luck, they result to killing one of the parents on the waiting list so that they could take the spot. Eric Coble’s play, “Bright Ideas”, uses an innovative approach to create dark comedy, as well as having a symbolical set design by incorporating Scottish patterns. The cast I was able to see perform this unique play was from a high school, and they were performing it for the One Act Play competition in 2017. I don’t know what went through Coble’s mind that made him want to recreate Macbeth and make it a comedy, but whatever
it was, I think it was a pretty creative idea. I was able to watch both plays back to back, so when I realized that he used the same character names as Shakespeare did, mainly taking the names from the Scottish Thanes in MacBeth, I thought Coble was a genius. My theory is that if you’re going to recreate a Shakespeare play, it needs to make sense; in this case, it definitely does, and it makes MacBeth make sense at the same time, because lets all be honest here, Shakespeare is a very confusing man. I really enjoy the way the actors were able to pull off the type of comedy that Coble was going for.
Since he was basically mimicking the more significant factors of Macbeth, the play had its serious moments and its funny moments, but most of the time the serious moments were the funny moments. Whenever Genevra and Josh were in the kitchen cooking dinner for Genevra’s co-worker, Denise, they would be screaming and arguing with each other about who was going to mix the poison into her food. Genevra just so happened to accidentally put the poison in all of the food, so they weren't even able to have dinner with her. The effects of the poison weren’t supposed to kick in for a few hours, but due to their terrible luck, it only took a few minutes, and when they went to check on her, she was already dead. The whole kitchen scene in general is one of the best parts of the entire play. Josh, played by Preston Hendrix, would run back and forth from the kitchen to the dining room, creating different facial expressions each time he came around the pylon. The creativeness the actor expressed in not only this scene, was outstanding. Hendrix’s vocal ranges are also very impressive, when he’s angry, he can either have a very high pitched scream, or a devilish
whisper. Another great aspect of the show was its set. The simplicity of the set as whole, was a terrific contribution to the show. The set consisted of 3 pylons, all of which held props. The pylons were wrapped in plaid canvases, which is a Scottish pattern, and they used primary colors to incorporate the preschool theme. The only other thing that stayed on the stage the entire play, was the building blocks. Each side of the stage had three building blocks, one side had “A,B,C”, and the other side had, “X,Y,Z”. For the most part, the blocks were used as seats. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the set design, but if it wasn’t for the One Act Play competition, I would suggest them create a much bigger design, and perhaps use a fog machine in the “three witches”, scene. Coble did a fantastic job at recreating and humorizing the classic Scottish play. The cast, although not perfect in every aspect, were able to give off the right comedic effect, with almost perfect timing every time. With everything incorporated together, Coble’s play was able to put a modern twist on Shakespeare's work, and it really worked. If you weren’t able to see this cast perform, you really missed out on an interesting experience.