Today, a group of students from the Honors Shakespeare class embarked on a field trip to watch a private screening of the movie adaptation of Shakespeare’s 1606 play “Macbeth.”

The play is about a warrior named Macbeth who becomes a powerful king, only to suffer a tremendous downfall. The play focuses on the consequences that arise from excessive ambition. Mr. Dain Liepa, Language Arts, set up the trip for his students and attended the screening himself.

“I reached out to the Minneapolis Saint-Paul Film Society and spoke to their outreach person,” Liepa said. “They agreed to the private screening and told me it was their mission to help education.”  

The class had read Macbeth earlier in the term and wanted to extend their learning outside of the classroom by watching the film. Though the film was made in 2015, and some scenes were removed for length, it still remained relatively true to the original play.

Shannon Adam, senior, is one student of the many that attended the screening. Adam believes that, since seeing the screening, she is able to understand the play better.

“[The film] explained the book more; it was a lot easier to visualize it rather than just read it,” Adam said.

Adam also credited the film for being entertaining.

“It was very visually pleasing. It had a lot of good action parts,” Adam said.

Students are capable of receiving extra credit in the class by analyzing the film and how the director adapted the play into a movie. Liepa was glad to see his students find the film entertaining while still being able to learn.

“I was pleased to see that students attached themselves emotionally to certain parts [of the film] and notice that scenes were missing. It tells me that they learned something and were actually reading,” Liepa said.