World War I-style biplanes bomb a restaurant, orphaning the proprietor’s daughter. French newspaper headlines warn of the advance of Macbeth’s army and urge resistance. The girl flees into a tangled forest, where she’s kindly taken in by a witch, who has her help with cooking at her mill cottage and gathering spotted mushrooms for soup, and eventually teaches her magic.
So begins “The 4th Witch,” a dazzling shadow puppetry spectacle that tells a “genre-bending inversion of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth,’” a simple fable that loosely remixes imagery from the classic play—the three witches, the blood-stained hands that won’t come clean. Chicago’s Emmy-winning Manual Cinema is performing the show at ArtsEmerson’s Emerson Paramount Center in Boston from Oct. 30 to Nov. 9, 2025. The smooth, polished effect of the show’s black, white and red silhouettes is like a silent animated movie of revenge and betrayal—in the neighborhood of the cut-paper silhouette puppet animated films of 20th century German director Lotte Reiniger.
Manual Cinema’s signature technique is to perform the shadow puppetry live in front of you, with puppets worked atop an array of four overhead projectors, throwing elaborate scenes of war and woods and city onto a screen in the center of the stage. A handful of live actors in limited masks, wigs and costumes perform in front of the screen, seamlessly merging into the puppetry. Three musicians—piano, violin, cello—play and sing live. A camera records the screen, relays it via live-feed to a projector on the balcony, which projects the stage screen onto a panoramic screen hanging across the top of the stage, above all the live action.
True to Manual Cinema’s name, “The 4th Witch” is told with dynamic tracking shots (sometimes with a live performer in “action” in front of a moving background), zooms, flashing lightning and bomb blasts, magical practical special effects, and quick cuts. Movies these days often cut shot-to-shot every three to five seconds. “The 4th Witch” cuts about half that pace slower—but still a wicked breakneck pace for live theater.
The girl (played by Sarah Fornace) aches for revenge against warlord Macbeth (Jeffrey Paschal)—a haunting, hulking monster in a gas mask and crown. The old witch (Julia Miller) is one of Shakespeare’s three witches who foretell Macbeth’s future and fate. The girl becomes the fourth. But just because these witches are kind to the orphan girl doesn’t mean they’re on the right side of the war.
Concept, direction and puppet design by Drew Dir. Devised by Dir, Sarah Fornace and Julia Miller. Original score and sound design by Ben Kauffman and Kyle Vegter. Performed by Lizi Breit, Leah Casey, Sarah Fornace, Julia Miller and Jeffrey Paschal. Music and singing by Caroline Jesalva, Lia Kohl, Lucy Little and Alicia Walter.
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