Mordenize Macbeth for a younger audience?

Desperatly need ideas- Macbeth, can't change the language, appeal to teenagers. Some ideas- elobrate please, not just high shcool!

Mordenize Macbeth for a younger audience?
When teaching Shakespeare to younger audiences, I find that the most important thing isn't to modernize it but to edit the text. Not alter the words, but to sharpen the focus of the text to help them follow it. They're prepared to accept the original setting; it's the words and convoluted syntax they'll have trouble with.





When you first start Shakespeare the scenes are interminable. You spend so much time looking up words that you lose the thrust of the scene. I haven't directed it yet, so I don't have an edit of the script for you, but if you contact me I could help you work on one. (Click on my profile and send me an email.)





It also helps greatly to see it in performance. Having them act it out themselves is fun, but they're not actors and they're not experts in Shakespeare, so they mostly end up struggling and not really performing to engage the class.





I wish I could recommend a really great film version of Macbeth, but I can't think of one that would really work for teenagers (the way Ethan Hawke's or Mel Gibson's Hamlet works, or the Branagh Much Ado or Henry V). There's a new filmed Macbeth coming out later this year (http://imdb.com/title/tt0783547/) but it'll be too late for you.





The best version I know is actually Kurosawa's Throne of Blood, but it's not Shakespeare's original text. But it might help them see the story, which will give them a guide through the text, and then you could help work the text with them in class.





You could try showing Scotland PA, but that doesn't use the original text, and it isn't really interesting until after you know the original play. You might see it yourself, in any case, to get some ideas for other ways to look at the play. It's more of a parody of Macbeth, and it's actually pretty engaging at that.
Reply:It depends on what the life experience of the teenagers is. MacBeth is a very accesible tragedy, focusing on the lure of power and the evil man can stoop to when obsessed with power. I would think of some arenas where power is weilded--teams, gangs, even local political circles--and tailor the play to fit that. My gut says to go with the gang idea, but a lot of that depends on what the background of the teens is. Even a business or corporation has all the aspects needed--a power structure, "conquests" that would enable someone to gain notoriety, cut-throat manuevers to gain a rung on the ladder. Start thinking about those basic play elements and where they could play out in a modern society. You'll come up with some good ideas!
Reply:there was a modern version of macbeth made recently, maybe u should check it out, there is also a bbc series called shakespeare retold - other then that you could adapt ideas from Baz Luhrmann Romeo+Juliet maybe? I'm sorry but I haven't read Macbeth in ages, little sketcy on the details