In what is one of Shakespeare's most well-known plays, Macbeth, the title character uses soliloquy and conversation to put his inner turmoil on display in order for the audience to build a relationship of understanding with the character. Shakespeare's plays, especially Macbeth, are well-known and relevant hundreds of years later in modern times. Various interpretations of his plays throughout the centuries have highlighted the connections that can be drawn between characters created over three hundred years ago and the lives of people today. Even Shakespeare's villains often maintain a sense of humanity that allows the audience to feel empathy for these otherwise evil characters. In one of Macbeth's many movie adaptations, Mickey B, this connection is much more difficult to build than it is in Synchronicity Theater's Mac Beth, which utilizes a young, all-female cast. Mac Beth does a more thorough job of drawing upon the audience's sympathy than Mickey B due to the different levels of emotional availability given to the characters in the stories being told.

Emotional availability is something that is raw, heartfelt, and rare to see among a cast of characters comprised of murderers, betrayers, and turncoats, and that availability is what is perhaps the most hypnotising aspect of the play Macbeth. This emotional vulnerability is exactly what the audience sees most emphasized on stage through the performances of the cast of Mac Beth. Throughout the show, the audience witnesses Macbeth clawing at her hair and grimacing at the thoughts that she voices aloud. In her conversations with the Lady Macbeth, Macbeth fears for her soul and cries out in a broken, shaky voice, "But wherefore could I not pronounce 'Amen'?/ I had most need of blessing, and 'Amen'/ Stuck in my throat," (2.2.34-36). At this point, the actress playing Macbeth displayed extreme distress and was even sobbing as she confessed to her wife. This display of intense fear, regret, and horror is made even more believable and draws the sympathy of the audience thanks to the fact that the actresses are all portraying high school aged girls.

The fact that all of the actresses in Mac Beth are dressed in high school uniforms makes it obvious that the characters are supposed to be very young. The youth of the characters communicates clearly to the audience that the characters are meant to be viewed as more vulnerable and intense in their emotional displays, as they have yet to learn how to control their emotions or why they should even want to suppress them. This message is even more emphasized by the pamphlet that is handed to audience members as they enter the theater; within the pamphlet, a note from the director describes the almost supernatural wonder of girlhood. Jennifer Alice Acker describes the exploration of boundaries within and without society, and how they "explore the wild world Macbeth allows: agency, power…" (Acker, 2). The intensity of these girls and their emotions is therefore allowed to be sent to extreme heights as the audience witnesses not only a play based on Macbeth, but a play that revolves around teenage girls attempting to find themselves in the world and all the madness that comes along with it. Thanks to the vulnerability and authenticity of the emotions displayed through the backdrop of youth and girlhood, the audience is able to relate to these intense emotions. Perhaps some members of the audience even remember what their own experiences and emotions were in high school, thus calling on their own lives to lend further understanding and sympathy between themselves and the characters onstage.

In contrast, viewers of the movie Mickey B see the setting of an Irish prison and immediately must take a step back in terms of how much they are able to understand and sympathize with the characters. The average viewers will not have been locked up in an Irish prison, and are therefore immediately alienated from the experiences of the characters of Mickey B. Beyond this alienation, viewers will also expect the hardened criminals to hide or at the very least suppress their emotions and be more accustomed to acts of violence and betrayal, further diminishing any sense of sympathy and compassion for the characters. The actors in Mickey B seem to promote any assumptions of toughness through their portrayal of the characters as being more reserved in their emotions. For example, where in Mac Beth the actresses are often seen crying and collapsing from the weight of their emotions and all that is happening to them, viewers would find it difficult to find a notable moment in Mickey B where a character appears greatly overwhelmed by their emotions. Even when the audience is called to view a characters as more emotionally available, such as when the character of Macduff finds out that his family has been murdered, the characters are quick to suppress the intensity of their emotions. Even in the midst of his suffering, Macduff quickly gets himself under control upon being told by Malcolm, "Dispute it like a man," (4.3.221). The result is that the audience sees Macduff casting aside his feelings of grief in favor of looking strong and manly in order to return to the business at hand.

In the Mac Beth interpretation of this scene, Macduff screams the line, "But I must also feel it as a man," (4.3.223). She delivers the line whilst crying out in anguish, emphasizing the concept that it is in fact more manly to feel one's emotions deeply rather than ignoring them and withdrawing into callous carelessness. Even once her lines are delivered, Macduff continues to wander the stage, looking lost as she sobs out her emotions for all to see, inviting the audience to participate in her grieving with her. Thus, in Mickey B, the audience is embroiled in a story that is more focused on the action and the outer conflicts of the story rather than the inner turmoil and struggles of the characters. The audience of Mickey B is not asked to show empathy for the characters of Mickey B because the characters show so little vulnerability, and therefore are not relatable enough to call upon the sympathy of the viewers.

The emotional availability presented by the characters of both Mac Beth and Mickey B is extremely influential on what the audience expects from the characters and the manner in which the audience responds to the story. A large part of the appeal of the play Macbeth as Shakespeare wrote it is centered on the intrancing nature of witnessing the descent of a good man into murderous madness. In the original play, we see Macbeth struggling to reconcile his "horrible imaginings" (1.3.139) with his morals as he recalls that Duncan "... hath honored me of late, and have bought/ Good opinions from all sorts of people," (1.7.33-34). Both Macbeth and the audience knows that he has no good reason for killing his king, and yet his "Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself," (1.7.27) lead him to commit regicide for his own gains. The path that leads Macbeth to his eventual demise is one fraught with extreme emotional turmoil. Macbeth, despite being the villain, is presented as a very relatable character for whom the audience feels a deep connection. The emphasis put in Macbeth's emotions, and that of the other characters, is one of the key elements that separates the movie Mickey B from Synchronicity Theater's adaptation of the play, Mac Beth.