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Act 1, Scene 7
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in If We Were Villains, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Fate vs. Free Will
Identity and Disguise
Love and Sexuality
Theatre and Corruption
Summary
Analysis
A week later, the fourth-year drama students receive letters in their mailboxes. Oliver retrieves them and hands them out to everyone at lunch. They’re invitations to Dellecher’s annual Halloween event, in which the fourth-years traditionally stage scenes from Macbeth with no rehearsal. The letter tells them which part and which scenes to prepare and orders them not to share the contents of their letters with one another. Oliver is assigned the part of Banquo. He’s surprised—he would have expected James to be Banquo and Richard to be Macbeth. Richard leaves the table early, and Oliver gets the feeling that “the balance of power had somehow shifted.”
This scene contains the first shift of the status quo: although he doesn’t yet know what roles the other students are playing, Oliver knows that he has a much bigger part than usual. Banquo, Macbeth’s loyal and heroic best friend, is a part that Oliver thinks James should have—and the fact that Oliver has it instead means that James and Richard might be playing atypical parts, too. Indeed, Richard’s early exit implies that, for the first time, he might not be at all happy with his role assignment.
Themes
