Macbeth (review)

Exploring "the musicality and muscularity of Shakespeare's poetry," (http://macbeth-thepoint.co.uk/about/) Song of the Goat Theatre's Macbeth stunningly translated the linguistic violence and psychological tension of Shakespeare's play into physical action and dance. Director Grzegorz Bral telescoped the play into approximately 75 minutes of riotous energy, ecstatic movement, incantatory recitation, and choreographed sword play combined with excerpts from Shakespeare's text. This was not a performance of Macbeth, but rather a presentation of the psychodrama and lyricism of Shakespeare's play through key scenes and speeches re-imagined with visceral action and vocal expression. First presented at the Swan Theatre in August 2006 as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's Complete Works, Song of the Goat Theatre's Macbeth was subsequently developed over two years into its current touring production.

Hamlet might be concerned with "word, words, words," but this production explored the physical, gestural, and musical dimensions of theatre, drawing our attention to the stage business beyond mere dialogue—that is, beyond or behind the words in the play-script. While the production highlighted the violence of the play inherent in its very language (e.g. Lady Macbeth's "dash'd the [babe's] brains out" shrieked to the accompaniment of swooping swords) and contained strikingly visceral moments, overall it failed to maintain its audience's interest, becoming at points obscure. Lyric in both movement and song, the rhythm of Bral's production at its best fully involved the audience in the emotional turmoil and brutality of the play, but at times the inaudible vocalizations of the lines, the redundancy of frenetic movement, and a propensity toward wailing wore on the audience.

Anu Salonen as a Witch and Gabriel Gawin as Macbeth in the Song of the Goat Theatre's (Teatr Pieśń Kozła) 2010 production of Macbeth, directed by Grzegorz Bral. Photo courtesy of Krzysztof Bielinski.

The nearly empty stage promised a stripped down production that focused on the seven actors' physical interpretations of the characters. A rectangular table, throne chair, five shields and candles comprised the sparse props retooled for multiple functions: shields, for example, symbolized castle battlements. The actors were clad in loose, unadorned Japanese hakama-inspired black pants, and brandished wooden swords reminiscent of Kendo swords, which, added to the music of a Korean kayagum (a stringed instrument), played by Rafal Habel, seemed to invoke Kurosawa's Throne of Blood. Gabriel Gawin (Macbeth) and Anna Zubrzycki (Lady Macbeth) were differentiated slightly by their red shirts from the more neutral shades worn by the ensemble, and were the only actors to play a single role; the remaining five actors performed individual characters and doubled as the ensemble, which had a choric function in this production. The actors strode barefoot across the stage, and the minimalist design and the use of a spotlight to highlight their monologues emphasized the drama of the individual in emotional distress or conflict: monologues and even the majority of the dialogue were performed with the actors facing the audience rather than the other characters (a tradition suggestive of Kabuki theatre).

From left to right: Gabriel Gawin as Macbeth, Anu Salonen as a Witch, Anna Zubrzycki as Lady Macbeth, Iran Morgan as Macduff, and Ewan Downie as Malcolm in the Song of the Goat Theatre's (Teatr Pieśń Kozła) 2010 production of Macbeth, directed by Grzegorz Bral. Photo courtesy of Krzysztof Bielinski.

The pitch of performance ran high in this production. Violent fiddling on the kayagum created tension and discordance and acted as a counterpoint to the unified chants of the ensemble. Lady Macbeth's...