Macbeth : Bloody, Bold and Resolute
Wednesday 16 October 2013
| The Drama Scholars and Principal’s Award Holders, under the direction of Dramatist/Musician-in-Residence Tim Shaw, staged a mesmerisingly intense and hauntingly intimate production of Macbeth in the Helen McCrory Studio Theatre on Monday 14 and Tuesday 15 October 2013. |
After just five weeks of intensive rehearsal, the cast gave a thrillingly clear-headed and fast-paced abridgement of Shakespeare’s text.
The action was transposed to a post-apocalyptic dystopia, and the staging was totally innovative: with two banks of diametrically opposed seats in the centre of the auditorium, audience members were faced with a choice – should they twist and turn to try to observe every scene, or allow conversations to be merely passively overheard? Meanwhile, a surround-sound score of disquieting ‘glitch music’ permeated every scene.
It was an experience unlike anything we have offered to our audiences before, and the spectators certainly felt something of the paranoia and uncertainty suffered by Macbeth’s unfortunate subjects.
The cast and director are to be congratulated on this toweringly impressive production.