Shakespeare’s darkest play hits the stage this season in a lean, mean, contemporary interpretation.
Shakespeare’s darkest play hits the stage this season in a lean, mean, contemporary interpretation.
Hot off the smash success of The Who’s Rock Musical ‘Tommy’ Stage Two’s James Wenley adapts, directs and showcases Macbeth’s wicked scheming as it collides with the modern underbelly of the criminal world, the sordid night time city scene and the cunning supernatural forces belonging to ambiguous ladies of the night, more formally recognised as witches.
Wenley’s version, of what is superstitiously known as ‘The Scottish Play’, includes a post-apocalyptic like setting, subversive performances of hit pop songs and hallucinogenic visions of what might have been, however he claims he is still staying faithful to Shakespeare’s text and themes.
‘Concepts like power, ambition, greed, regret and revenge don’t just belong to the Elizabethans’ he says, ‘look around you, they are still utterly relevant in modern society, they are in your social hierarchies, your homes and your hearts.’
With a seventeen member cast Stage Two’s Macbeth showcases the talent of many Auckland University students and alumni, among them, Luke Thornborough as Macbeth (The Libertine, Richard III), who accompanied by Witch Ashleigh Rose Keating has performed at The Globe Theatre in London, Sophia Panayiodou as Lady Macbeth (Suburbia, Virgin Party) and Patrick Graham (Titus Andronicus, White Trash Omnibus, Pink Lighter).
Professor Tom Bishop, Head of the English Department at Auckland University praises the play: “Macbeth is the shortest and most concentrated of Shakespeare's tragedies and he steeps this brutal tale in an atmosphere of spectral fears”
Wenley aims to drive each and every audience member to see themselves in Macbeth. ‘This play is effective because it is about a character that is neither completely evil nor completely good’ says Wenley, ‘he makes a mistake, it is part of the human condition to commit error and to be susceptible to persuasion, especially when it is coming from the very forceful and sexy Lady Macbeth!’
As Shakespeare critic Harold Bloom puts it ‘the little Macbeth within each theatregoer can be tempted to surmise a murder or two of her or his own’. Presented by Stage Two Productions and Theatre of Love, Macbeth opens on Wednesday 26th May and runs till Saturday 5th June at The Musgrove Studio, Maidment Theatre. Murder, prophecy and a dance floor...how far would you go?