Source : PERTHNOW NEWS
“I am in blood,” Shakespeare’s Macbeth tortuously declares, knowing he cannot come back from his murderous rampage to secure the throne.
These brutal and nihilistic themes of the tragic political thriller once fascinated Bell Shakespeare artistic director Peter Evans.
But after directing the play several times over the course of his career, Evans has become more interested in Macbeth’s losing battle with his conscience in the pursuit of power.
“Most of the time when we’re watching these kind of characters who destroy a community, they’re sociopaths, or if you’re watching a movie, they would be a psychopath,” Evans told AAP.
“But Shakespeare’s character is deeply feeling and not a sociopath at all; we watch somebody lose their humanity.
“As soon as he has this idea that he could take the crown through murder, he has a panic attack … and we watch the cost of that violation.”
The production, directed by Evans with Anthony Taufa in the title role, tours across Australia from September starting in Wagga Wagga, NSW, and culminating with a Sydney Opera House season.
Evans said it’s an apt moment for audiences to revisit the play and reflect upon a conflicted Macbeth and his deeply corrupt Lady Macbeth, played by Matilda Ridgway.
“There’s a number of people who are in positions of power around the world, who have none of the humanity of this guy,” he said.
“That’s where it gets really frightening, when people have seemingly lost their sense of service or duty to the greater good and are so openly self-dealing and corrupt.”
The production, a reprisal of the company’s 2023 run, reimagines Macbeth in the post-WWI era when people were turning to spiritualism and seances after a terrible war.
The scenes play out like a series of vivid hallucinations.
“It sits in a dream, in this strange world, where maybe this play just plays out perpetually forever,” Evans said.
“There are ghosts and visions and prophecies; for (Macbeth) it’s a nightmare and then he makes the nightmare real for everybody else.
“He turns the country into chaos and violence and fear.”
The national tour will be staged in cities and at more than a dozen regional theatres across NSW, Victoria, Queensland, Tasmania, WA and the NT.
The company’s founder John Bell has always brought the bard’s works to the regions, having to travel in his youth from his home in Maitland to the city to see productions.
Evans, who directed Macbeth for the company’s first regional tour in 1997, takes that commitment just as seriously.
Since about 2010, country audiences have seen Bell Shakespeare productions on the same size and scale as the shows at the Opera House.
“It’s always been central to the company that these works should be for everybody,” Evans said.
“Regional audiences have lapped it up and there are terrific theatres all over the country with excellent crews and people running them.
“They’ve been very open and receptive, so it’s a very important part of our identity.”
