DramSoc Presents: Macbeth

Shakespeare is the eternal snake. Just when you think you have him pinned down, he writhes away, changes shape or just turns to smoke in your hands. His texts, so well trod, in the hands of successive centuries of directors retain the ability to shock generation after generation.

Dramatists and actors often cut their teeth on Shakespeare. Ted Hughes, one of the 20th century’s most important British poets, thought he was so important that he memorised Old Bill’s complete works while working as a lighthouse keeper, and his neologisms have entered common parlance. For example, without Shakespeare we would never have been able to say “fashionable eyeball”, both being words that he had coined.

This flexibility of the text is the reason that I am so excited by the production of Macbeth being put on by DramSoc next week. Directors Matthew Last and Maddie Roche have decided to focus on the horrific aspects of the play, highlighting the dark and difficult lives that the characters in medieval Scotland led. This is not a play about kings and nobles fighting for what is right. Theirs is a cold, hard and cruel world where brutality, more than anything else, gets you ahead of your competitors. Children are killed out of hand for what they might grow up to be and battles are fought in the cold mud, standing on top of the corpses of those that fell before you.

The supernatural elements of the play, often so uncomfortably shoehorned into the plot, make sense here. The Scotland portrayed here is used to magic. Everyday events like the weather, the health of livestock or family members or crop yields were the result of a hundred mysterious forces that could be bargained with, flattered, and fought. Magic is an everyday part of life here in this Scotland. The direction that the witches themselves are taken, is sure to shock. I will not spoil the surprise here but I promise that it will not disappoint.

Lastand Roche’s vision has extended to all parts of the production. Audience members can expect to see paper crowns, threadbare clothes, and huge furniture pieces that split apart in an instant. They never want to allow you to forget that any impression of greatness or majesty is a lie. The wars of Macbeth are fought over who gets the right to bully the local peasants into coughing up what little they own in tax. Kings change but life in dark ages Scotland is always short and hard.

Come and see Macbeth next week Wednesday to Saturday and I warn you. Something wicked this way comes.