MACBETH

About the show

In this classic tale of greed and guilt, Flabbergast’s Macbeth fuses a rigorous and respectful approach to text and storytelling to bring a magical, lucid interpretation of Shakespeare’s blood-soaked tragedy to life. Playing to their strengths and background in puppetry, clown, mask, ensemble and physical theatre, Flabbergast have developed their first narrative text based production (after extensive R&D with Wilton’s Music Hall London and Grotowski Institute Poland). They present the bard’s original text accompanied by and supported with exhilarating live music to produce a provocative and enjoyably accessible show. The beautifully performed music and vocal work combine into a powerful live soundscape creating an atmosphere that both compliments and juxtaposes the action. With a stripped back set, and an aesthetically arresting design, the tightknit ensemble of actors performs a dark and visceral manifestation of the work’s essence and underlaying themes. Flabbergast gives us an instinctive interpretation of Shakespeare’s most wretched tragedy, working to draw out the parallels with modern society. At its heart, the dominant recurring theme and fundamental narrative that powers The Tragedy of Macbeth is the masculine fear of feminine power; and in this sense, the play is as pertinent today as it has ever been. This timeless work examines what it meant to be a man, and what it meant to be a woman and underscores the social contracts between the two that dictate the actions of the protagonists. The notion that gender is a social construct, is never more clear than during Lady Macbeth’s “unsex me here” soliloquy, as she fights to set aside her feminine role, lest it hinder her dark ambitions. And the witches – who can appear as crones or maids – embody the power which threatened the patriarchal establishment.