Macbeth: Without Words (Faye Ryden)

Macbeth: Without Words is a stylised performance of Shakespeare’s Scottish play, a play which needs no explanation. This adaptation was brought by Ludens Ensemble to the Manipulate Festival at the Traverse Theatre.

Experimental takes on Macbeth are not completely unfamiliar – the NTS did a one man version and various Polish companies have explored it from provocative perspectives. The Ludens ensemble use techniques reminiscent of the work of Anna Helena Mclean and abstract physical European theatre traditions, through incredible voice work and a loop pedal.

Something has to be said for the versatility of the three actors in this piece. All manage to play the comedic roles whilst also adopting the tragic roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth – to name but two – in quick, sometimes immediate,  succession. The images created through their movement and their relatively sparse set are what keeps the attention drawn to the piece although occasionally the images seem too literal for such an abstract piece.

Sometimes, the themes of power and violence are lost in the dynamic collision of film, music and action. The use of slides with extracts of text sometimes detracts from the action taking place on stage and feels like a crutch to fall back on. Rather than letting the audience interpret the actions and movements of the actors, the viewers are given the scene to read and then watch. I feel Without Speech would be a more accurate title after watching this performance as words are offered in every key scene.

The piece and performers seem very aware of its own mockery of the Scottish tale and they do garner a handful of laughs, an impressive feat when it comes to Macbeth. (Is this a comedy I see before me?)

 

Animation is used in the key scenes such as the famous “Is this a dagger” scene which creates a fantastic image of Macbeth grasping for this dagger and highlights his descent into madness. However, sometimes the use of animation/videos fall short as it seems to be there just to add to the abstract nature of the piece.

The actors perform beautifully and the intention of the piece is clear. After leaving the theatre, there are some interesting images that were created that stay with you: Ludens Ensemble demonstrate the power of visual theatre even as they teeter on the brink of chaos.

Macbeth without Words

Shakespeare’s splatter fest gets a new make-over/comic bouffons and then moments of anguish pain and darkness and death/he’s a tragic hero, so manly/ an ensemble in white face swapping roles and humours/ the barrage of music, fragments of familiar tracks hacked and scratched/ this Macbeth is violence and power/ substitute the poetry of iambic pentameter for the poetry of gore/

covered in tarpaulins/ battles rage off stage and tumble on/ a large bowl becomes a helmet becomes a witches brew/ Macbeth rattles through time/ a series of snapshots/ Elizabethan paranoia about rebellion/ the aristocratic uprising/ a proto-dada mockery of power/ the way it dresses its trivial obsessions/ with trappings of style/ beneath it all/ just human/ made of blood and lust/

how is history made? is the video reflection a closer analogue to the petty candle of life? how do we flicker and gutter?

Philippos Philippou on Ubu Roi

I  basically love the play.

When I started my masters at the University of Edinburgh, one of the books we studied was the Olga Taxidou’s Modernism and Performance: From Jarry to Brecht. I wondered, and I said to myself: “hmm: I know Brecht but who the hell is Jarry?” After all, I am a stage director, I have to know. That’s one of my obligations: to study, to learn, to experience new practises and theories on theatre.

What I am trying to say is that I am always curious and open to the new; I am questioning everything around me. So I went to the library, and literary I “sucked” the Ubu trilogy in a few hours. I was shocked when I discover that Alfred Jarry was 15 years old when he wrote the first draft of the play. He was just a child and he came to change the nature of theatre.

The play is very diverse and is loosely based on many classical theater plays. One can see Shakespeare’s Macbeth along with traces from Moliere and Racine. It is magical, based on slapstick humour, Grand Guignol fantasy and extreme imagination. It is a stream of images that achieved to shock and alienate the critics and the audience.

Moreover, I am fan of cartoons and animation. The play offers the chance for experimentation in its most extreme form; and for me this is what animation and visual theatre does as well. However, the play appeared at a time when Europe and France was overwhelmed by naturalism. During its dress rehearsal the play was interrupted several times. Supporters of Naturalism, artists and critics were swearing, throwing chairs etc, which made me think that there are two significant reasons to stage Ubu Roi nowadays: to see whether a play from one hundred years ago could still speak or even shock the audience today, as well as to find a new way to tell its story through the incorporation of puppets with new visual media.

So after I submitted my Master’s thesis on Ubu Roi, I decided to give it a try:  To experiment with the play/toy of a child in order to study classic theatre and New Media.