Why Macbeth?

When we start working on a new play, we ask ourselves, how is this one different from any other in Shakespeare? What has become commercial about it, and how might we subvert those expectations? What is the surprise? And perhaps most importantly for a Lecoq-inspired ensemble, how does it move?

Our most recent production, Romeo and Juliet, is a play everybody knows. We’re told in the prologue how it will end. It moves so quickly it nearly trips over its own feet; new love, lightning wit, out-of-control fights, hastily made plans executed under a pretty severe time crunch. It’s a comedy until it trips and falls. The Friar warns, “Wisely and slow, they stumble that run fast”.

Macbeth is a quiet, compressed, confined, psychologically intimate play that moves by stealth. It’s about, among other things, the power of imagination. Macbeth says, “Present fears are less than horrible imaginings.” The past year and a half gave us all plenty of time alone with our thoughts, and in addition to being perfect for a smaller audience (and the shortest tragedy by a long shot), Macbeth explores the rise of a tyrant. It’s no wonder that Joel Coen chose it as his first solo film project and that it’s on Broadway in March.