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Macbeth

Song of the Goat Theatre

Barbican Pit

All photography copyright Grzegorz Hawalej.

Polish ensemble Song of the Goat explode Shakespeare’s lyricism into rituals guarded by the pinching sound of the Korean kayagum, the soft light of candles and the rhythmical intonations of Corsican chants. At the heart of the dramatic liturgy is a dedication to explore the rhythms, undulations and physical melodies of a classical text, bound together by a powerful collective energy.

Macbeth is here structured around sounds which, in conjunction with the highly precise and disciplined movement, convey a different narrative, free of moral interpretation and concentrated on physical expression. The identities of the characters are formed out of a rigorous connection between voice, movement and the ensemble. Each sound, be it an excerpt of Shakespeare’s text or a Corsican chant, fills the whole body of the performer with mesmerizing power. The performance focuses on the individual traumas of the characters, and frames the action as a continuous ensemble ritual from which these emerge. With the dynamic layers of sound, from either the live instrument playing, the cadence and delicacy of the Corsican chants or the playful intonation of text, and varying rhythms of movement, the performance maintains an incredible group dynamic and narrative drive. The stillness of a monologue is broken by the sheer force of an ensemble fight, characterized by a precision only found in martial arts.

The visual simplicity of earth tones and wooden structures contributes to the focus on creating an emotional and visceral sound score from the rhythms and structures of Shakespeare’s text. This is both compelling and, at times, unbreakable, as the energy between the members of the ensemble is always strong. They are grounded, connected and focused, bringing the audience into highly emotional moments that lack literary reference and open the way for understanding nuances of the text otherwise hidden in its poetry.

Being immersed in rehearsals for over one year is often a luxury, but the performance is testament to a rigorous, disciplined and highly precise theatrical system. Free of the usual theatrical politics, Song of the Goat’s Macbeth brings a physical and emotional interpretation of Shakespeare’s poetry, highlighting the ethereal nature of its characters’ drama. It is in the liturgical nature of this interpretation that the drama enters a physical field always in tension, always dynamic and never lacking in surprise.

Tagged: Barbican, Macbeth, Poland, William Shakespeare