2008: Macbeth

Synopsis

Military commander Macbeth unleashes a nightmare of carnage and destruction. A war on terror that is a war of terror. Set in a contemporary and brutal Middle Eastern conflict, 2008: Macbeth is unflinching in its depiction of the machine of violence that, once set in motion,, works faster and ever more efficiently. If killing in a war is justified, so is killing in the privacy of one's home. If you can kill men, why not also women and children? With spectacular pyrotechnics, immersive video effects and an extraordinary, layered soundscape that plays tricks on the ear, Shakespeare's web of politics, ambition and the supernatural is transformed into a contemporary, and highly physical, theatrical film.

Our Review:

14 August 2012

There has already been one Polish Macbeth this year at Globe to Globe (and there are two further Polish Macbeths in Edinburgh besides this one). There was also a Middle Eastern-set Macbeth at LIFT. Macbeth is clearly the zeitgeisty play de nos jours. To cover both bases,TR Warszawa have gone for the neat synthesis of being Polish and setting the play in the Middle East. And then naming the year as 2008. For no discernible reason whatsoever.

This is Macbeth as action movie. Coming on like a cross between Rambo and Homeland, it kicks off in the cathode-lit war room of a Scottish(!) invasion of an unnamed Islamic country.

Grzegorz Jarzyna's production looks amazing. In the dimly-lit, tiled room below - the set comprises four rooms on two floors - men in Arabic dress pray toward Mecca, while others stand by gripping Kalashnikovs. Macbeth and his men bu...

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