Flabbergast’s The Tragedy of Macbeth at Southwark Playhouse
Southwark Playhouse 14 March – 8 April 2023 7.30pm (matinees 3pm on Tuesdays and Saturdays)
PRESS NIGHT THURSDAY 16th March
PRAISE FOR FLABBERGAST’S MACBETH AT THE EDINBURGH FRINGE 2022
“Shakespeare’s words wrung into new shapes through raw physical movement… captivating as it is unsettling” ★★★★ Telegraph
“Everything you want from a fringe show, – stuff being banged, terrifying puppets, polyphonic singing, mess, mud, noise, wine, party hats, and an amazingly talented international cast taking on a variety of roles each. In this brilliantly designed show the turns seem to have risen up out if the clay itself to enact a Macbeth that, after the emergence of a Porter Clown who is uncharacteristically actually really funny, takes a turn into a black comedy that Shakespeare himself would surely have enjoyed. I am so glad my kids saw this. It will have made them lifelong converts of real theatre, not West End shi*t. And I am glad I saw it, because it reminded me of being 19 in 1987 and coming here and having my mind blown, leaving me no choice but to waste my life.”
Stewart Lee
“an exciting and vital interpretation of Macbeth which serves to invigorate one of Shakespeare’s best-known plays with a new intensity” ★★★★★ British Theatre Guide
★★★★★ Melvyn Stutter’s Pick of the Fringe
“raucous, visceral reimagining of the story captures the essence of the piece more eloquently than pretty much any other production I’ve seen” ★★★★★ Bouquets and Brickbats
Following a hugely successful Edinburgh Festival 2022 run, award-winning Flabbergast Theatre are bringing their highly critically acclaimed The Tragedy of Macbeth to Southwark playhouse for a four-week run.
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 text-based production (with extensive R&D with Wilton’s Musical Hall London and Grotowski Institute Poland) to foster the bard’s original text supported with exhilarating live music to produce a provocative and enjoyably accessible show.
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 presents 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;
Bringing a performance for both new and established theatregoers to fully appreciate, Flabbergast’s Shakespeare is for everyone; a visceral and eloquent retelling of Shakespeare’s imbrued tale of vicissitude.
