Macbeth

After three productions at the Hungarian State Theatre of Cluj, David was invited by another excellent Hungarian-language theatre in Romania, the Tamasi Aron Theatre, to direct his production of Macbeth.

For all its brevity and headlong rush of events, Macbeth is a multi-layered, enormously dense piece of theatre. This heady mixture of regicide, bloody tyranny, supernatural prophecies and apparitions, underscores a failure of morality in the face of "vaulting ambition" and mindless caprice. While examining the philosophy of evil and free will, the play also deals with the fragility of human social organization. Tyranny, anarchy and a breakdown of social order, the play seems to be saying, lie just around the corner if the fine balance between enlightened rule, social cohesion and the exercise of power, is lost

David's key for this adaptation rested on a fatal tri-partite combination: a Macbeth who, for all his heroism in battle, is the embodiment of human weakness in the face of uncontrollable political/personal ambition; a Lady Macbeth who, no traditional "fiend-like queen", is a capricious, spoiled child/woman, who wants the crown, the kingdom and riches now, without considering for a moment the possible consequences of it all; and the Witches, who, as an embodiment of the pervasive evil that lurks behind every facet of human affairs, constantly seek chinks in mankind's moral armor, and take on Macbeth as a great challenge. To this dark soup we have to add one more important ingredient: the incredibly passionate bond between the two lead characters, which, under the circumstances, is a recipe for disaster.


Tibor Palffy – Macbeth		The Witches- Hilda Peter, Alfred Nagy, Gyöngyi Pal Ferenczi		Gizella Kicsid, Lady Macbeth

The large cast is headed by two superbly talented actors: Palffy Tibor is a passionate, tormented, and ultimately courageous Macbeth, and Gizella Kicsid, who strikes an extraordinary balance between the spoiled child and the mature woman. They are supported by a wonderful cast, including among other the colorful Hecate – Levente Nemes – and his/her bevy of Witches, Hilda Peter, Alfred Nagy and Gyongyi Ferenczi; a sober, reasoned Banquo played by Attila Diozegi, a droll Porter played by Tibor Szabo, and a powerful eminence grise – the Bleeding Captain – played by Laszlo Darvas. An unusual aspect of this production was the introduction of the ghost-like character of the Child: the Child the Macbeths never had, the Child Lady Macbeth threatens to pluck from her nipple and dash to the ground given good enough reason, and the Child who is an ongoing symbol of Macbeth's succession-less demise. The Child's "absent presence" throughout the play emphasizes the depth of the trag-edy on both the personal and the social level.


	The Child (Josef Bolazs Opra) and the Porter (Tibor Szabó)

For this production Miriam Guretzky (David's collaborator on The Dybbuk and The Bacchae) designed a monumental dried-blood-red set composed of walls that break open into doors and windows, providing a visual correlative to the corruption of order and the seepage of evil into human affairs. With Guretzky's striking mélange of period and modern costumes, choreographer Vava Stefanescu's radical choreography, and the highly expressive lighting design by Yaron Abulafia, both of which utilize all the potential of the vast, permeable space, the production of Macbeth is a thoroughly modern adaptation.


The mad scene - Palffy Tibor and Gizella Kicsid		The death of Macbeth

Photographs of the production by Zsolt Bogdan of the Tamasi Aron Theatre

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