Macbeth
Director: Brett Bailey
Writer: Brett Bailey, Fabrizio Cassol (music)
Based on: William Shakespeare‘s play Macbeth / Giuseppe Verdi‘s opera
Cast: Owen Metsileng, Nobulumko Mngxekeza, Otto Maidi
Part of: Wiener Festwochen

Plot:
Macbeth (Owen Metsileng) is a warlord in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Witches foretell him that he will achieve great things. Hungry for power, Macbeth and his wife (Nobulumko Mngxekeza) are intrigued by the prospect – and what better place to ruthlessly rise than a country at war? So Macbeth succeeds, at least at first.

I’m not the world’s biggest opera fan, but I was very much intrigued by the concept of this one. And the actual thing very much does the concept justice: the music is cool the stage and setting awesome and I as completely engrossed.

It was rather by accident that I saw two very different Macbeth versions – first Kurosawa‘s, now this – in a very short span. But in both cases I was surprised by the apparent universality of the story. Whether its feudal Japan or Civil War DRC, the story fits just as well as in its original context. I guess where there’s power-hungry men, there’s war, there’s Macbeth in one way or another. Fascinating.

On the music side, there were interesting adaptations as well: Cassol reworked Verdi’s music to include African elements (and the No Borders Orchestra that was playing did an excellent job). The entire thing was shortened down to about 90 minutes and apart from the three leads, everything was sung by a choir, representing mostly the civilians. It sounded great.

And I really liked the costumes and the stage design – combining Verdi’s classical opera singing with modern elements, and never trying to be anything but African. Bold choices were made here, especially for the European context I saw this in – and they completely pay off.

There were also some things that I didn’t appreciate as much. Above all was a rape that was just casually thrown in. I’m aware that there is a huge amount of sexual violence in the Congo and that it would be almost irresponsible to talk about the violence there without the sexual violence. But when you do that, you actually need to talk about it and not just throw it in the ring and then not do anything with it.

But other than that, there were just a few small things and the rest of the show, I was absolutely into it. Including goosebumps.

Summarizing: Pretty awesome.