GOBLIN:MACBETH

Bard on the Beach held over until September 24, 2023
Tickets from $30 at 604-739-0559 or www.bardonthebeach.org

Posted August 25, 2023

Bard on the Beach had a runaway hit on its hands even before opening night. For the first time in Bard history, the entire run of a show – GOBLIN:MACBETH – sold out before the show even opened.  An additional week, taking the production up to September 24, has been added and at the time of this posting, there were still seats available. Better get on it if this zany, interactive, goblin-centred Macbeth appeals to you. Otherwise, you might have to travel to Stratford where the show goes in October.

Reviews from the Calgary run are unanimous raves: “Goblin Macbeth is an outlandishly fun and creative spectacle.” (Calgary Guardian). “Goblin:Macbeth is a blast of pure creative genius. Unpredictable, unrestrained and uninhibited, it is the stage equivalent of a theme park funhouse ride.” (Calgary Herald). It’s wildly creative, superbly performed by Wug, Cragva and Moog (whose real identities we are discouraged from revealing), super witty, deliciously wordy and creepily good-looking on Amir Ofek’s King Lear set with all that distressed burlap. The three elegant, black frock coats by Phillip Edwards bravely go against preconceptions about what goblins might wear and the masks – well, more like rubbery head gear that completely covers the head and extends down below the neck – are outrageous hook-nosed, pointy-eared, yellowish works of art by Composite Effects.

When Wug, Cragva and Moog come across a copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare they decide to stage a production (“We will attempt Macbeth”) with the three of them playing all the roles and us being, well, the audience. There are times when one character is talking to another – both played by the same goblin, necessitating running back and forth to carry on the conversation. At one point, it’s a three-way conversation prompting, “Are you gonna help me out here?” to a goblin standing idly by.

Why did they choose Macbeth? “It’s our favourite and it’s the shortest”. Shakespeare’s actual text is interspersed with asides, commentary (“That was a long sentence”, says one. “That was a long thought”, replies another), discussion about rhyming couplets, pronunciation, even a comment about Shakespeare being taken off the school curriculum. My favourite bit? “Knock knock”. “Who’s there?” “Duncan”. “Duncan who?” “What’s Dun Can not be undone.”  This, of course, following the murder of King Duncan by Macbeth.

What is truly amazing about this show, directed and created by Rebecca Northan with Bruce Horak, is how effectively the performers shift from what feels improvisational (but isn’t) to Shakespeare’s actual text. How the tone suddenly changes from poking fun (“Tolkien was an asshole”) to the profundity that is the Bard (“Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow/Creeps in this petty pace from day to day. . . ”). Under all that zaniness breathes the real Scottish play, the play that has held us spellbound for over four hundred years.

But for all its smarts – and they are many – I would rather have seen a production of Macbeth rather than GOBLIN:MACBETH. Northan and Horak are both alumni of Loose Moose, an improvisational, interactive theatre company in Calgary, and those roots are very apparent. But amazing and impressive to me is how Wug, Cragva and Moog get a Bard audience waving branches of fake trees and wiggling their fingers in the air (Birnam Wood, don’t you know), tooting on imaginary trumpets and thundering “Yay” in response to the goblin playing Macduff asking, “Are you with me?”

I did not wiggle my fingers nor did I holler “Yay”. I fear I have not a single playful bone left in my body and no goblin is going to get me pretending to be a tree on the move. Or a tree at all.

However, most did enthusiastically play along and have their funnybones tickled on opening night and hundreds more will throughout the run. Hurry for a ticket if you want one; they won’t last long.