Macbeth – Barbican/Third World Bun Fight

Ok, I almost need to draw you a diagram for this one.  You know Shakespeare, right?  Macbeth, with the witches etc?  Well Verdi wrote an opera of it in 1847.  And then it was staged by a South African company at the Barbican.  But they staged it as if they were a group of Congolese refugees, who had found the costumes and props of a travelling troupe from the colonial period.  Still following?  Ok!

Brett Bailey is the man behind Third World Bun Fight, and also the much more controversial Exhibit B, an exploration of black exploitation through living vignettes, which was shut down in London due to protests.  In fact, I passed the protests on the way in to see this.  Macbeth, however, did not attract the same level of media interest, and nary an eyebrow was raised at his ethnicity and capacity to direct what was staged as a black African story.

I think the premise behind this version of Macbeth worked, and it was certainly never boring.  The staging was very interesting: it opened with a chorus in contemporary dress, and the witches were women under threat of machetes.  The set design was minimal in terms of structure, but different environments and backgrounds were projected onto it to indicate different places.  I really rather enjoyed the fact that Macbeth’s crown was in the form of a big red fist on the top of his head.  The surtitles had also been translated into contemporary language in keeping with the informal treatment of the opera in general, and updated to the Congolese setting.  Any opera which includes the line “Fuck off, evil spirit” definitely gets my vote, but I wasn’t sure whether the Italian had also been adapted to suit.

The light which the various layers of the play/opera/company/setting within setting cast on the story of Macbeth was also very interesting.  For me, it brought to the fore that it really is a story of superstition, power, corruption and violence, in a way that hasn’t been so apparent when I’ve seen more traditional versions.  The performers were all given Congolese refugee backgrounds in addition to the roles they were playing, and the fact that the action was pushed forward by (white) representatives of multinational corporations provided yet another new element to what is essentially a very familiar story.  As an aside, these evil businessmen were played in costumes which reminded me of the beaky faces and guignol-like puppets I saw last year in A Season in the Congo at the a Young Vic – it seems there’s a bit of room for very theatrical costumes for black actors playing unnamed white characters in plays set in the Congo.

Anyway, as this is a review of an opera, I should also mention the music and singing.  Both were excellent.  The full operatic score had been adapted to a twelve-piece group who played on the stage and seemed very engaged and delighted to be there.  Owen Metsileng as Macbeth and Nobulumko Mngxekeza as Lady Macbeth were both committed, innovative and talented.  Mngxekeza in particular brought out both the humour and the tragedy of her character, and handled well the range of emotion needed for the part, as well as a turn at karaoke at one point.

It was a pretty complicated setup overall, but also had a simplicity and a way of stripping things back that meant it didn’t seem too overwhelming.  Most of all, it was fresh and different, and definitely didn’t have me hoping the main character would hurry up and die, as I have been known to do in very traditional operas on occasion…  I think I would have liked to see Exhibit B as well as a comparison of Bailey’s treatment of artistic forms and complex history, but I think I chose the safer option in the end and had a very nice evening out of it as a result.