MACBETH to Open Temple Theaters Season in Dystopian Setting
Marcus Giamatti directs the tragedy at Temple's Tomlinson Theater, reimagining the Scottish play after a global apocalypse.
Written by William Shakespeare and directed by Temple Professor Marcus Giamatti, Macbeth will perform at Temple's Tomlinson Theater (1301 W Norris St, Philadelphia PA) from September 25th to October 4th.
After receiving a supernatural premonition, one couple risks everything to seize control of the Scottish crown. As comrades fall and paranoia sets in, the Macbeth's ambition brings them to the height of power and over the edge of their reason. One of Shakespeare's most celebrated tragedies, Macbeth is a timeless story of greed, fate, tyranny, and the cost of unbridled hubris.
Considered one of Shakespeare's most resonant works, Macbeth has been performed for hundreds of years and adapted for the stage and screen many times over. Well known for some of the Bard's most iconic characters and dialogue, it brings the audience into a world of witchcraft, ghostly apparition, and unsettling violence.
For this production, director Marcus Giamatti sets the play in a bleak dystopian future, after a global apocalypse. The action unfolds in a world that is cold and haunted, punished by environmental toxins and resource scarcity. Themes of individual fates framed by darkness are augmented by the feeling of social collapse and a society driven by fear, chaos, violence, and war. When the warrior Macbeth is approached by the Weird Sisters, these supernatural beings invite him to imagine a better world and tempt him into the actions needed to seize it - actions only spurred on by his enterprising wife.
When talking about Macbeth, Giamatti says: "No other tragedy or play of Shakespeare's engulfs us in such illusions or deceptive visions created by the imagination. This story depends on the horror of its own imaginings, the reality of the relationships." He invites the audience to wonder, "How will we put the pieces back together? Can we? Or will the fates continue to play with destiny, seeking another candidate, testing us, until we finally take control of our own fate, and break the cycle."
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