Edinburgh's Lowland Hall, specially adapted for the occasion, hosts this technically demanding and rarely staged piece on the terrors of war. Jarzyna's play is the first Polish production to open the event in the festival's history. Jonathan Millls, the Director of the EIF comments:
It was clear to me from the very beginning that there is no better way to inaugurate the Festival, and this great new Scottish cultural hub that it has become, than with the staging of 2008: Macbeth. Jarzyna transforms the horror of treson from various characters of this drama into a universal story that I would call the story of mutual contempt.
Mills emphasises that the Scottish tragedy is an "extraordinary and epic adaptation, prepared on a cinematic scale. It is a technically impressive oeuvre, with a wonderful stage design, visual and pirotechnic effects, which wouldn't fit on any of the Scottish stages. Thus, we decided to build one, in magazine loft space near the airport"
Jarzyna's vision is far from a classical interpretation of the 1606 drama. It is rather a Macbeth variation. Prior to the play's staging in New York, the Polish director commented "I am interested by the fact that a terrible idea surfaces in the mind of one man, and it leads to turning everything upside-down. I believe that this is what Macbeth is about." The production was then staged in the open air, at the Tobacco Warehouse neighbouring the Brooklyn Bridge, and with a view onto Manhattan Island, with the Twin Towers starkly absent. The "2008" in the title refers to this particular staging of the play, which influenced its ultimate shape.
It is an action-packed, violent spectacle, drawing upon contemporary political conflicts in the world to relay the play's metaphor of the struggle for power and ensuing betrayal into the present. Jarzyna's special forces come down on the enemy in an area that is presumably located in the Middle East, led by their fearless commander Macbeth. Jarzyna himself describes the show as "cinematic" in an interview with The Guardian.
The play already has stirred significant interest among Edinburgh audiences. Various reviews in the British press mark the director’s bold esthetic statement and highlight the special setting provided for the Polish production. Following the opening performance on the 11th of August, The Guardian's Andrew Dickinson has compared all 13 interpretations of Shakespeare's famously bloody play and concluded that Jarzyna's production "is the biggest, boldest Macbeth of them all: an adaptation that turns Shakespeare's play into a jarring response to sectarian violence and war in the Middle East, performed in Polish with surtitles". Another Guardian reviewer, Lyn Gardner, calls the says Jarzyna "captures the edgy, nightmarish quality of the play rather brilliantly", comparing the show to a Hollywood blockbuster. Lyn does, however, find the Iraq theme not sufficiently embedded in the story, but still gives the production an overall positive review, concluding,
The overwhelming immensity of the production sometimes dwarfs these fine actors, even when they are projected in close-up on to the side of the towering edifice. For all its flaws, however, this is a boldly memorable take on the play, and surely the only one you'll ever see in which Lady M meets her end by malfunctioning washing machine.
Ian Shuttleworth’s four/five stars review for the Financial Times acknowledges the performance from Cezary Kosiński, whose interpretation of the the title role is as gripping as it is paradoxical. As Shuttleworth reports, the actor keeps a stone face although seldom does he seem in control of his actions. And it is the psychogeography that the journalist finds most perplexing in Jarzyna’s production. Although according to Shuttleworth the setting of the play may evade a strictly logical and linear justification, it provides a new metaphor for Shakespearian supernatural portents, which the he sees replaced by 21st century weaponry, air strikes and horrifying rhythmical noise. Shuttleworth concludes:
Jarzyna’s production may not set the action in a location that is coherent from a real-world perspective, but its psychogeography is gripping. Forces greater than any man, greater even than any army, buffet the current of events one way and another (…) And Macbeth, of course, pays the ultimate price for not having formulated an exit strategy.
A DVD with a special recording of 2008: Macbeth also enjoys its premiere release during the showings in Edinburgh. The play was first staged in May, 2007, with Cezary Kosiński, Aleksandra Konieczna, Danuta Stenka and Tomasz Tyndyk in the original cast. Following the 2008 showings of the play in St. Ann's warehouse in New York, director Grzegorz Jarzyna changed the year in the play’s title from 2007 to 2008, and the production has been staged under this new name ever since. In a talk with the Polityka weekly, Jarzyna revealed the inspiration behind his staging of the Shakespearian drama:
Macbeth’s story makes me think of a cosmic journey right to the heart of darkness, to a place where only Hekate reigns, the goddess of revenge. Macbeth has bogged himself down in bloody morass and reached a point of no return. (…) In this case, evil is the result of his natural need for a sense of mysticism and participation in the world’s fate. The end of his journey is an abstract void.
Showings of 2008: Macbeth are part of the Listen / Touch / See: Polska Arts in Edinburgh programme, which visits the city’s 4 festivals is coordinated by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The 2012 events in Edinburgh offer a total of 180 performances, concerts and installations from the best contemporary Polish artists, offering the widest variety of Polish cultural events in the UK since the Polska Year! project.
2008: Macbeth is on at the Edinburgh International Festival between the 11th - 18th of August. For a full programme of the festival, see the the project’s official website: www.culture.pl/edinburgh
The streaming of 2008: Macbeth which was broadcast live on The Guardian at 8:30 p.m. on the 13th of August will also be available for viewing on the Culture.pl website as of the 2nd of September 2012.
Editor: SRS
Source: press release
Thumbnail credits: "2008: Macbeth", TR Warszawa, photo: Ania Grzelewska