Wyatt Boelens

LCS 353

Amber Day

February 10th, 2019

Macbeth, written by William Shakespeare and performed by the Trinity Repertory, is a

story that regales us with the triumphs and failures that come with love, obsession, lust for

power, wealth, privilege, and conspiracy. This play was originally written to take place in

Scotland in the years surrounding 1050, however the director, Curt Columbus, chose to portray

Macbeth in a contemporary setting to create the illusion that they story of King Macbeth could

be re-told, and still impact the audience, no matter what time period. He wanted to

demonstrate the fact that there are inherent characteristics in human nature and

consciousness that keep us tied to our primal instincts, no matter how sophisticated or smart

we like to thing we are. In the play Macbeth, it is a central theme that we often lose ourselves

in the pursuit of power, and that we will ultimately destroy ourselves, and others, in our

attempts to advance our interests. Greed and corruption are both inherent in human nature,

the director and the Trinity Repertory utilized the contemporary music, dialogue, and attire not

only to attract younger audience members, but to demonstrate the timelessness of these

characteristics in humanity. In my opinion, they did this successfully.

The clearest and most up-front ways the director chose to contemporize this play was

through the utilization of music, costumes, props, and dialogue. I say these four things are the

“clearest” because they are purely sensory observations. Through watching and listening alone
I was easily able to determine what the chronological setting of the production was, and as

somebody who isn’t a Shakespearian scholar or enthusiast, these were the easiest things that

my mind could grasp in the play. The music could be described as electric dance or club music.

It was very upbeat and could certainly not even remotely described as ambient. The music was

typically played during intermission periods, almost to keep the audience excited or awake, or

to keep the cast energized. It felt as if I was in a club in Miami, the music was loud, and strobe

lights were flashing brightly all around the stage and the theater. The lights and music were

used as well partially to mask the actions of the stage crew and cast members getting prepared

for the next scene. To say the least, the music and lights alone kept me wide awake for the

duration of the play.

Other elements that were used to contemporize the play were costumes, props, and

dialogue. As somebody who isn’t an avid play goer, or a Shakespeare historian, some of the

dialogue certainly went over my head so-to-speak. However, I did notice that some words

seemed a little out of place for something written in the 17th century and to have taken place in

the 11th century. Words like “lieutenant”, “gun”, “knife”, and a few other key words stuck out

from the old English script. These words could be used to replace old words like “knight”,

“guard”, “soldier”, “dagger”, “Sword”, and others as well. While I was waiting for the play to

begin, I read some of the program, and noticed that a journalist named Tyler Dobrowsky

mentions “The script will be trimmed down slightly, with some of Shakespeare’s writing cut…. A

hopelessly antiquated word or two will be changed to something that sounds a bit more

familiar to our 2019 ears”. Without reading this I am not sure I would have noticed some of the

small changes to the old English script as the production moved quite quickly through their
dialogues. As I mentioned previously, the use of props and costumes also helped allude to the

contemporary nature of the setting. Guns were the main prop that stood out to me as they

were being used instead of swords and daggers, which was the most obvious deviation from

the traditional story.

Costumes were the most noticeable and clear deviation from the traditional story of

Macbeth. One would expect a Shakespeare play to have a wardrobe with extravagant

Elizabethan dresses, and plush pumpkin pants. However, that was not the case with this

production. Actors and actresses were wearing clothes that belong in todays society, certainly

not representative of 11th century Scotland. The cast members were wearing very American

looking outfits that one would see walking down the street in a progressive city in todays

society like Los Angeles, New York, Miami, or San Francisco. They were almost flamboyantly

dressed at times, all for the purpose of driving home the idea that these Shakespearian

characteristics in human nature are still around with us today.

To expand on the idea of costumes, Macbeth is an excellent example of the

contemporizing of the wardrobe in the play. Macbeth had three major costumes that he wore

in the play for different scenes and settings. One outfit was a military outfit with black boots,

grey pants, and a t-shirt with a camouflage Kevlar vest over top. He wore this in the early

scenes in the play before he kills King Duncan. Another outfit was a pristine white suite that

Macbeth wore during his coronation after he kills King Duncan. Another notable outfit Macbeth

wore was a sleek looking red and black suit with shiny black shoes. It is interesting that he wore

this towards the later part of the play after he begins to find himself enjoying his new found

power as king. The red color of the suit could be interpreted as a metaphor for Duncan’s
murder, and for the fact that red has a sinister yet powerful appeal to it, and I think that this

color fits in well with the plot of the story at the time he was wearing it.

Another notable character with interesting outfits is Lady Macbeth. She had a variety of

outfits and costumes ranging from nightgowns to ballroom type dresses. As a character in the

play who comes off as nobility, or wealthy, she dressed in a weird way to express that wealth

and power. She wore a white dress when she was trying to convince Macbeth to kill king

Duncan, and another dress for Macbeth’s coronation after the murder. But one outfit that Lady

Macbeth wore really jumped out at me. She was wearing sneakers with shiny grey leggings on

that stopped just below her knees, with a tank top underneath a plush white workout jacket.

She seemed to be dressed like some annoying sorority girl, and she came off that way in her

performance. Quite frankly, she sounded and looked like a normal spoiled girl from a wealthy

family in today’s society. She sounded snobby, bratty, whiny, needy, and obsessive. To be blunt,

she seemed like a crazy bitch throughout the duration of the production. She only ever cared

about herself, she made herself feel powerful by stepping on top of those around her, and she

just has an evil heart to put it simply. She did an amazing job as an actress in portraying that

character, because Lady Macbeth stood out more than all the rest, and it was greatly due in

part to her wardrobe.

Throughout the play it was evident that the director intended for this production to be

aimed at my generation. Through the use of electronic club music, strobe lights, the

contemporized wardrobe and props used, the director absolutely succeeded in making the play

a 21st century play. Upon re-reading the program, I found that the same journalist as mentioned

before, Tyler Dobrowsky, had written a small excerpt that I feel excellently describes the reason
why the director chose to portray the story the way that he did. Tyler said; “… there really is a

universal appeal to his work – I’ll never get over how words written hundreds of years ago can

reveal parts of me that I didn’t even know were there; that plays so old and with language so

different from my own, can teach me about my world and my place in it.” I think Tyler

accurately translates the idea that there is a timelessness to Shakespeare’s work, and as long as

directors keep pushing the boundaries of how far into the future these inherent human

characteristics can be demonstrated in a production, we will have Shakespearian plays to be

enthralled with.