Screening Macbeth

I have a general aversion to watching Shakespearian tragedies onstage. I find the reading a meatier experience (for all its length), and almost always when in the theater, I catch myself only waiting for the best quotes and soliloquies to happen—wondering how they will be said, hoping for beautiful nuances from how I would’ve delivered them in private, imbued with more knowledge, emotion and more depth. To the UP Department of English and Comparative Literature’s adaptation of Screen: Macbeth I carried that aversion, but was more hopeful—after all, the renowned Anton Juan, Jr. was directing it, after his successful and controversial run of Information for Foreigners last September at the UP.

And true enough, like Information for Foreigners, when stepping in to the studio theater that was a temporary home for Macbeth (and the screens), one is immediately brought into a similar world of, or in chaos, directed to take this or that seat in a sea of chairs lodged where the cross of a stage isn’t—a foreshadowing for things to come, an experience more akin to taking a stand, for there are specific things you see from where you are in the box setup, and naturally, things you don’t.

Indeed, point of view matters a lot in this adaptation of Macbeth. There are the points of view of the audience, each of the characters’, and the screen’s—on which are projected not only backgrounds that accentuate the bloodshed or aid the play in producing emotional stimuli, but also provide points on which we draw the play’s contemporary connection to Philippine living. Characters that figure in the news come alive on the screen, and we recognize the likeness of human folly then and now, and there in Macbeth’s reality and here, in ours. Our state is run by strong men who figure in battles and banquets and that’s how we see them in the media, but now the screen becomes an embodiment of their human condition—their fears, dreams and their corruption, especially, in light of recent events in national politics. The three witches in Macbeth are always a joy to watch and it is interesting how Juan approached their characters, and how they delivered. What they spoke remains unknown to me, like it is to Macbeth, but I can only imagine that their speaking in tongues is where they relive certain myths that attest to the imperfection of humanity, further localizing it to the Philippine regions—the places our leaders don’t often see, the marginalized, the off-centers where much potential is held but from where few things are heard.

There are many things in the play to cause discomfort—even fear—in the audience. Props fall from everywhere, characters appear at different spots and walk around sending chills down the spines of those seated near the white sheets that temporarily demarcate the world of the theater, and even the swords come within an arm’s length of several of the front row seaters. Like in most Shakespeare tragedies brought onstage, so much depends on the visual rather than the lines, and so the play banks on this visual treat with which they hope to provide an impetus for the audiences to think differently about issues both of personal and national interest, a hope that the play could capitalize on the viewers’ unease, for them to take part in the discussion of these matters as expected of students in the University. But this dependence on the visual over the text also becomes problematic, as at times, especially two hours into the play, I find that I am more interested in the project of the production rather than the play itself—I was merely wondering what other tricks were up the cast’s sleeves. In this sense I feel like ambition has trumped realization, but of course Macbeth is a widely staged play and thespians and playwrights of today have stretched it to all sorts of imaginable lengths, so any new experiment is most, and always, welcome.

It’s been three years since I was last in one of the Shakespeare classes of Judy Ick, this production’s dramaturg and most lovely Lady Macbeth. I remember from that time that even the play was already a long time coming, and I am most glad that I was able to see it onstage before leaving the University. I could say, too, that I couldn’t imagine a Lady Macbeth more fitting, more knowledgeable about how one should be played, she is the heart and soul of the play, and lucky for us, this production’s. I have little to say about the acting, which I found exemplary, except for some of the actors’ enunciation of The Bard’s most prized lines. While the three witches conversed and sang in the vernacular, I wasn’t all that sure with what accent the other actors are trying to keep up with. I suppose it comes out of too much expectation from a set of actors trying to keep up with the tandem of Teroy Guzman and Judy Ick, who have perfected their lines and characters beyond mastery. At least by the end of the play, all was well, no blood was shed, and there was only the rain to bear.

Advertisement