Full disclosure, if I had to choose between ‘fluffy white tutu’ ballet and modern choreographies, I would four times out of five choose modern. The Royal New Zealand’s Macbeth is definitely modern and, while maybe, it’s not entirely ‘ballet’, it is fun and appeals to a wider, new audience market.

Fun is perhaps not a word usually associated with the Scottish Play, and I’ve gone back and forth in my mind about whether to describe it as such, but that word popped into my mind several times during the performance, so I decided I should.

The drama of Christopher Gordon’s soundscape builds tension that flips over into anxiety and even stress at various stages. It’s definitely not a ‘traditional’ ballet score, but it weaves in and out of the main character’s energy and gives the dancers clear direction as to movement and rhythm. Its heaviness rebounds off the steely structure of the set (by Jon Buswell), reflecting onto the dancers as they move around the stage.

The lighting, also by Jon Buswell, adds to this subliminal weight, but there is a particularly beautiful and somehow gentle moment as Lady Macbeth (Katherine Minor) walks down the stairs from her bath to greet her husband.

Macbeth is a tricky story to tell without words (although there are a few spoken words in this ballet), and if the programme didn’t have an explanation, it would have been a little hard to follow what was happening. As I watched the choreographic story of a weak man, who holds too much power which he hasn’t earned, I pondered other examples of this in our social and political environment – nothing really changes. In this story, a weak man is enabled and encouraged by a clever woman who, constrained by the patriarchy, can’t own the power herself. Whether she would be any more likely to prioritise the good of society over the prestige and self-advancement than he is is a question that will remain unanswered.

Prior and Laurynas Vejalis (Macbeth) have some beautiful duets with an emphasis on displays of strength and power. Some of the movement feels unwieldy, but is offset by moments of tenderness and pleading between these two dancers. Lady Macbeth also has a lovely duet with Duncan (Kihiro Kusukami), and the trio of Lennox (Gretchen Steimle), Ross (Jemima Scott) and Angus (Callahan Laird) is striking. Banquo (Ruby Ryburn) is a treat to watch throughout. (I thoroughly enjoyed the gender fluidity of the cast in this performance.)

The influencers (Ema Takahashi, Rose Xu and Shaun James Kelly) are hectic and completely mad. They shriek and writhe and posture, building an overall sense of drama and doom at key moments throughout the performance and make me think of seagulls, zombies and dogs. The assassins (Jake Gisby and Timothy Ching) are staunch without becoming caricatures, and the fight scene with Banquo in the bar is one of the best.

The last scene is powerful. We have become accustomed to the starkly glittering steel set turning to reveal lush red curtains, so when it opens to reveal ghostly figures, with Macduff (Zacharie Dun) at centre to mete out the justice he believes Macbeth deserves, we are primed for – but still startled by – Macbeth’s death. Fleance (Liam Templeton) placing the billiard ball in Macbeth’s dead hand is the final psychopathic gesture we all needed to complete this macabre journey.

There are subtleties in the costuming that I also appreciated – the chorus wears shades of grey at the dinner party and then all black in the celebration of Macbeth’s rise to power. Lady Macbeth begins in soft cream, changing to black, then red, before her final scene in white.

Perhaps none of this sounds like a ‘fun’ show, but I came away with a sense that RNZB is working hard to make work that will appeal to a new audience, and that this telling of Macbeth is that. It has elements of contemporary dance and musical theatre, as well as – of course – being a retelling of one of the most familiar Western literary works. It might not appeal to traditional audiences or ballet purists, but the audience I was part of loved it and that matters just as much. 

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“What’s done is done.”

After two hours and twenty minutes of the most engrossing live theatre I’ve seen in decades, the Royal New Zealand Ballet Company’s Macbeth is indeed done. The mostly full house at the Kiri Te Kanawa Theatre on opening night seemed pleased, though, with audiences in Aotearoa, it’s sometimes difficult to tell. I, for one, was on my feet hootin’ and hollerin’ my appreciation the moment the recently deceased and bloodied king reappeared for his solo call with others joining the standing ovation as the cast onstage grew in size. If ever there was a show with its genesis on these shores that deserved the mob to rise as one, it’s this Macbeth.

So ‘bravo’ to all (and a special ‘brava’ for Lady M who was also outstanding) from me and mine.

Audacious vision, selfless innovation, and downright chutzpah has seen the Royal New Zealand Ballet embark on a five-year project they’ve rightly called The Haythorne Circle (named for the company’s longest serving artistic director Harry Haythorne MBE) whose goal is one new major work per year, and Macbeth is it for 2026.

It’s money well spent, and, in my view, the future looks bright.

So, bring it on!

Choreographer Alice Topp has been haunted by Macbeth since childhood, drawing on productions she attended over the years including one in Oldenburg, Germany, and the renowned, immersive work Sleep No More as developed by British company Punchdrunk, where the play is reinterpreted ‘using a dark, cinematic lens’, incorporating elements of film noir, Hitchcockian suspense, and historical witch trials.

No surprise, then, that Topp was impressed with that.

Everyone was.

Jump, masked, to 2020 and lockdown provided Topp with the opportunity to work with friend and colleague Jon Buswell on the visuals for a narrative ballet based on Shakespeare’s tragic work (and her favourite) and so this Macbeth was born.

Personally, mine has been a different journey, one peppered with cheesy witches, confused storylines, clunky fights, and mindless deaths: Shakespeare at his worst. I’ve loathed the play since school and told everyone whose ears I’ve happily bent, exactly that. Flick forward twenty-five years, however, and actors in my company challenged my perspective and I was forced to re-read the script.

I think they said I was a coward for hiding from a play they all wanted to do.

So, I read it.

Epiphany called, I loved it, staged an outdoor production in 1996 with all Middleton’s mystical additions, and it took off like a rocket … or should I say like the twenty-foot-high burning pentacle that accompanied Middleton’s psychedelic procession of kings, and which saw the police called on two occasions.

So, when Topp’s Macbeth started turning up in my newsfeed, to be frank, I was over the moon. I had my reservations – I’d seen a modern dress production (dinner suits and party frocks) at the Globe in 1998 that was less than memorable, and I couldn’t see those costumes working any better here, but everything else looked very promising indeed.

I wondered how literal the narrative would be, would Shakespeare be evident, I wondered how well today’s political chicanery would fit as promised, and what the music would be like? It seemed like a big ask – new score, modern dress, all new choreography, tech wizardry, touring – and so many historical pits to fall into.

Like ‘The Scottish Play’ mythos. Does it still apply if it’s a ballet? Do I need my’ angels and ministers of grace’ to defend me even when reviewing it?

I had my misgivings but was excited anyway,

This Macbeth is simply breathtaking.

Profound, true to the Bard (well, mostly), exotic, erotic, Mar-a-Lago on steroids (Jon Buswell, sets and lighting), with a score to absolutely die for (Christopher Gordon), and clothes (Aleisa Jelbart) to match. You can work miracles with a tux and a party frock after all; I was wrong about that too.

I loved every intense second of it, the relentless arc from the witchy predictions of The Influencers (‘Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and King hereafter’) to Lady M’s onstage suicide, on to Macbeth’s inevitable, and frankly horrific, death.

All so casual, but all so real.

The show was simply spoiler after spoiler after spoiler, like a cricketer batting in the highlights.

In Shakespeare’s text, Malcolm tells us that Lady Macbeth ends her own life, but they (Shakespeare and Malcolm) fail to provide details as to the manner of her death. Similarly, Holinshed’s Chronicles, the central source for Shakespeare’s narrative, provides no clarification either. Holinshed has Macbeth’s real-life wife, Gruoch (Lady Macbeth), disappear from the narrative after urging her husband toward regicide. Her death is not acknowledged in any historical sources, and this is bliss for choreographer Topp because she has license to do as she pleases, and she does. Lady Macbeth’s psychological unravelling and suicide are high points in the danced narrative just as they should be.

High points, however, that pale in comparison to the death of Macbeth himself, which again is exactly as it should be. Unlike his lady wife, Shakespeare tells us exactly how Macbeth dies and Topp replicates this to a tee, blood motif, stabbing metaphors and all.

A spoiler, yes, but my lips are sealed as to how, so you’ll have to see the show yourself to find out.

Outstanding work, Alice Topp, simply outstanding.

Christopher Gordon’s score is magnificent aural storytelling and absolutely locked into Topp’s rhythm, power, and pace. It’s a style tour de force sliding from beat generation clarinet and haunting alto sax to 1990’s eastern European neo-Nazi bands like Freikorps, Spreegeschwader, and Stahlgewitter. The result is the perfect marriage between dancer and composer via the medium of Topp’s exquisite choreography.

Hamish McKeich conducts the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and string ensemble creating the nuanced and eclectic soundscape that is evocative of the emotional, psychological, and physical travel of the work and it’s all eminently danceable.

Well done, that man (and his team).

Jon Buswell’s sets are so good they do their job without being ‘look at me’ flashy, but they are flash in the most majestic way.

The modern political context fits perfectly into Shakespeare’s narcissistic, ambition-soaked bloodbath and, given the breakdown of the lawful order we are currently living through, it’s absolutely perfect.

Scary, but perfect.

WWIII anyone?

All that’s missing is Kaitlan Collins’ commentary.

Topp’s choreography, made real by the very best of dancers, is rich in repeated imagery and subtle continuity threads that pull the narrative together and drive it forward. The bloody hands as crown, the stress on the head, neck, and hair, the spinning and twisting, the turning and turning ‘in a widening gyre’ away from the centre sends us messages from the chaos of Washington in 2026, from 1606 and the Bard himself, and, finally, from a braw, post-battle heath in the mists of 11^th century Scottish highlands.

To digress (slightly), Yeats, in The Second Coming, expresses how historical and societal dynamics can expand beyond human control, ultimately resulting in instability and chaos, how ‘the falcon cannot hear the falconer’, how Macbeth, an otherwise good king, loses contact with his own moral compass and the result is widespread lawlessness and anarchy.

Sound familiar?

It should do.

This Macbeth is a jigsaw, complete and unrelenting, art as it should be, and I don’t recall taking a breath from start to finish.

As with all Shakespeare no one character controls the narrative, not even Hamlet, and certainly not Mr and Mrs McB. They are reliant on others, and the story line of Macbeth is no different. Things get out of control as easily in Macbeth world as they do in the real world, one day you’re quietly trying to become king, you surround yourself with sycophants, and suddenly you’ve started WWIII and no-one gives a rat’s arse about your bloody ballroom anymore.

Branden Reiners as Macbeth is perfection. His grasp of the role is outstanding, his brutality primal, his political nous duplicitous, flawed, yet unyielding. but at the same time, Reiners is deeply sensual. At his best when paired early with Ana Gallardo Lobaina as Lady M where we see a side of him that only comes to the fore again after her death when there is a moment of profound grief that echoes forwards and backwards through time.

Ana Gallardo Lobaina as Lady M embodies all the blocks that Shakespeare builds her from, ambition, she’s ruthless and manipulative, strong-willed, yet she’s also human, fragile and vulnerable which makes her suicide really work. Shakespeare has it happen offstage, but Topp makes us watch like the voyeurs we truly are. It’s moving in a way that’s complex to describe, oddly erotic but shocking too, because we care about her which is rare among the often-contorted performances of those attempting Lady M, which reminds us that Shakespeare never created characters that don’t have multiple dimensions, he just leaves it to the artist to find them.

Clever Alice Topp. Clever Ana Gallardo Lobaina.

Macbeth’s historical wife Gruoch had every reason to want Duncan dealt to because he killed her father in his own quest for the throne and I like to think Topp allowed this knowledge to feed the links she’s created between the action and the guilt that drive Macbeth’s spouse. It’s certainly refreshing to see a more human picture of Lady M emerge than the usual terrifying, one-dimensional figure.

Kihiro Kusukami’s Banquo is also everything we, and the narrative, need, both Topp’s storyline and Shakespeare’s tragic tale.

Banquo is a steadfast ally to Macbeth and an honourable warrior, which works in sharp contrast to Macbeth’s shallow heroism, ambition and deceit. Banquo upholds his ethical principles and prioritizes the well-being of the realm while Macbeth, unwittingly. casts his principles down the medieval long drop and focusses, Trumplike, only on himself.

More Mike Kelly than Pete Hegseth, that’s for sure.

Aware that the Influencers prophecy concerning his descendants makes him a threat to Macbeth’s authority, his eventual betrayal by Macbeth is inevitable and is staged with wildly creative panache.

Tragedy defines Banquo’s narrative trajectory and when his ghost appears at Macbeth’s banquet to hold him to account in a scene part Last Supper part Rocky Horror, Macbeth’s deeds come home to roost big time surrounded by turmoil, discarded clothing, and broken crockery.

Worthy of special mention are Banquo’s paid assassins danced by Jake Gisby and Timothy Ching in an extended scene in a pool room where they chase and murder Banquo but facilitate his son Fleance’s escape. They’re quite splendid and the prolonged attack has its payoff in spades at the very end of the evening.

Sorry, no spoiler, no pack drill.

Zacharie Dun dances Macduff with emotional brilliance in a memorable cameo reminiscent of Greek tragedy. Shakespeare makes it easy for him by giving him, ‘my children too’, but Dun has no such verbal anchor in Topp’s ballet and must credibly take us from this to, ‘I must also feel it as a man; but I will also be a man of action’ as he puts his profound personal grief on hold in favour of driving to the end of what is now his narrative and his ultimate revenge on the King. Dun wrings our withers just enough to enable us to feel for, and with him, in his grief.

Absolutely top-notch work.

Critical to Shakespeare’s moral tale of ambition thwarted are the ‘witches’ on the withered heath who wind Macbeth’s clock and set it running. Reinvented by Topp as 21^st century Influencers – Kirby Selchow, Ruby Ryburn, and Shaun James Kelly – these modern supernatural’s with their flashing cell phones and their gazillions of online followers are a perfect foil for Shakespeare’s wrinkled ones in this modern adaptation. I thought it was pure genius but the lady I sat next to really wanted pointy hats and cackling which, of course, the witches never were. In 11^th century Scotland, just as today, the ‘witches’ would simply have been three wise, older women, from the nearest village, dabbling, as we all do, with things we don’t quite understand, exposing the supernatural being in each of us. Think Ena Sharples and Minnie Caldwell from ‘60’s ‘Coronation Street’ and you’ll be closer to Shakespeare’s truth than Roald Dahl ever got.

Don’t know Ena and Minnie? Look them up, I’m not doing everything for you.

So, in my book, Topp’s Macbeth is a welcome new direction in the evolution (growing up) of the Royal New Zealand Ballet. Russell Kerr, Harry Haythorne, and Matz Skoog would all undoubtedly approve, Jonty would want to be an Influencer, and, as an audient, I’m just so excited for the future.

There’s certainly nothing wrong with powdered wigs and blue satin coats – the lovely woman I sat next to loves The Magic Flute – and we can have that, The Nutcracker, and challenging new work too. Though it’s never actually advisable, we can dance and chew gum at the same time because, like babies and bathwater, as a metaphor it works perfectly well as long as we don’t actually do it. Shakespeare didn’t envisage Fleance as a skinny teen in the blazer and long grey shorts of Ben Johnson College either, but it works, and good old artistic license mostly still passes muster even with the classics police which means anything (and everything) remains on the table (wink wink Alice Topp, what’s next?)

Assuming we all survive WWIII or Trump’s next distraction from the Epstein files, that is.

In a country where not rocking the boat is a national pastime, it’s good to have art that grabs us and doesn’t let go until we’ve gurgled our tincture of ‘this is what comes next’ and spluttered our support. The Haythorne Circle envisages New Zealand work on the world stage, and the UK and Europe would dine out on Macbeth as though it had five Michelin stars.

I suspect Tamaki Makaurau Auckland audiences will too.

Good on RNZB for ‘screwing its courage to the sticking place’ and doing what’s both right and best for our arts consumers because Macbeth is a brave work, the finest example of artistic collaboration, all of which ends end up with excellence on the green, and cheering people on their feet.

What’s better than that?

(I’ll still think twice before mentioning the Thane of Glamis by name in the dressing room or the theatre though, ‘old habits’, and all that).

Copyright © in the review belongs to the reviewer

I did not need to swot up on the story of Macbeth to believe that narrative nuance does not belong solely to verbal language but can also reside within dance. This season from the Royal New Zealand Ballet is an ambitious and visually assured exploration of how classical form continues to stretch toward contemporary language.

Costumes by Aleisa Jelbart are predominantly monochrome. Grey-suited figures suggest the rigid, male-dominated structures of Shakespeare’s time, occasionally punctuated by red signalling blood, royalty, or excess.

Lines written on the cyclorama introduce each act, gesturing toward text without relying upon it. The first phrase, “somewhat wicked this,” opens Act I with three dancers portraying a contemporary version of witchery, cynically named in the programme as “influencers.” Yet their movement is neither nuanced nor particularly sinister. It is spasmodic and sexualised, displaying technical prowess within an anomaly of control. The use of cell phones reads as a distraction rather than dramaturgy. They are a segue to another vocabulary to acclimate to, rather than one reflective of the work’s darker intentions.

Christopher Gordon’s score, performed by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra under Hamish McKeich, is loud, rhythmic, jazz-inflected and insistent, surging the choreography forward. Jon Buswell’s scenic design is large, ornate and frequently changing and fitting for the evening’s ambition, though overburdening the dancers at times as they negotiate its visual scale between scenes.

The choreography oscillates between theatrical tableau and emotional abstraction. Over-dramatised sequences around a long table, faintly suggestive of the Last Supper and of spectacle-driven choreography, give way to a compelling core of duet crescendos. It is here that Alice Topp’s movement language finds substance and coherence. First, in the partnering between Macbeth and Duncan, lyrical lifts and seamless twists establish a kinetic intimacy that feels grounded rather than decorative, introducing the audience to Topp’s carefully crafted moving landscapes.

The evening ultimately pivots on the central pairing. Macbeth’s arc from hesitation to complicit murder, to securing power, and finally to fear of losing it, is rendered with bright intelligence by Branden Reiners and Ana Gallardo Lobaina. Their artistry resists reductive theatrical gestures. In their partnering, particularly in the lifts, something more nuanced emerges in whispered calibration rather than the declarative display. Where earlier moments lean toward demonstrative emotional signalling of Duncan’s death, destabilising the natural order, these two dancers locate something far more intimate. It is a marriage eroded by greed. Trust remains visible in their technique even as trust dissolves within the narrative.

Banquo’s murder introduces the work’s most significant dramaturgical test. Less elaborate and more graphically signalled through Netflix-like projection, the scene shifts the tone again toward spectacle. Yet Banquo is no incidental victim. He heard the witches’ prophecy. In Shakespeare’s construction, his ghost appears at a crowded banquet, not in isolation but in company. Macbeth’s guilt, in this rendition, becomes visible in the shared social space. We see his composure splinter before witnesses.

Banquo’s ghost should therefore sharpen paranoia rather than merely signal remorse. Here, however, the emphasis remains external. Theatrical blood and stylised violence undercuts the psychology of exposure before the community. Even in the final scene, when Macbeth is killed, somewhat incongruous with what appears to be a billiard cue, the consequence of corruption reads as aesthetic rather than tragic. Narrative rupture feels designed rather than deeply human. A lingering solo by Lady Macbeth threads us back into the contemporary version.

This work of Macbeth is bold, imperfect and fully alive. It does not abandon story in its reach toward contemporising, but tests how fully the body dancing can be trusted to carry it. For all its moments of excess, the production remains a compelling invitation to consider how narrative can reside in movement as powerfully as in words. At its strongest and in the quieter architecture of partnership, it reminds us that ballet evolves not by discarding the past, but by speaking of its technical traces anew. Macbeth is a season well worth witnessing.

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Choreographer Alice Topp wrangles the complexity of Shakespeare into a balletic version of Macbeth for the Royal New Zealand Ballet. This epic production triumphs on many levels, to reward the audience with a thrilling evening of dance, music and design.

Utilising the language of the body, rather than the spoken word, to portray the intricacies of plot and character development is a massive challenge. Throughout the work Topp, in collaboration with the dancers, has honed a unique movement language to serve as a vehicle for the plot. She has updated the story into a recognisable present where smart phones and insidious “influencers” are ubiquitous, the political landscape is volatile and dysfunction wrangles power. She is assisted dramaturgically by Ruth Little to make sure the plot is clear, for the most part succeeding in this. [More]

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A world premiere and opening night of the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts. The St James Theatre foyer is buzzing, and a red carpet takes everyone in the audience into the theatre. A nice touch. Excitement is in the air, and we are not disappointed.                                         

A commissioned score by composer Christopher Gordon is recorded, but with a live String Ensemble from the NZSO. Conducted by the irrepressible master Hamish McKeich, this is a big part of the production’s power and success. Like the story and the choreography, styles are mixed and incorporate metal-band orchestral jazz and genres. The pace is urgent. Motifs recur and as the plot tangles, so does the score give us more time. I am sitting central and near the front – it is persistent, compelling and loud!

Macbeth is a story we all think we know. This production takes the big hits of friendship, loyalty, greed, treachery, deceit, betrayal, murder and duplicity, and puts them front and centre to constantly challenge both Macbeth’s and our own moral compass. We are hooked in and manipulated as we follow the dangerous depths and darkness of humanity.

Shakespeare survives, and Macbeth is as relevant today as when first written. The choreography by Alice Topp is tight, slick, and purposeful, with outstanding use of classical and stylistic genres. The design and lighting by Jon Buswell, with costumes by Aleisa Jelbart, are superb.  The metallic harshness of bronze/ silver/ gold set against opulent blood-red rich velvet drapes cleverly reflects the emotional narrative. The sensuous fall of satin and the sophistication of glossy society fashion give resonance to the pretence and passions onstage. This is a dream team who have produced a ‘tour de force’. 

The dancers deliver and dance the gamut of emotions required by this twisting plot. They are brilliant with technical virtuosity, effortlessly sublimated to the story throughout. Voice is incorporated and haunts as if coming from the real world? A world of social media and paparazzi. The Influencers, danced by Kirby Selchow, Ruby Ryburn and Shaun James Kelly, replace the Witches. Our wits are thus confused, and we are all implicit in treachery,  all consumed by Macbeth’s dilemma,  all covertly aligned to the obsessions and madness of covetous wives.

In a standout ballet with standout performances from a completely impassioned cast, a star is born in Branden Reiners. Ana Gallardo Lobaina as Lady Macbeth is his perfect foil, and the dramatic progression as their relationship deteriorates is danced in a series of beautiful pas de deux in which movement,  emotion, contact, passions and tensions are implicit. Both the dance and the dancers run parallel, break, crumble and ultimately are destroyed. The opening long table of political intrigue reminds me of the Green Table by Kurt Jooss – a touchstone dance work first danced in 1932!  The table is a dominant physical connector in the key male relationships. Banquo (Kihiro Kusukami ), Duncan ( Laurynas Vejalis) and Macduff (Zachaire Dun ) all deliver strong foils to Macbeth as they negotiate, plot, feast, kill and are killed.

Macbeth is a production that demands to be experienced and a triumphant premiere for the Royal New Zealand Ballet.

Ultimately, the night is brilliantly forged by many, and all credit must go to RNZB Director, Ty King-Wall, and to the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of Arts, but the standing ovation and the roar of applause are for Macbeth:
Macbeth the script
Macbeth the music
Macbeth the choreography
Macbeth the ballet
Macbeth the man – Bravo Branden Reiners.

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“Bleed, bleed poor country! Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure. For goodness dare not check thee”. – Macduff (Act 4, Scene 3).

Power is a funny thing. People thrive, and people die. People get displaced and people get ordered to move on; ‘Find somewhere else to be homeless!’ The St James Theatre is completely brimming on the opening night of the Royal New Zealand Ballet and the Western Australian Ballet’s Macbeth. Lights sparkle and twinkle, welcoming ticket holders only to step onto the red carpet and enter the opulence. It’s a stark contrast to the group of homeless people congregating at the bus stop outside.

I wonder how Macbeth feels about the homeless.

Three witches, disguised as modern-day influencers, addicted to their phones, addicted to the gossip and addicted to the prophecies, open the performance, shrilling and shrieking their way between sickled feet and jutting torsos. Christopher Gordon’s music is slick in its complexities, complementing Alice Topp’s bold, monumental choreography. The influencer’s attitudes are protrusive and funky. Truth speakers. Deceivers. The title ‘Macbeth’ slowly emerges in the haze above the settled New Zealand Symphony Orchestra’s string quartet, like an opening to a movie, theatrical and modern, manifesting Jon Buswell’s set and lighting design as my personal favourite element of the evening.

A night gown floats on the sounds of violins. The first pas de deux is cherished, delicately intertwining the limbs of Principal Anna Gallardo Lobaina and Soloist Branden Reiners. Our first intimate viewing of the Macbeth’s together. Lobaina’s charisma is electric and pulses entirely throughout her Lady Macbeth development, whilst Reiner’s fierce sense of character cradles the original Macbeth storyline. Megan Adam’s intimacy direction is to be applauded!

There’s lots of wonderful acting from the collection of grey suits and dinner guests, morphing in and around each other with technical ease. It’s fun and flirty! Like walking down Lambton Quay on a bustling Wednesday lunchtime, except most of the public servants have lost their jobs and all the restaurants have shut down.

The production is a well-oiled machine. Much like the Government, perhaps? Crome-like walls turn; a bathtub appears above a set of stairs, and soon enough, a grand dining hall emerges too. The wall around the stage is now dressed in thick red velvet curtains, and the air feels thick. I feel quite sick. Sick because I can’t get the image of what happened outside before the performance out of my head. The juxtaposition of audience members debunking political nuances inside an elaborate theatre feels almost planned against Wellington’s complex nightlife. Perhaps an attempt to exhibit the consequence of people in power ditching emergency housing. Maybe I’m the only one who noticed.

Themes of red run rampant. Blood dripping in the bath, down Lady Macbeth’s disturbed body and seemingly down the back of our throats as we lap up the Scottish corruption. You, too, could put on the crown and feel the power. Because it’s all just a game, right? The power. The politics. Some will win, and some will lose. As long as Chuck and Mary* feel safe, and New Zealand’s homeless community get moved out one by one to the non-existent emergency housing complex. What if Macbeth doesn’t lose his moral compass? Yet the fall to the bottom is inevitable, and literal, with blood staining the downfall. A child watches over. The curtain closes, and applause erupts.

Thank you, Macbeth, for compelling our stages in time to reflect on the political landscape of New Zealand. Art has and always will be a political statement. Even if you’re just there for the sparkly lights. But maybe that’s just me. “All hail, Macbeth”.

* www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pm-christopher-luxon-kicks-off-week-after-crackdown-on-rough-sleeping-nz-facing-new-us-tariff-hike/6QNKBE4JSNECBPWIQU35OLY2KY/

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