The improbable magic of theatre (as discovered by goblins) in Goblin: Macbeth. A review.

By Liz Nicholls, .ca

Three striking, masked figures — pointy ears, black topcoats — stride through the Citadel box office lobby from … the Lee Pavilion? the parking lot? the cosmos? And they instinctively know how to gather an audience en route downstairs to the Rice Theatre.

Say what you will about goblins (they lament the stereotyping in Tolkien), they have stage presence.

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In Spontaneous Theatre’s Goblin: Macbeth, three curious goblins have come across The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. And, fascinated by the big-deal #1 human playwright with the predilection for witches, fairies, and ghosts, they decide to have a go at theatre. They choose the play in that prized volume with the most blood (and witches, and a ghost).

That Macbeth is the play with a built-in curse (actors won’t even say the title in a theatre for fear of unleashing it), and that high violence/ horror quotient, is a goblin bonus. The goblins have gravitated to a play with a hero (“valour’s minion”) who follows his “vaulting ambition and gradually becomes a murderous “hell hound.” Right up their alley, it turns out, but not entirely for the reasons you predict. As self-educators of the experimental stripe set loose in the human ritual of theatre, Kragva, Moog, and Wug really dig in.

It’s no surprise to find that Spontaneous Theatre’s Rebecca Northan, Bruce Horak, and Ellis Lalonde (its co-creators and stars) are expert improvisers, superlative at being with — and not just in front of —  an audience. They’re playful, quick-witted, dexterous at involving the audience in an easeful, unforced kind of immersive theatre experience. As I say, if you’ve seen Spontaneous at work before (Blind Date, Undercover, Legend Has It) this is impressive but not unexpected.   

Kragva and Wug in Goblin: Macbeth, Spontaneous Theatre at the Citadel. Photo by Nanc Price.

But what you might not anticipate (I didn’t, really) was that the goblins actually do a three-actor production of Macbeth. It’s inventive and intelligible. And since this is an onstage/backstage kind of production, outfitted theatrically with a couple of mirrors, a dagger, a lantern or two and Anton DeGroot’s lighting, this a particularly complicated assignment.

The goblins step in and out of Macbeth — stage directions, asides, amusing arguments about interpretation, line delivery, pronunciation, style, punctuation insights into iambic pentameter — with startling skill. Admit it, you’ve always sold goblins short. With multiple characters who are themselves pretending affections and loyalties they don’t have, roistering feasts, battle scenes, soliloquies and dramatic dialogues (not to mention Scottish accents), Macbeth is a big test of concentration and skill. You see Wug play Macbeth and Banquo simultaneously. Kragva is Lady Macbeth, Macduff, Malcolm, and assorted others. I’d say they do this without breaking a sweat, but who knows if goblins get sweaty anyhow.

That the goblins negotiate a wide emotional terrain in close-fitting silicon masks (by the company Composite Effects) without so much as a change in costume (designer: Philip Edwards) is particularly breathtaking. The three actors bring a physicality and body language to these masks — a shrug, a tip of the head, a skeptical arm gesture — that seem to transcend their fixity, to make them improbably malleable and transparent. If Macbeth has his doubts about the frontier between fantasy and reality, so will you. “Nothing is but what is not.” It’s a veritable theatre manifesto.

Kragva, Moog and Wug in Goblin: Macbeth, Spontaneous Theatre at the Citadel. Photo supplied

This will sound absolutely frenzied. And hey there’s a dizzy high-speed comedy about it for sure, witness the whirl of entrances and exits. But the show takes the time for an amusing little dad-son scene between Banquo and the teenage Fleance, the latter much put out to be ordered to stop playing Smoke On The Water on his accordion. There are moments of stillness, of affection and mutual support between the Macbeths. And there are moments of reassessment, when the goblins are thinking and so are the characters.

At one crucial dramatic moment Moog, who’s the onstage one-goblin band in charge of the score and sound effects (surrounded by a bank of assorted instruments), gets creative and indulges himself in a Parisian accordion riff. There’s a pause. And Kragva, who’s playing an assassin Macbeth contracts to kill Banquo and his kid, tries French-ifying the character, with hilarious results.

Goblin: Macbeth is an inventive blend of comedy and tragedy, the macabre and the out-and-out funny. You laugh; you catch your breath. What Shakespearean, and the man himself, wouldn’t want that? It’s a lot of fun: that f-word isn’t something you expect to unleash at productions of The Scottish Play.

And in the end, the outsiders with the signature ears and their copy of the Collected Works of William Shakespeare have a genuine question to ask about the curious human ritual of theatre. What’s it for? wonders Kragva. All that running around onstage pretending to be someone else and doing pretend violence with a pretend dagger?

There’s the attention and ego-stroking you get when you “do” theatre, sure. Acknowledged. But Kragva’s cast-mate Wug, who’s been playing the war hero turned usurper turned tyrant on a tragic arc, is onto something more profound. It’s the way the people watching theatre together share something. They breathe together; their hearts even begin to beat in sync. Crazy, yes, but powerful magic indeed. Highly recommended.

Have you seen the PREVIEW interview with Spontaneous Theatre’s Rebecca Northan. It’s here.

REVIEW

Goblin: Macbeth

Citadel Highwire Series

Theatre: Spontaneous Theatre

Created by: Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak, with Ellis Lalonde

Starring: Kragva, Moog, Wug

Where: Citadel Rice Theatre

Running: through Feb. 2

Tickets: citadeltheatre.com, 780-425-1820