Same text, different Macbeth

Author: Lin Jie

To understand Macbeth at the State Musical Theater in Tbilisi, Georgia, one might understand the post-theatrical theater from the perspective of the German theatrical theorist Hans-Tiss Lehmann: unlike the theatrical theater ruled by text, the post-theater theater is characterized by the subversion of the central position of the text in the theater, which is only an integral part of the theatrical unity, on an equal footing with other theatrical artistic means such as music, dance, movement, and fine arts.

The Georgian version of "Macbeth", which came to China in 2014 as the sixth drama Olympiad repertoire, toured China again this year, although the text basically follows Shakespeare's original, but between the text and the performance, director David Doy loves Shavili provides a very special relationship, presenting a different "Macbeth": he did not change the text, but through the shaping of the characters on the stage, and other means other than lines, he conveyed the content in the text that was not, or even different from, the text. And this transmission is hazy and secretive, and it is difficult to be accurately perceived.

From the perspective of the text, the main plot and narrative order are consistent with the original work, the heroic and warlike Macbeth encountered three wizards on the way back to Scotland, got the three prophecies that he would become Sir Granmys, Sir Court, and the king, and joined forces with Lady Macbeth to murder King Duncan under the stimulation of power, because he was afraid that the descendants of the general Banco would be king for generations, and sent assassins to assassinate Banco, and after Banco's son escaped, he joined forces with other generals to fight Macbeth, and Macbeth thought that he had a prophecy to protect himself——" Unless the Forest of Bunan moves" "No child born to a woman can hurt Macbeth", but in the end the prophecy encounters an antidote, Macbeth is defeated, and his wife also collapses and commits suicide. The plot is not broken up, disrupted, collaged, or inserted into other texts, and the Chinese translation is not a long, poetic sentence in the style of Zhu Shenghao, but much more concise and clear, and the line subtitles on the screen are a slightly thin Shakespeare script.

In this version, the director uses a very rich stage art method, such as the Rubik's Cube stage, naked-eye 5d, trapeze artist, which is repeatedly mentioned in the promotion of the play. The stage is both dazzling and rustic, its core lies in exquisite creativity, and the prop set is not complicated enough to see the artistic imagination of Georgian creators. The main props on the stage include a bench on which Lady Macbeth once stood beautifully, and the highlight of Duncan's murder took place on this bench; a swing— Duncan's son Malcon often dangling on it; two poles—three wizards rising into the air from time to time to overlook the world; and a huge board—Macbeth, after ascending to the throne, entertained the guests, and this board was erected to become a table perpendicular to the ground, and the guests sat on all sides of the table, and the guests at the end of the table were hung in the air with Wea. The guest sitting at the lower end seems to be half lying on the ground, such a huge dining table perpendicular to the ground and seems to be hanging in the air, which is rare in the previous theatrical stage; at the end of the play, Macbeth and his wife's bodies murdered by their desires are also frozen on this board, which is at a 45-degree angle to the ground, and the actor's oblique lying position is statically fixed by Weah. With the help of the pole and Weiya, the characters on the stage do not only have the conventional posture of sitting and standing, but can sit in the air and lie down in mid-air.

Mrs. Macbeth's first appearance, at first there is a veil to cover, the screen gradually opens, she is dressed in a white dress, sitting between two mirrors, dancing her legs lightly, in the mirror reflection, sexy and dazzling; the scene before her death, is projected into the air screen in real time, enlarging the details of the performance of the face and upper body. The use of these means looks cool and full of technology, but in fact, the key is to use them cleverly, there is no heavy and large scenery, which is very suitable for touring that needs to save freight. In addition to props, the use of lighting and music is also a plus point without weight.

As Chinese audience, completely unable to understand Georgian, so the line of sight should be switched between the subtitle screen and the stage, there are subtitles faithful to the original line stringing up the plot, and there are stage means full of whimsy, at first glance, the play can be understood and good-looking. However, if you watch more closely, you will feel the distance between the director's second creation and the actor's performance and text.

The first is the setting of the character image, Duncan is portrayed as a crazy, violent king, painted with a white face, roaring loudly, hitting people at every turn, he goes to Macbeth's house as a guest, and makes intimate and obscene gestures such as hugging, sniffing, and sniffing the chest of Mrs. Macbeth, while his two sons, one with intellectual disabilities, the other is disabled in a wheelchair. According to the data, Shakespeare's "Macbeth" is based on the 16th-century British historian Raphael Hollingshead's "Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland", in which Duncan is a faint and incompetent king, Macbeth is brave, Duncan ignores Macbeth's right to ascend the throne first, and appoints his son to inherit the throne in violation of the rules of the time, and Macbeth's behavior is closely related to this injustice. So in this drama, the subversion of Duncan's image is a deliberate return to historical truth?

Secondly, Macbeth is handsome and handsome, Mrs. Macbeth is sexy and beautiful, they are a perfect couple in love, the love is heavily inked, and they kiss deeply many times in the play: before the murder of Duncan, they kiss, after killing, they kiss, and at the end of the play, Macbeth crawls to the corpse of the lady, shakes her arm, and then gets up to fight, and after being killed, they fall, at this time the two actually hold hands again, hug and kiss each other, and finally both fall down. Their brutality seems to have been weakened.

In addition, the appearance of three wizards runs through the whole play, they not only prophesied for Macbeth and Banko, but sometimes incarnated into characters in the play, such as the sergeant who reported the military situation to Duncan, Mrs. McDuff, etc., they did not even change their clothes, only with the change of voice and limbs to change the role, which may be deliberately using the means of performance separation to avoid the audience from obsessing over the plot; perhaps it symbolizes that there is no difference between witches and people, and it is not because of witches' prophecies that stimulate the desires in the heart, but the desires exist in the original?

In terms of stage means, there are still many unsolved mysteries: why is Mrs. Macbeth illuminated with a lamp in daily life? Why is it that strong music and a large amount of body dance are suddenly inserted between conversations, and then the music stops and then resumes normal dialogue as soon as it is stopped? Some of the means on stage are clearly inconsistent with the text, or even irrelevant, that is, watching the subtitles of the lines gets a Shakespeare Macbeth, and watching the stage performance gets another different Macbeth.

In the theater, the director uses the stage performance to present the text, and the text and the performance are consistent. In the post-theatrical theater, the stage performance is not to explain the text, but to juxtapose with the text, and together with the text constitutes the theater work. The Georgian drama "Macbeth", with more complex means and more obscure expressions, creates a different Macbeth, separated by distant geographical distances and cultural differences, I vaguely feel that this Macbeth is different from Shakespeare's tragic characters, but I find it difficult to accurately analyze the director's deep meaning, perhaps the uncertainty of meaning is also a feature of contemporary theater. (Lin Jie)