The scene where the three yojos, encompassing Yujin Macbeth, were controlling their victim’s movements, without touching her, began to insinuate blame on these three supernatural forces for the terrorizing behavior of Yujin Macbeth and her husband. As an audience member, I saw the play’s female main character spin in helplessness, like a rag doll on a rotating table, but feeling utter pity for her loss of control and sanity. One can also feel this sympathy for Yujin Macbeth because of her innocence she claims from the beginning of the play; the beauty that Asian culture possesses in the show is best revealed in this scene, where the character spins delicately to reveal the shape of the beautiful kimono she wears, which stands out against the white cloth that cover the yojos.
Ultimately, these feelings of mercy take a turn when Yujin Macbeth finally convinces Macbeth to murder Shogun Duncan. We then begin to question if our sinful actions can be justified by visions that evoke reasons of fate or if they are illegitimate methods that characters, like Macbeth and his wife, utilize to recklessly establish selfish power.
For me, it was difficult to find a place where the show significantly needed to instill Japanese culture into the storyline for purposes to enhance the play. However, I did find its appropriateness mostly in the costume design, particularly in the women. The scene where Yujin Macbeth is spelled upon by the yojos calls attention to her vulnerability at that moment, highlighted by her innocent grace and beauty as an asian woman. Her costume contrasts with Macbeth’s red-colored outfits later on, representing his downfall into insanity and violence.
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Mary Williams
Sorry for the late post but I wanted to post a response to “The Waves” at the same time and I only just got back from seeing it now.
“The Waves” was performed at the Duke Theatre which is the smallest theatre we’ve been to so far – it only seats about 150 people. Right off the bat I’m going to say that this performance was the most incredible, innovative and capturing of all the shows we saw. It used the combination of acting, media and usage of props and lighting to create the perfect marriage to express the “stream of consciousness” which is what Virginia Woolf’s text is famous for. The whole stage area (and I say area because the center was just a line of black tables and on both sides were two shelves full of props and costumes. It was not elevated) is black and in the center there is a big screen where images were projected onto. The most amazing part of this was that all the images except for the one of the ocean were filmed at the same time they were being projected. The actors used boards with patterns on the back to quickly create the image of a room with just the actor or actress’ face showing. The actors would don only fronts of clothing but the filmed effect would make it seem as though they were completely dressed and being filmed in a world far from the black theatre itself. The way the show was choreographed transferred the audience from oceans, to open air, to dining places, to homes, on trains, in cars, in rain, in gardens and dreams. Every sound barring the ocean waves and some instrumental music was created on the stage. If the text currently being narrated spoke of a person, walking or running, coming in doors or whatever was matched with the sound effect made by another actor banging a door or walking on a platform with microphones amplifying the sounds. It was incredible how synchronized it all was and how the actors were able to assemble microcosmic scenes and disassemble them to form others in the space of a few minutes. This fast paced, smooth flowing performance was really able to embody that “stream of consciousness” way the brain thinks; it was able to move from one place to another, one feeling to another, one idea to another seamlessly as the mind does.
]]>I really enjoyed watching the movie of Macbeth with a Japanese twist. The Japanese take on Shakespeare’s play highlighted an aspect of the original. In the past, when I read Macbeth, I knew that there was an idea of how women could be manipulative, but the idea of a woman’s influence was reinforced in my mind after watching the film. From the book, from what I remember, lady Macbeth had a manipulative hold on her husband, but it wasn’t as strong a hold as what was depicted in the movie with Washizu (parallel character to Macbeth) and Asaji (parallel character to lady Macbeth). In the Japanese film, Asaji is the one to plant the feelings of paranoia within her husband, leading him to question both his superior and his friends. I feel that in the original play, lady Macbeth only acted as the nurturer of Macbeth’s doubts which he formulated on his own, based on the witches’ prophecy.
Another aspect of the movie that stood out to me was the lack of soliloquies. This was the first production of Macbeth I have ever seen, and I expected to see at least the soliloquy with Macbeth - or Washizu - and the floating dagger. This cut-out from the original play would be the only criticism I would have. Not only did they remove a very important feature that exists throughout all of Shakespeare’s plays, but they had scenes that were dragged out for no reason. At times, I was staring at a field of hills with wind blowing up sand for around three minutes at a time.
]]>I was most impressed with both the adaptation and increased use of witches throughout this production. I was SO happy to see the witches portrayed both as comedic and frightening…in many productions, the scary aspect of these characters is lost, and the concept of the witches either seems excessive or silly (Roman Polanski’s film version, for example). The actresses and actor were brilliant with their body movements and speech - they crawled, they enticed, and they brooded, but were bawdy when they needed to be. Unlike Tyler, I thought the use of Japanese added to the tension of the witch scenes. I thought the language barrier enhanced the supernatural aspect of their power - one of the major conflicts in Macbeth is whether or not the prophecy is real, or whether Macbeth makes it real. I loved that this director played on this conflict by using Japanese, thereby making the witches actions largely incomprehensible. Also, while many directors choose to make this point entirely ambiguous, this director enhanced the role of the witches spells, making it clear that supernatural elements were prevalent. I loved that the witches were also the assassins and Macbeth’s henchmen, and I ABSOLUTELY loved their scenes with Lady Macbeth - how they manipulated her without touching her, and how they narrated through the “out damn spot” scene.
]]>In terms of the way they decided to reproduce the play, I think it is significant that they included the sexual relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. This was something put in that might not have been obvious in the play itself, but was adapted here to show a possible interpretation of the relationship between the couple. Also, the actor that played Macbeth was a lot more hysterical and jolly than I imagined. Though his performance was comical, the actor was less brooding, malicious and corrupted as he is portrayed in the play. I felt like this toned down the wickedness and immorality that is supposed to characterize Macbeth’s persona as he gets consumed by ambition.
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