What happens when three goblins encounter Shakespeare’s Macbeth and decide to re-enact it, taking their own creative liberties in conversation with Shakespeare’s work?
Bruce Horak, co-creator of the Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre (RMTC) production Goblin:Macbeth, unfolds what this production is about. A performer and creator from Calgary, Horak met fellow co-creators Rebecca Northan and Ellis Lalonde while “working at the Loose Moose Theatre in Calgary.”
“This was where I first learned to improvise and also where I encountered mask work for the first time,” Horak said. He noted that “Mask work is heavily incorporated into the current production.”
Goblin:Macbeth will run around 95 minutes with no intermission. The show runs from Oct. 21 to Nov. 8.
The premise of this production follows three goblins, Kragva, Wug and Moog, who encounter the works of William Shakespeare. According to Horak, the goblins “decide that humans are kind of interesting and maybe they’ll try theatre for the first time.”
These three masked characters (the goblins) then “ransack, take over, hold hostage a theatre and its audience to watch them perform a unique production of Macbeth.” Masked character types are also incorporated in their play Goblin:Oedipus, and Horak and his crew are currently developing a production of Goblin:Christmas Carol, set to open in Toronto over the Christmas season. The goblins will also be tackling Goblin:Pygmalion at the 2027 Shaw Festival.
Horak would describe this production to someone who has never seen Shakespeare’s Macbeth as one where the goblins look at humanity through an outside eye. He further explained that with the play being known as one of Shakespeare’s shortest and bloodiest, the goblins have an outside perspective on humanity, eviscerating theatre and all the tropes and stereotypes one may associate with Shakespeare and his “stuffy museum pieces.” Horak highlighted that the audience will have a good time and stated, “It’s a lot of fun, but you also get the story of Macbeth.”
The production gets lots of the key text from the original play, which has been trimmed down to meet the run time. To Horak, a good 90 minutes is Shakespeare’s actual writing. The goblins’ own creative license and liberties show through little “pop-outs” of commentary here and there, he explained.
“There is really no fourth wall in a goblin show. As an audience member, you experience the full scope of it, in the way that Shakespeare had no fourth wall when he wrote his plays. His characters and the plot [are] very much aware that there is an audience present, and the goblins are of that ilk as well,” the co-director said.
“It’s a great story of ambition and hubris. There is something very human about Shakespeare’s plays that people can relate to,” Horak added. “Hopefully through the goblin eyes you’ll discover a piece of your own humanity.”
Horak is excited to bring this production of Goblin:Macbeth to the Tom Hendry Warehouse. “It is a very warm house [with a] really unique vibe,” he said. “The set-up of it, the intimacy of that space, I think it’s perfect.”
For those who are curious about the play and want to see the production, but believe Shakespeare is intimidating, inaccessible or simply not for them, Horak’s advice would be that they “should see the goblins do it.”
Horak hopes the audience will leave the theatre excited to talk about the production and spread good word-of-mouth about the play.
To learn more about the production, visit royalmtc.ca/Current-Plays/Goblin-Macbeth.aspx.
