Macbeth's goblins are back in revamped telling of the classic

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Last March, The Shakespeare Company and Hit & Myth Productions presented the world premiere of Goblin: Macbeth, a wildly innovative, interactive retelling of Shakespeare’s classic of unbridled ambition that was conceived and performed by Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak with live music by Ellis Lalonde.

It was such a runaway hit that Shakespeare Company’s artistic director Haysam Kadri is bringing it back to the Vertigo Studio Theatre from Sept. 29 to Oct. 16, and, this week, Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach summer festival announced that Goblin: Macbeth will be part of its 2023 season. There has also been enthusiastic interest from several regional theatre companies in British Columbia.

“We are deeply excited to be invited to Bard on the Beach. It’s the second-largest Shakespeare festival in Canada. Since we were students doing Shakespeare in the Park for Mount Royal College, Bruce and I have wanted to perform at Bard on the Beach. It only took 25 years, but the dream has come true and, of course, being asked back to Calgary is a gift. It is so rare in Canada to get a second production, especially with something as experimental and off-the-wall as our show,” says Northan.

Horak says he and Northan have not been idle these past six months.

“When we started working on Goblin: Macbeth, Rebecca and I pulled out every trick we’d learned in the past 25 years, including things like starting the show in the theatre lobby, involving the audience as much as possible, keeping jokes we made in rehearsals, and to not stop experimenting during the whole run of the show in Calgary.

“We’ve also been tweaking things in our rehearsals for this run.”

When the duo was paring down the text of Macbeth for their play, Northan decided they should eliminate Donalbain, King Duncan’s youngest son and brother to Malcolm. That never sat well with Horak so, three days into the run of the Calgary show, he suggested they turn Donalbain into Malcolm’s lap dog to be carried around during the brother’s scenes.

“Rebecca was really skeptical, but she agreed to try it for three performances, and it actually took that long for it to work, but on the third day, what she did with the dog cracked me up and we knew this piece of slapstick had to stay in, and the audience liked it so much we added another scene for him.”

Northan says the version of Goblin: Macbeth that audiences will see this time around will be even more interactive than it was originally.

“We found better ways to take care of the audience and set them up for success in the bits where we want them to participate. We found ways to turn them into the best possible British army for the assault on Macbeth’s Dunsinane Castle. By the end of the run, audiences at that point in the show became the loudest, most enthusiastic army imaginable.

“We were surprised at how ready people were to show their knowledge of the play. They knew the characters and plot and chimed in when we needed them to. That really surprised me, and it worked so well for us.”

What is exciting for Northan, Horak and Lalonde is that phones at The Shakespeare Company are ringing off the hook with schools wanting to book the student matinees. There was only one scheduled in March, but Northan recalls “you could sense those students were reluctant and skeptical, but it took us very little time to blow away their little minds. They loved it. They were definitely one of our best audiences.”

The masks that Northan, Horak and Lalonde use in Goblin: Macbeth are of Hollywood quality, and Northan says it was like having her face in a sauna for 90 minutes each night.

“My face looked younger by the end of the run and my skin hadn’t felt this good for years, but the rest of my body was aching from the workout it got. These masks are a real anti-aging secret.”

Horak adds “the masks improved our Shakespeare and made us better actors. We had to really work on our diction and enunciation so that Shakespeare’s text didn’t suffer.”

Tickets for Goblin: Macbeth are $30 for adults and $25 for seniors and students and are available at shakespearecompany.com or by phone at 403-221-3708. Some performances already have limited seating available.