Goblin:Macbeth is playing at the Tarragon Theatre until Oct. 27.TIM NGUYEN
- Title: Goblin:Macbeth
- Written and Directed by: Spontaneous Theatre
- Company: Tarragon Theatre
- Venue: 30 Bridgman Ave.
- City: Toronto
- Year: To Oct. 27, 2024
“Are you a witch?”
If a stranger approaches and asks you this question, that’s usually a sign of trouble brewing. However, if that stranger is roaming around the stage at Tarragon Theatre’s 2024-2025 season opener, Goblin:Macbeth, and happens to have long, pointed ears, the query is a mark of the utmost respect.
The three goblins that make up the cast of this anarchic adaptation of the Bard’s shortest, bloodiest and therefore (they assure us) most performable tragedy wish to pay their respects to the witches in the audience before they unpack the First Folio copy they’ve discovered and take on the roles of the Three Witches themselves. After a production in Calgary and a stop in Stratford, Ont., last year, these well-practised goblins are champs at working the crowd and creating a wild, silly atmosphere perfect for a pre-Halloween party. It’s not quite fully goblin, and it’s not quite fully Macbeth, but it is fully fun.
The fun starts in the lobby, so make sure to get there at least 15 minutes before curtain for some up-close-and-personal goblin behaviour as Wug, Kragva and Moog try to locate the stage on which they’ll perform their mischief. At this proximity, one can appreciate the elaborate, realistic mask work by Composite Effects: delicate, triangular ears and sharp noses in the front, and an intricate pattern of black circles over the scalp in the back.
These masks encourage the “total anonymity” of the exercise preferred by the Spontaneous Theatre team, who deliberately hide the identities of creators and cast from the audience, eager to investigate the potential of what might happen when some of the Bard’s most famous roles are undertaken by actors who aren’t getting credit.
The hostile takeover doesn’t take long, and the goblins busily give several procedural aspects of theatre a unique spin as they go from unwelcome intruders to reluctantly honoured guests. They draft frightened stage technicians into service and opine that of course humans would wish to acknowledge the land while busily assembling and disassembling the few props and set pieces they’ve purloined from backstage. They aren’t your two-dimensional, evil Tolkien goblins, they patiently explain. They’re actors.
Wug, our Macbeth, takes to the challenge of stagecraft most eagerly, getting lost in the minutiae of iambic pentameter and proper pronunciation. The appropriately named Moog synthesizes the background beats, drumming and playing the accordion as rebellious child Fleance, who can’t go five minutes without breaking down sobbing at how much he loves his dad Banquo (given the persona of a cowboy for some reason). Kragva is the wild card, playing most of the other roles, including a lascivious Lady Macbeth, a sneering Ross on an invisible horse and MacDuff in heavy Scottish brogue.
The goblins are happy to play fast and loose with the details while remaining relatively faithful to the plot and script. In one of the show’s most successful running gags, they turn Donalbain into a tiny lapdog, a metaphor for the second son of King Duncan’s only role in supporting older brother Malcolm’s escape from Scotland. The ghost of Banquo spins on an office chair under blood-red lighting (designed by Anton DeGroot), a low-budget Exorcist twist. Macbeth miserably proclaims, “I’m feeling a little attacked right now!” when his wife gets fed up with his protracted ponderings about sleep.
That famous, menacing dagger puts the imp in impaling when the players finally, excitedly, get to the business of killing – only to express disappointment that they’re not allowed to do it for real. (Okay, maybe they are more like your evil Tolkien goblins than they’d care to admit.)
If there’s any disappointment for the audience in Goblin:Macbeth, it may be that the goblins’ behaviour seems a little too human, and not entirely, well, goblin-y. The goal of having otherworldly creatures take on a human tradition is obvious; as outsiders, they can comment on things we take for granted from a new perspective.
And while they do – pondering the foibles of humanity by asking why anyone would care about finding the perfect rhyme or what the point is in pretending to kill a character when there are actual, ready-to-stab interns right there – so much of the focus is on the silliness of performing the play from beginning to end with only three actors that the commentary sometimes gets lost in Birnam Wood. In the end, our hybrid theatrical creature is more Macbeth than goblin.
There’s more that could be said about why humans have cared about Shakespeare for hundreds of years, and also more that could be said about who these goblins are when they’re not trying miserably to shove a too large copy of the complete works of Shakespeare into a too small messenger bag. As they speak the speech trippingly on their snaking tongues, it’s most refreshing when they pause to interrogate a moment or famous phrase that we take for granted. What do these tales of sound and fury, told by an idiot (or a goblin) really signify?
It’s not all signifying nothing, however, because whether they’re airing their grievances with the plot or treading the boards with ghastly glee, Wug, Kragva and Moog are able proponents of the theatrical tradition, suggesting that the Scottish play is still worth thinking about, even when performed under heavy disguise.
In their goal of making Shakespeare entertaining and accessible, the goblins succeed in spades … or, possibly, in pitchforks.
After all, even a witch can appreciate a good time.
In the interest of consistency across all critics’ reviews, The Globe has eliminated its star-rating system in film and theatre to align with coverage of music, books, visual arts and dance. Instead, works of excellence will be noted with a critic’s pick designation across all coverage. (Television reviews, typically based on an incomplete season, are exempt.)