University News Last updated 17 February 2016
What if Tarantino had written ‘Macbeth’?
Shakespeare's timeless, blood-soaked tale of murder, lust and power is to get a modern makeover this month, as Birmingham School of Acting presents a reworking of the tragic play that plays homage to some of director Quentin Tarntino’s best-loved films.
‘Macbeth – Kill Bill Shakespeare’ is an irreverent and imaginative take on one of the world’s most famous plays, with the production staying true to the original text. However, the images and style of ‘Reservoir Dogs’, ‘Pulp Fiction’ and ‘Kill Bill’ will collide violently on stage with Shakespeare's verse, creating an exhilarating black comedy.
Macbeth's descent into madness, his relentless pursuit of his own destruction fuelled by paranoid fantasies of power and betrayal, find poignant echoes in the violent world inhabited by Tarantino's gangsters, drug dealers and deadly assassins. Underscored by a highly-charged modern soundtrack, cinematic form and theatrical convention combine, creating a production that promises to be fast, furious, comic and provocative.
‘Macbeth – Kill Bill Shakespeare’ will be performed at Birmingham’s Crescent Theatre and has been adapted and directed by acclaimed theatre director Malachi Bogdanov.
Malachi is no stranger to reworking classic works with a modern twist. In 2003, he wrote and directed ‘Bill Shakespeare’s Italian Job’ – which was performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and as part of an international tour – as well as reworking Homer’s Greek epic ‘Odyssey’ as ‘From Ithaca With Love’. The latter was first performed in Birmingham in June 2006 to celebrate the opening of the city’s Millennium Point building – also home to Birmingham School of Acting – and now a film version is in the works.
Malachi’s work forms part of a trio of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies reimagined for Birmingham School of Acting’s 2015-16 season and performed in venues across the city this month. Alongside ‘Macbeth – Kill Bill Shakespeare’, the School will also be presenting ‘Othello’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’, the latter set in the dark underworld of the Peaky Blinders gang, which terrorised Birmingham around the turn of the 20th century. ‘Othello’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ will be performed at the Patrick Centre, part of Birmingham Hippodrome.
Danièle Sanderson, Deputy Head at Birmingham School of Acting said:
“In our version of ‘Romeo and Juliet’, the Shakespeare classic finds an exciting local resonance, with the Montagues and Capulets donning razor blades in their caps, like the historical Peaky Blinders gang.
“Similar to audiences today, Elizabethan and Jacobean theatre-goers were fascinated by violence and Shakespeare’s most violent plays were the most popular during his own lifetime. By integrating Shakespeare’s tragedies through the lens of popular culture, our actors are hoping to sharpen our responses to these familiar works.”