etb English
Theatre
Berlin International Performing Arts Center

Taking Act 5, Scene 1 of The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare as a point of departure, we have created a theatrical/musical performance to present a portrait of Lady Macbeth.

Using the form of the monologue to play with different techniques of story-telling, we present the picture of a woman in whom desire and imagination overreach the space that her time and social conditions have defined for her. The woman in a closed room has existed always, exists today.

An attempt at observing the consequences of confining, even forgetting about, the desires and imaginations of one such woman.

Through the character of Lady Macbeth, we explore the spaces created by one recurring, dominant narrative; in her mind, this space becomes her cage. Imprisoned by her narrative, Lady Macbeth is trapped in time and space in a recurring loop that presents no window of escape.

While observing a character trapped inside the dominance of a single narrative, the act of the performance itself attempts to offer a tentative way of escape from the clutches of a single, dominant narrative by engaging itself with multiple narratives. In concrete terms, while Lady Macbeth cannot transcend her narrative, the performers themselves achieve a space where transcendence becomes possible – by merging forms, donning and letting go of different identities (characters), by slipping from spoken text to song to movement.