Macbeth wows Bellini

07 Jul 2025 -

Staging Macbeth in modern dress is not a new idea. It dates back to 1923. But using the text and re-imagining it in terms of the Quebecois biker wars of the 1990s is inspired. Director Robert Lepage is legendary for challenging “the standards of scenic writing, particularly through the use of new technologies,” as the program states. To say that the stagecraft of this Macbeth is breathtaking only says half of it. 

I took the bus to Stratford. It’s easy to get there, but always hell to get back, thanks to the horror that is Toronto traffic. The trip was only two hours, and the bus was filled with other senior citizens. (Indeed, a quick look at the matinee’s audience reveals almost entirely old white people.) Regardless of age, this Macbeth is a genuine theatre-going experience, the stuff of legend. The Stratford Festival always outdoes itself. 

Lepage, mostly famous as a stage director, has also directed the films Le confessionnal and Le polygraphe, and with this show he set out to make a sort of a movie onstage. He even opens with credits, projected over the astounding image of a biker floating deep into a lake with a brick tied to his ankles. Since they’re bikers, there have to be bikes. These looked like e-bikes tricked out with hog handlebars and fake gas tanks, but they’re still pretty cool to look at. The setting is a two-storey motor hotel where the protagonist and his conniving wife live. The attention to detail, and the ambience established by the lighting scheme, make it all seem real but not quite real. The set moves, rotates to show other rooms. It is grand and impossible not to admire. In the end, as Macbeth is shot at, there were digital projections of bullet holes in the walls. And significantly, Lepage uses a huge screen that reflects (and doubles) the actors but also can be lit from behind to reveal the witches and the ghost of Banquo. The show’s biggest jaw dropping moment occurs when Macbeth, well played by Tom McCamus, does the big “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” soliloquy, and at the same time we see Lady Macbeth gently floating to her death alongside him. The word “wow” fell out of my mouth.

Lepage is no stranger to controversy, having had two live shows cancelled in the past. One, SLAV, was cancelled due to ‘cultural appropriation’, and the second, Kanata, because activists didn’t like it. Artists must suffer so much bullshit, and watching this Macbeth, I had to wonder how the Quebecois biker community felt about it. But unlike those other two groups, bikers aren’t pussies, which is the whole point. The show might not seem ‘accurate’ to them, but it certainly feels mythic. 

At times the show felt too quiet, and we’re always caught between trying to believe that the actors are bikers, and yet they are speaking Shakespeare. But why carp? This show is something you have never seen before, and it is worth it. When you go see a show like Lepage’s Macbeth, you are transported to an unreal but familiar yet awesome place. But when you drive home in Toronto traffic, you are sadly thrust back into reality.