There’s a long-standing debate about what it means to produce your own interpretation of Shakespeare, and what the limits should be. How closely do you have to track the original plot? How many characters do you need to keep? Stuff like that. Tell me that the Lion King has elements of Hamlet and I’ll agree with you. Tell me that it’s a modern adaptation of Hamlet and we’ve got an argument on our hands. An evil uncle and redemption for a murdered father isn’t all you need to call yourself Hamlet.
Then again, I’m bored with every Macbeth interpretation between about a “powerful” husband and wife where all we do is swap out the environment. Media moguls, restaurant owners, samurai warriors, mafia. But can we break it down more? Do we have any interpretations of Macbeth as a woman? What about as a child? If we take the standard “theme” of Macbeth to be ambition, heaven knows that there are plenty of ambitious teenagers out there roaming high school hallways and plotting takeovers of everything from the cheerleading squad to student government.
What if Macbeth were a 13-year-old child star trying to make it big and Lady Macbeth her pushy stage mum? Throw in a séance and a geriatric make-up artist with a vision and, snap, crackle and pop, we’ve transported Macbeth to a television studio in 2006.
And so we have Mackenzie, a project by Australian playwright Yve Blake. I’m intrigued by the changes here – the gender flip and the age shift most notably, but also Lady Macbeth as stage mom? Brilliant. Every Macbeth I can think of has them as a married (or close enough) couple. But what about the power a mother wields over her daughter, no matter how ambitious the daughter? And where does that daughter’s ambition come from, was it ever really hers? Or is it just planted there from behind the scenes by Mom whispering in her ear?
Sadly this fascinating new idea is limited to being a stage play in Sydney, Australia, so my chances of ever seeing it are pretty small indeed! But I wanted to shout it out here because I love the idea and wish I could see more.