Where does the path of our life lead? Is it overshadowed by death from the beginning? Macbeth comes back from the war, killing is his business. His lady has lost a child, their marriage has no heirs. The couple cannot withstand the temptations of the witches. Macbeth shall be king – but at what price? The first murder of Duncan inevitably leads to further murders. On the throne they have usurped, the couple meet their demons: hunger for power, inclination to violence, guilt, fear. Macbeth and his Lady wander together through the dark realms of the soul.

Is Macbeth »Shakespeare’s darkest conceit? ... In Macbeth time rules more than in any of Shakespeare’s other plays, and not merciful Christian eternal time, but the time which devours everything, the one which one becomes aware of when one nihilistically regards death as the last thing of all...« (Harold Bloom)

For director Luk Perceval, Shakespeare’s plays confront us with the relativity of life. Transience makes all our dreams and fears into a fool’s game.

Life – for Macbeth at the end of the play »... but a walking shadow; a poor player, / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage, / And then is heard no more: it is a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.«

»From the fact that theatre remains in debt to every form of answer, forcing both artists and audience to accept the silence, the emptiness, throwing them back into life without explanation, without any tempting logic, we can learn how one can trust this empty-handed search for meaning; that seems to be the only meaning of what is meaningless.« (Luk Perceval, Writing in Sand)

Shuttle bus

Please apply for the free shuttlebus until two days before the date of the performance at the latest. Further information...

A co-production between the Ruhrtriennale and the Thalia Theater Hamburg.