Macbeth after Abu Ghraib

Roman Pawłowski, GAZETA WYBORCZA

Grzegorz Jarzyna dressed Duncan's army in American army uniforms, adapted the text and added new scenes which set the action in the reality of the war against Muslim terrorism. (caption beneath the photo).

A shocking anti-war performance of Grzegorz Jarzyna in a former factory assembly room in Warsaw Wola.

Jarzyna's performance is the fifth Polish staging of "the Scottish tragedy" in this season (actually the sixth, if we count the staging of Krzysztof Warlikowski in Hannover). Where is this interest coming from? At present, Poland is, for the first time since World War II , involved to such an extent in a military conflict. Soldered up coffins, transported by planes are not a picture of a different reality. That is why Shakespearean study of evil spreading on the wave of war is so close to us.

The spiral of violence.
Jarzyna's predecessors moved the action of the tragedy into contemporary times in which soldiers come back home traumatized and the violence pours out of TV screens into everyday life. None of them had updated "Macbeth" so strongly as Jarzyna. The young director not only dressed Duncan's army in American army uniforms, adapted the text and added new scenes which set the action in the reality of war against Muslim terrorism but also made Macbeth and Banquo kill their enemies on the mosque doorstep, made Duncan control the action from the command bunker and covered the face of the witch who tells Macbeth's future with a chador.
Though the year 2007 in the title suggests that the action takes place in the near future, the events are well familiar to us. Not just from the television because Jarzyna made also a reference to the war we know from Hollywood. He transformed the austere interiors of the former assembly room into a huge film set which can be observed by the audience from high stands. Battle scenes are played in a naturalistic manner with a lot of pyrotechnic effects, blood runs down the concrete floor and the rumble of helicopters may be heard overhead.
This stylization is of subversive nature - the director uses Hollywood models to expose the dark side of American war mythology. Macbeth is, in the beginning, somebody like Rambo - a soldier who, against his superiors' will, embarks on a risky mission. But instead of a patriotic happy ending with the star-spangled banner in the background, dead bodies pile up onstage. The machine of violence, once it has been set in motion, works faster and becomes more effective. If killing in a fight is justified, so is killing in the privacy of one's home. If one can kill men, why not also women and children?

Death of American myth.
Jarzyna's interpretation emphasizes the contrast between sophisticated technology and mere animal cruelty of soldiers. His Macbeth uses computers but he cuts his enemy's head with a plain knife. This ritual gesture will be repeated by Macbet's murderer - Macduff (Michał Żurawski) - the victory of goodness is doubtful in this performance. This is the "Macbeth" after the events in Abu Ghraib where white guards tortured and humiliated prisoners. The myth of America that has always aspired to be the civilization model but is actually as cruel as the despised Near East opponents dies in the hallways of Abu Ghraib. This thought permeates every minute of the performance.
Despite the vast scale of the show, the roles created by actors were complete and distinctive. Aleksandra Konieczna and Cezary Kosiński as Lady Macbeth and Macbeth painted a picture of a pathological relationship in which love and hate constantly intertwine. There is an erotic overtone in the murder - after the murdering of Duncan they vent off their tension having violent sex. Lady Macbeth since the very beginning bears a trace of madness which shows itself in her compulsive cleaning: Konieczna is constantly washing the blood off the floor with a rubber hose. Two other characters in the background draw our attention: Piotr Głowacki as Malcolm with his psyche broken by barracks upbringing and Jan Drawnel as Seyton - a servant changing into jack-in-office. The scenes of orgies with underlying madness in which soldiers recover from battle stress getting stoned and dancing to oriental music make a strong impact, too.
The performance bombards us with pictures of war horror, shows barely acceptable macabre and physiology of murder. The audience reacted with laughter to some drastic scenes. Jarzyna did not completely manage to overcome this problem - it is getting increasingly hard to show violence in the theatre in the way that would make it both credible and terrifying; this is the effect of the surfeit of violence in the media. Despite that, the performance strikes us with the vision of the world in which war against terrorism is changing into the war of man against himself. It is a shame that generals do not read Shakespeare.