"Birnam Wood on a Liquid Stage: fracturing the common space in recent adaptations of Macbeth"
Résumé
This paper worked against the idea that theatre translation and adaptation create a common space by bringing together different social contexts and creating a sense of shared values or questions. I suggest that, from the point of view of reception, some of the most interesting recent experiments in adaptations of the canon actively work against the constitution of a common space, or even of a “third” space of negotiation between different social and cultural contexts; instead, they create division rather than shared ground, and isolation rather than a sense of community. I view this resistance to the notion of the audience as community as a political act, that raises questions of ethical responsibility for the spectator. The two main case studies I examine, a South-African and a Brazilian adaptation of Macbeth, are international co-productions intended for global touring, which translate a canonical text into a context that is not shared by their diverse, multicultural audiences. Because their “target” audiences are not united by one context, they render the idea of the theatre as a space of commonality problematic. My comparative approach to recent adaptations of Verdi and Shakespeare’s Macbeth by Ivo van Hove, Brett Bailey and Christiane Jatahy highlights the potential for cross-cultural adaptations to construct the audience as a politically responsible entity, without addressing it as a community.