‘I felt Ninagawa sitting there’: Macbeth in Hong Kong marks anniversary of visionary theatre director’s death
Cast performing the late Japanese theatre director’s celebrated take on Shakespeare’s Macbeth feel he’s with them as they prepare for play’s opening at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre
A spectre looms large over the Ninagawa Company’s performance of Macbeth this week in Hong Kong, and it isn’t Banquo’s ghost.
“I felt Yukio Ninagawa sitting there when I went inside the [Hong Kong] Cultural Centre theatre for the first time,” says Masachika Ichimura, the veteran Japanese actor who plays the title role in the Hong Kong production. “If I feel nervous about this performance, it isn’t because it coincides with the first anniversary of his death. It is because I still expect him to jump up and tell me off if I do anything wrong.”
Yuko Tanaka, the actress who plays Lady Macbeth, also feels the enduring spirit of the late director.
“I was rehearsing for another performance of Macbeth four years ago and the director suddenly came up to me and said, ‘I will always be here and be with you.’ I will never forget that moment,” she says.
Ninagawa, the Japanese theatre director who died at the age of 80 in May last year, was one of the most respected and unusual interpreters of Greek tragedies and Shakespearean plays of his generation, captivating audiences around the world with his combination of classical Japanese theatre and Western drama.