Review: Yukio Ninagawa’s extraordinary Macbeth is testament to the genius of the late Japanese dramatist
Director uses the stylised movements of Japanese theatre to bring out the universality of Macbeth, with a cast that exudes chemistry, striking stage sets and - his masterstroke - Western classical music that underscores its pathos
Yukio Ninagawa was in the middle of rehearsals for the revival of his 1980 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth just before his death in May 2016. In a programme note he prepared for a world tour that includes a Hong Kong stop this month, he expressed the wish that his interpretation would still “knock out the world”.
“As I am now approaching ... the end of my life, I wanted to confirm if I had really created a production that expressed my vision of the world and if I had been able to display a definite ability [sic],” he wrote.
The extraordinary performance at the Hong Kong Cultural Centre last weekend left little doubt of the Japanese director’s genius.
Ninagawa moved the setting from 11th-century Scotland to 16th-century Japan, and the Thane of Cawdor becomes a samurai serving a local warlord Duncan – a staging reminiscent of Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 film treatment of the same play.
