Her Hour Upon The Stage

The Melbourne based theatre company Shakespearean Jeans, established in 2017 by Lucy Seale together with Nicola Dobinson, have taken it in their stride to come up with a wonderful reinvention of Macbeth.

Her Hour Upon The Stageis written by Seale and begins at the end of the last act (5) of Macbeth. Seale uses original text and Elizabethan and modern English language to reassemble a unique back turning of events, providing a refreshing post modern feminist interpretation of the damaging physical and psychological effects of ambition and seeking power for its own sake.  Lady Macbeth (Annabelle Mitchell) and Macbeth (Nicholas Kirkby) offer engaging performances as they question their desires, wants and needs as lovers, and as a husband and wife team.

The superb ever-present witches (Genevieve Simone Brott, Emma Bampton, Liv Bell), gather together as the bedraggled hags, reevaluate their prophecies and question their supernatural roles in a hard, male dominated war-mongering world. At the same time, the trio convert to a modern day setting and briefly offer a critical what if and why analysis.

Macbeth and Macduff (Matt Bertram) are both fierce and determined discussing their duties as noblemen and their rights of passage as men, as Macbeth’s bloody reign comes to an end.  The ghosts of Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff (Isabel Knight) discuss the role of motherhood, offering a revaluation of Lady Macbeth’s role as a barren, childless wife.

There is a lot of determination, not only from the writer but also the entire team, and the work is solid, genuine and refreshing. There does need to be some editing, while a slower and steady pacing of the physical theatrics and dialogue delivery would make this production really shine.

Flora Georgiou