TR Warszawa’s Macbeth world premiere took place in Warsaw in 2005 in an immense production hall of the former Warynski Factory. The postindustrial interior with its strange and unclear architecture of internal divisions, abandoned and forsaken, introduced the atmosphere of a bunker, a gigantic entrenchment where all those obsessed with death could hide. The choice of the interior had its relevance: the large-scale multiplicity of plot lines.

Macbeth boldly reinvents the classic for the twenty-first century. With huge cinematic sweep, the production takes multi-media theater to the limit. A dramatic two-story set, video walls, special effects, an extraordinary, layered soundscape, and a deep well of acting tradition transform Shakespeare's web of intimacy, politics and the supernatural into a contemporary living film.

Jarzyna has translated Shakespeare’s text by adapting the Scottish tragedy to the present reality of the Iraq war. And so the king has been replaced by a general, and the fortress replaced by a modern headquarters; Jarzyna has introduced helicopters and soldiers wearing contemporary army uniforms. By and large, every single element is taken from somewhere, borrowed, pastiched, and quoted. Not for the first time has a play on convention proved to be Jarzyna’s natural environment.

Macbeth will be performed in Polish with English supertitles.


direction and text adaptation:             Grzegorz Jarzyna
set design and costumes:                  Stephanie Nelson
music:                                              Abel Korzeniowski
lighting:                                            Jacqueline Sobiszewski
video:                                               Neurotic Group
projections:                                       Bartek Macias
music arrangement:                           Piotr Dominski
fight arrangement:                             Michał Stanislawski, Miroslaw Okninski
magic effects:                                   Maciej Pol
pyrotechnic effects:                           Piotr Krzyczmonik, Slawomir Maslanka, Igor Kurak

cast:                                                Cezary Kosinski, Aleksandra Konieczna, Danuta Stenka,
                                                        Tomasz Tyndyk, Michał Zurawski, Jacek Poniedzialek,
                                                       Jan Dravnel, Miroslaw Zbrojewicz, Eryk Lubos, Sebastian Pawlak,
                                                       Janusz Chabior, Agnieszka Podsiadlik