THE LINES I LOVE PART 7

In our occasional series, we ask theatre insiders to pick a speech from Shakespeare that strikes a chord with them. In part seven, Virginia Gay chats with writer Andy McLean about a powerful speech from Shakespeare that she adores.

Recently, Director Virginia Gay devoted her time to taking Mackenzie from page to stage. This dark, deranged retelling of Macbeth transports the original story from 11th Century Scotland to 21st Century Australia.

The plays are centuries and worlds apart – Macbeth commits his crimes in ancient castles and “blasted heaths”, whereas Mackenzie commits her crimes backstage in a children’s TV studio. Yet the parallels between the two plays are striking. When we asked Virginia to pick some lines from Macbeth to illustrate this, she immediately pointed to these words from Act 5, Scene 5:

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

“That speech is a direct bridge between the two plays,” explains Virginia. “In the entertainment business, we build up these temporary godlike performers, these ‘players’ like Mackenzie who ‘strut’ on the stage – then they’re gone and ‘heard no more’.

“Mackenzie is full of sound and fury and idiocy yet, like all plays, it’s ephemeral. It’s ‘nothing’ in the sense that it only exists in the room, in the imagination of the players and the audience. That magical human connection is what makes Macbeth and Mackenzie so special.”

Bell Shakespeare staged the world premiere of Mackenzie directed by Virginia Gay in Sydney and Melbourne this year. Bell Shakespeare’s Macbeth tours nationally from September, its final stop will be at the Sydney Opera House from 18 November to 06 December.