The Citizens Theatre have announced details of their latest digital theatre experience. A new filmed version of their show The Macbeths will premiere online this May.
The Macbeths is an intimate and intense re-imagining of the Scottish play focusing on the passionate marriage at the heart of the story. Using a radically cut version of Shakespeare’s text adapted by director Dominic Hill and writer Frances Poet, the production charts the breakdown of the couple’s relationship following an act of murder which at first binds them together and then destroys them.
The play’s sell-out run in the Circle Studio at the Citizens Theatre in 2017 was widely acclaimed and was recently praised by Joyce McMillan as, “one of the most gripping and visceral experiences in the last decade of Scottish theatre.” (Scotsman Sessions, 12 June 2020)
The production is now being adapted for online audiences to experience at home in collaboration with Urbancroft Films. Set entirely on and around the couple’s sweat-tangled bed, the 60-minute film will capture the feverish energy of the stage production to recreate the claustrophobic world the Macbeths inhabit.
The film reunites the original 2017 cast. Charlene Boyd, who currently plays PC Jac Dunn on River City and recently appeared in the critically acclaimed BBC drama The Trial of Christine Keeler, returns to the role of Lady Macbeth. Her electric portrayal of the ‘fiend like queen’ in 2017 earned her a Critics’ Awards for Theatre in Scotland nomination for Best Female Performance.
Charlene will be joined by Keith Fleming, who is reprising the role of Macbeth. The actor is well-known for playing Lesley in hit TV series Outlander. He is also a regular on the Citizens stage having worked with Director Dominic Hill on many of the theatre’s best loved shows including Cyrano de Bergerac and Oresteia: This Restless House.
Citizens Theatre Artistic Director, Dominic Hill, commented: “I have always loved this play. It’s a great story about a couple being undone by their own actions and it can be understood and enjoyed as easily today as it was 400 years ago. At the Citz, we are well known for re-imagining classic plays and I’m excited to return to this production and adapt it again for screen. Playing with camera techniques, we hope to encapsulate the raw emotions of the couple and the dark, sleepless nightmare they are in. We know that digital versions of our work can reach new audiences as well as keep our regular supporters connected to us and I hope this new film will give all of them a really rewarding experience.”
This is the second digital theatre experience of a full-length play the Citizens have produced, following their successful Stellar Quines co-production, Fibres, in November 2020.
The Macbeths will premiere online in late May. It will be free to view. More details to be announced soon.
