Reviews 2017
Reviews 2017
✭✭✭✭✭
by the company, directed by Jon Lachlan Stewart
La Fille du Laitier, Toronto Fringe Festival, Tarragon Theatre Mainspace, 30 Bridgman Ave.
July 6-15, 2017
Macbeth Muet (or “Mute Macbeth” in English) by La Fille du Laitier of Montreal is one the most imaginative shows I’ve ever seen at the Fringe.
The description in the Fringe programme gives the misleading impression that it's a silly whirlwind run-through of Shakespeare’s tragedy. It is not. In fact, it’s a brilliant alternative presentation of Shakespeare’s play told through physical theatre and the manipulation of everyday objects, much in the style of the Belgian hand puppetry show Kiss & Cry seen at Canadian Stage.
When playing the Macbeths, performers Clara Prévost and Jérémie Francoeur are as impressive as the best young classical actors. Though they may be silent, their work is timed precisely to a pre-recorded soundtrack chosen from an enormous range of music, each selection reinforcing the meaning of a given sequence. Prévost chillingly enacts Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene to Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence”.
The production views the Macbeths’ quest for power as their way of deadening their envy of other people’s families. Three interpolated “prologues” show how the Macbeths’ carelessness led to the death of their children; they contrast with Banquo and the Macduffs, who lovingly cared for their offspring.
When Francoeur as Macbeth smashes the six eggs representing Macduff’s children the effect is horrifying. Elsewhere, the show is filled with laughter, not at any foolishness but because of the continually amazing inventiveness of the performers in creating powerful imagery from such ordinary objects as tablecloths, cups, plates, flashlights and, of course, eggs.
Show length: 50 min.
©Christopher Hoile
Note: A version of this review appeared in NOW Magazine on July 9, 2017.
Photo: Jérémie Francoeur as Macbeth and Clara Prévost as Lady Macbeth. ©2017 Stéphanis Godin.
For tickets, visit https://fringetoronto.com.
2017-07-09
Macbeth Muet