Support for the 2016 Season of the Festival Theatre Is
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SUPPORT FOR THE 2016 SEASON OF THE FESTIVAL THEATRE IS GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY CLAIRE & DANIEL BERNSTEIN PRODUCTION SUPPORT IS GENEROUSLY PROVIDED BY JANE PETERSEN BURFIELD & FAMILY, BY BARBARA & JOHN SCHUBERT, BY THE TREMAIN FAMILY, AND BY CHIP & BARBARA VALLIS UNIVERSITY OF WATERLOO What do we mean by victory – and AFTER THE its tragic corollary, defeat? And what happens in their wake? From the fall on the VICTORY of Troy in The Aeneid to the Second World War in All My Sons, conflicts in history or legend have inspired several “When the hurly-burly’s done, of the works on our 2016 playbill. But world stage When the battle’s lost and won.” in every case, what fascinates us is not the struggle against an external foe but This is a place where imagination – MACBETH the conflict within. In drama, humanity meets innovation — where itself is the ultimate battlefield: no unconventional approaches push defeat can be more devastating than performance to new heights and the vanquishing of the spirit; no victory allow talent to soar. more exhilarating than the triumph of the heart. Through research, teaching and public engagement, University Like John Gabriel Borkman or Argan of Waterloo is a proud supporter in The Hypochondriac, we can be our of culture and community. own worst enemies – and our greatest victories consist not of making others less but of making ourselves more. From Solitary to Solidarity: When we overcome a failing, when we Unravelling the Ligatures of Ashley Smith find true love, when we free ourselves University of Waterloo Drama from the compulsions and obsessions Faculty of Arts that distort our lives, when we see ourselves clearly for the first time: these are the victories that truly transform us. I hope you will join us as we celebrate them on our stages and in our Forum events this season. ANTONI CIMOLINO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR WATERLOO | Canada’s most innovative university uwaterloo.ca/stratford-16 C010240 OUR 2016 PARTNERS AND SPONSORS WE ARE HONOURED TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE FOLLOWING CORPORATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS WHO HAVE MADE COMMITMENTS IN THE 2016 SEASON: INDIVIDUAL THEATRE SPONSORS IN-KIND SPONSOR PERFORMANCE HOSTS Support for the 2016 Support for the 2016 Support for the 2016 Support for the 2016 The Aylmer Express season of the Festival season of the Avon season of the Tom season of the Studio Burgundy Asset Management Inc. Theatre is generously Theatre is generously Patterson Theatre is Theatre is generously provided by Claire & provided by the generously provided by provided by Sandra & Famme & Co. Professional Corporation Daniel Bernstein Birmingham family Richard Rooney & Jim Pitblado Intact Insurance Laura Dinner SEASON HOSTS Pelee Island Winery Steed Standard Transport Limited Sylvanacre Properties Ltd. CORPORATE THEATRE PARTNER The Woodbridge Company Limited BMO Financial Group, Corporate Sponsor for the 2016 season of the Tom Patterson Theatre University of Waterloo Stratford Campus EDUCATION PROGRAM PARTNER Scotiabank THE STRATFORD FESTIVAL GRATEFULLY ACKNOWLEDGES THE GENEROUS SUPPORT OF THESE CONTRIBUTORS TO OUR SUCCESS: CORPORATE PARTNERS PRODUCTION AND PROGRAM SPONSORS The Stratford Festival is a non-profit organization with charitable status in Canada and the U.S. 2 3 PHOTO CUTLINE HERE PHOTO IAN LAKE THE INSTRUMENTS OF DARKNESS BY ALEXANDER LEGGATT Returning from victory in battle, the Scottish scene they refer cryptically to “our masters.” generals Macbeth and Banquo encounter Do they serve a higher power, and if so a trio of strange women who hail Macbeth what is that power? As to their purpose, as Thane of Glamis, Thane of Cawdor, and Banquo warns Macbeth, “to win us to our king hereafter. Who are they, what are they, harm, / The instruments of darkness tell us how do they know what they know, and truths” only to betray us in the end. why are they greeting Macbeth this way? This seems clear enough; but when in a We think of them as witches, but the word later scene Macbeth orders the witches TAP INTO THE LATEST FROM ACROSS witch occurs only once in the dialogue, to tell his future, he gets two riddling THE CITY AND AROUND THE WORLD. and they never use it themselves. They call prophecies that offer false hope and one themselves “the weird sisters,” and weird perfectly clear, valid warning: “Beware DAILY ON YOUR TABLET. is a word for fate, as though they are the Macduff.” If they are trying to lure Macbeth fates who control human lives. Yet in a later to his doom, why the warning? The 4 5 StarTouch_Stratford Program Ad_5.375" x 8.375".indd 1 16-03-11 4:39 PM prophecies echo through the rest of the But the horror of the deed remains, and play, but the witches themselves disappear, once again language comes into the leaving the questions they provoke service of evil by concealing that horror. unanswered. In the lead-in to the murder, Macbeth and The instruments of darkness are Lady Macbeth find ways of not saying what They are just the most conspicuous they are going to do. Not “We’re going to embodiment of an uncanny atmosphere not just something out there in the kill Duncan” but “He that’s coming / Must that haunts the drama. Something is out be provided for.” When Macbeth says, “If it there, something that lives in darkness and night; they are also the workings were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well thunder and screams in the night. Whatever / It were done quickly,” we know what “it” is it is, it does not just affect Macbeth; it of the human mind and who will do it; but the words hide that attacks him. When the witches trigger the knowledge. Language has its own darkness. thought of murdering Duncan to become “king hereafter,” he feels his hair rising Once the murder is done, and discovered, and his heart pounding. Just before the there is no more hiding. The horror of it murder he has a vision of a bloodstained is no longer confined to the imaginations the partnership breaks, as though that one the depths of his being she still matters. dagger pointing at Duncan’s bedchamber. of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth; it spreads deed was what their marriage was about, His despair in the final scenes goes from Having done the deed, he hears a voice out into the world. Other characters report and now the deed is done the marriage is complaints that his own life is ruined from nowhere that cries, “Sleep no uncanny portents: wind, earthquake, over. He plans the murder of Banquo on to the bleak vision of “Tomorrow and more.” Whatever is at work, it comes to screams in the night, horses running mad his own: “Be innocent of the knowledge, tomorrow and tomorrow,” in which all life is him unbidden, invading his body and his and eating each other. Macbeth feared dearest chuck / Till thou applaud the meaningless. The difference is that he has imagination. that when the deed was done it would not deed” – a far cry from “dearest partner just heard of the death of Lady Macbeth. be done, and he was right. The witches But the power that terrifies Macbeth is a of greatness.” The last time we see them They were the instruments of darkness, prophesied that Banquo would be father power that Lady Macbeth deliberately calls together on stage is in the banquet where drawing each other into an evil that ruined to a line of kings; he tries to stymie that on: “Come, you spirits / That tend on mortal she tries and fails to control his panic at the their lives and the world around them. But prophecy by killing Banquo and his son thoughts, unsex me here.” She wants her sight of Banquo’s ghost. But it is not the they were also human, and in the glimpse Fleance – in effect, killing the future. But body invaded, filled with cruelty, her blood last time they are together. Sleepwalking, of the bond between them, even as he Fleance escapes, and the murdered thickened, her milk turned to gall; she wants she talks to him compulsively as though becomes a tyrant and she becomes a Banquo won’t stay dead; he haunts the man to be made inhuman to do the work she he were there with her, re-living everything restless living ghost, something of that who had him killed, and we begin to share has to do. She remembers the tenderness they have been through. Seemingly broken, humanity remains. Macbeth’s terror. No one else on stage of breastfeeding an infant; then imagines the bond between them is for her as sees Banquo’s ghost; but we see it. As part herself tearing it from her breast and powerful as ever. of the spread of horror, we know what it is Alexander Leggatt is Professor Emeritus dashing its brains out. like to be Macbeth. And while he seems to leave her behind of English at University College, University That horrific image is part of an argument: as he goes to war, there is a sign that in of Toronto. The man who will kill him, Macduff, is in his people should keep their promises. If own way as haunted as the tyrant. Fleeing she had promised to do such a thing, she to England, he deserted his family, and would do it. In her confrontation with her Macbeth has them massacred. In the final husband we realize that the instruments of battle, Macduff declares that if anyone else darkness are not just something out there kills Macbeth, “My wife and children’s ghosts WHEN THE PLAY BEGINS in the night; they are also the workings will haunt me still.” One haunted, guilty man of the human mind.