Macbeth on a Harley at a Seedy Motel

Reviewed by Mary Alderson

When the amazing director Robert Lepage brought Coriolanus to the Stratford stage in 2018, I was mesmerized by his brilliant use of projections and excellent interpretation of Shakespeare while modernizing the old story. I was hoping this season’s Macbeth would be even better. Unfortunately, while Macbeth is an outstanding production, it hasn’t lived up to his great Coriolanus.

Lepage is a Quebec director who has made projections an integral part of his plays. His sets are as realistic as possible, and the projections give live theatre a movie quality. And he has a penchant for taking the Bard’s words and putting them into more recent events. This Macbeth is holding fast to the same lust for power as the ancient Macbeth and has his wife, Lady Macbeth urging him on. But instead of sitting in a castle in a Scottish fiefdom in 1040, Lepage’s Macbeth is riding his motorcycle to a Montreal pool hall in 1990. Macbeth is the leader of a biker gang, prepared to kill off anyone who stands in his way, whether it be his own fellow gang members or rival bikers, to gain complete control.

The play opens with a murder. Two men in a small boat throw a body tied to a cement block overboard. Sound effects are well done, from the put-put-put of the boat motor to the loud splash of the body. Above we see a projected image: the body is slowly sinking to the lake bottom. Then the show opens like a movie, with the title Macbeth projected in big letters, then all the credits. Later, I realize that the dead man was the Thane of Cawdor, killed by Macbeth and Banquo.

And so it goes – amazing projected images, or images reflected in giant mirrors. The set is enormous: instead of a castle, Macbeth and his wife live in a 1960s-style motor hotel, two storeys high with the outdoor staircase leading to the upper rooms. On the main floor is the drab motel office with a vacancy sign, and by turning the set, we can see the Macbeths’ room, small and dingy with wood panelling. Another turn of the hotel and we are in their bathroom where they wash off the blood.

Also amazing are the motorcycles all the characters ride. These are actually e-bikes, dressed up to look like impressive Harley-Davidsons. The sound effects are perfect; the Harleys roar into life very realistically.

The special effects are well done: the supernatural, frightening knife (dagger) hovers over Macbeth, and later Banquo’s ghostly figure haunts him.

While the set is very impressive, it is also the downfall of this production. The huge two-story motel is simply too difficult to move, despite stage hands and actors pushing it. It takes way too long to go from outside to inside and the pace of the story comes to a halt as we wait. Similarly, the motorcycles have to be used each time the location changes, and it takes time as the bikers ride across stage, turn around and ride off, again slowing the story. Unfortunately, on opening night, some of the bikers appeared a little unsure of their Harleys, having to put a boot down to maintain their balance. With space on the stage limited, it must be difficult to handle them, keeping the perimeters in mind.

Tom McCamus is a forceful Macbeth and at the same time effortlessly convincing as an overly-ambitious biker gang leader. Similarly, Lucy Peacock is a tough biker chick. Both McCamus and Peacock are experts in Shakespearean language. They know the right intonation and emphasis to make it completely understandable.

Graham Abbey as Banquo, Tom Rooney as Macduff and André Sills as Ross round out the key characters. Maria Vacratsis as the Porter piques interest handling the work of the motel manager and desk clerk. She has just the right amount of attitude in dealing with the biker gangs.

Special mention goes to the three witches, played as drag hookers by Aiden DeSalaiz, Paul Dunn and Anthony Palermo. They are hags, as Shakespeare described them, except they are wearing dirty, tattered mini skirts or wrinkled old lingerie.

The time involved in moving the motel and riding the motorcycles must have necessitated cuts to the script. I found myself wondering if I just missed something, and trying to figure out just where in the plot we were.

Despite these concerns, this Macbeth is still worth seeing, just for the spectacle. Lepage’s direction, with the imaginative set and motorcycles, and the use of projections and mirrors, propels the audience back to the 1990s and the violence of the Montreal biker gang wars. It is indeed a vision Shakespeare could not have imagined. Nonetheless, man’s ruthlessness, narcissism and blind ambition has remained the same over the centuries.

 Macbeth continues in repertory until November 2 at the Avon Theatre, Stratford. Tickets are available at the Stratford Festival at 1-800-567-1600, or check www.stratfordfestival.ca

Photo: Graham Abbey as Banquo (front-left) and Tom McCamus as Macbeth with Lucy Peacock as Lady Macbeth in Macbeth, Stratford Festival 2025. Photo by David Hou.

Macbeth
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Robert Lepage
Original Music by John Gzowski
Performed by Tom McCamus, Lucy Peacock, Graham Abbey, Tom Rooney et al.
Avon Theatre, Stratford
May 3 to October 24, 2025
Reviewed by Mary Alderson