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created by Rebecca Northan & Bruce Horak

Spontaneous Theatre, Tarragon Theatre, Toronto

October 4-November 3, 2024

“A sad tale’s best for winter: I have one

Of sprites and goblins” (The Winter’s Tale, Act 2, Scene 1)

The idea behind Goblin:Macbeth, the season opener at Tarragon Theatre, is so “out there” that it’s surprising that anyone ever thought of it, much less acted upon it. But such a show has been created by Spontaneous Theatre, the company that brought us such treasures as the totally improvised Blind Date and a fantastic Romeo and Juliet staged in a parking garage with only four actors. The result of having goblins perform Shakespeare is the most fun you will ever have had seeing Macbeth, and, unexpectedly, a deeper appreciation of why Shakespeare is such a great playwright.

How Spontaneous Theatre hit on the idea of goblins performing Shakespeare is unknown. Shakespeare does refer to goblins in seven of his plays, but not in Macbeth. The three goblins in the show are named Kragva, Moog and Wug. (Reviewers are forbidden from naming who is playing the goblins since we are not even supposed to think of such a thing.) When you enter the Tarragon Theatre, you may well find one of them wandering about the lobby. On entering the auditorium, you will find the work lights on, music blasting and the goblins setting up for the show.

Once the Land Acknowledgement is over and the play begins, the goblins tell us that humans do not understand them. They hate J.R.R. Tolkien’s depiction of them. And, in return, they find they don’t much understand humans in general. They are intrigued by the human invention of theatre and by Shakespeare whom humans consider their greatest playwright. Therefore, as a means of better understanding humans, they have decided to perform Shakespeare’s Macbeth, choosing it primarily because it is so short. The prevalence of witches and blood is also a key attraction. Goblins apparently honour witches. At the performance I attended the three bowed down before a witch they discovered in the audience.

The sources of humour in Goblin:Macbeth are legion. Most obvious is simply the incongruity of beings with hideous faces and bat ears (sorry for being so lookist) speaking Shakespeare’s glorious verse. Next is that Spontaneous Theatre has taken its Romeo and Juliet experiment to an extreme since for most of the play only two goblins, Kragva and Wug, play all the roles while Moog serves as Foley artist and musician.

Wug’s chief role is Macbeth himself, while Kragva plays the three Witches, Lady Macbeth, Banquo, Duncan, the Murderer, Malcolm and Macduff among others. Donalbain is imagined to be a dog. The only part Moog has Fleance, who is played as Banquo’s misunderstood teenaged son who takes out his frustration by playing heavy metal music too loud. Given that the goblins’ acting is restricted by their inflexible faces, it is amazing that they are able to play so many roles and keep them completely distinct. I’ve seen human actors at Stratford who can’t keep multiple roles distinct. The chief method they use in body language and dialect. Kragva gives Banquo a Texan accent and begins every statement with a non-Shakespearean “Yup”. Kragva gives Duncan an old man voice and shuffling walk. At one point Kragva is stretched to playing four different characters in one scene and points this out to Wug who is only playing one.

This division of parts, however, is not absolute. Depending on how a scene is arranged, Wug often has to take on roles also played by Kragva. Therefore, Ross, who is more prominent than usual in the goblins’ version, is characterized by a heavy Scots accent and a lumbering gait. Wug also on one occasion has to shake off ultra-masculine persona as Macbeth to take on the effeminate guise of Malcom. We marvel at the fluidity the goblins use in playing so many roles and how individual roles can remain identifiable even if played by two different actors.

Another source of comedy comes from the goblins’ constantly stopping the play to argue about odd points in the text, comment on what is happening in the play or express dissatisfaction with the stage manager. The goblins are puzzled with English in which “one”, “stone” and “Scone” do not rhyme. Wug wants more light on him as Macbeth so the audience can see him better.

Since the goblins begin the play by saying they are misunderstood, it’s curious that the play’s creators do so little to help us understand them. The one clear point the goblins make in opposition to the stage manager is that the play ought to have real killing and sex, not just the pretend kind. This argument causes a major break in the performance right after Macbeth kills Duncan offstage.

Other than this, however, humour derives not from the difference between goblin and human culture, but from the goblins’ apparent adoption of human preoccupations. Though the goblins have supposedly not done Shakespeare before, Wug chides Kragva for not emphasizing the iambic pentameter of Shakespeare’s verse. Kragva wonders that Wug seems not to know the four steps of an effective apology. While remarks like these are funny, I do wish that the show’s creators had shown us more of what the goblins make of the ideas in a human play.

Once the goblins have finished, they do discuss their experience in a cursory manner. Wug likes acting because he likes people looking at him and hanging on every word. Kragva, however, wonders what the point is of watching people pretending to be other people.

To fit into less than 90 minutes, the text of Macbeth has been severely cut. There’s no onstage murder of Macduff’s family, no look into the future in the second witches’ scene, no doctor or maid in the vestiges of the sleepwalking scene. Nevertheless, all three goblins are expert speakers of Shakespeare, with diction clearer and voices more resonant than one often hears at Stratford. Despite all the tomfoolery, what comes through in Goblin:Macbeth is the story itself. Despite the goblins, the doubling and the interruptions, we still get involved in the story and still admire how much meaning Shakespeare can pack into a single line. Goblin:Macbeth is an hilarious, eye-opening experience that theatre-goers will love.

Christopher Hoile

Photo: Wug, Kragva and Moog; Kragva as Lady Macbeth; Wug as Macbeth. © 2024 Tim Nguyen.

For tickets visit: tarragontheatre.com.