Theatre

Since they set fire to a rusty iron set nightly at the 1996 Edinburgh Festival (with their Bosnia-inspired production ‘Carmen Funebre’), the Polish street-theatre company Teatr Biuro Podrózy has been one to watch whenever it has come to the UK. Their production, ‘Macbeth: Who Is That Bloodied Man?’, promises witches on stilts and armies and motorbikes.

Founder member Marta Strzasko gives us a sneak preview. ‘We wanted to make a performance which is spectacular, but which also shows the modern face of war and violence. We use motorbikes as they are the contemporary horses. But this is also the most text-based production we have ever done  – though with all our work we try to find a universal language of gesture and images as we play in many different countries.

For us Macbeth is a man of remorse, who commits suicide because he’s no longer able to live with the memories of his sins. Theatre should reflect on the contemporary world and be a voice that is taken in the global discussion on different subjects.

Some people say this performance is the continuation of ‘Carmen Funebre’. That told of the victims, Macbeth tells of the oppressors. We were inspired by wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. There are some images taken from the events there like Abu Ghraib.

The whole idea of the witches is also taken from this part of the world as we got inspired by a painting on the wall in Tehran where we’ve performed many times, of a woman holing the body of the dead soldier. It was so strong that it’s haunted us and we took the image of the woman as a modern witch, a desperate wife or mother who lost her wife, husband, or brother in the war, in a situation that was not necessary and who is fighting to take her revenge. The witch is the creator of the chain of events that catches Macbeth and puts him in this tragic position. Behind every character there is a human tragedy.’