MAKBET, directed by Nonon Padilla, is a treatise on how the human soul is corrupted by overwhelming ambition, violence and power. Experience a Shakespearean Garden of Eden with Gino Gonzales as costume and set designer and Shoko Matsumoto as lighting designer; featuring Irma Adlawan as Lady Macbeth, George De Jesus III as Macbeth, Andrew Cruz as Lord Macduff, and Benilde’s Brother President Br. Dennis Magbanua FSC as King Duncan. Using Rolando Tinio’s translation, this rich and dark Shakespearean tragedy produced by Benilde’s Arts and Culture Cluster (BACC) should not be missed.
The central issue in Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of royal succession. Shakespeare chose to focus on the story of a Scottish ling during the ascension of King James of Scotland to the British throne.
The royal succession had continually put the Royal House of England in crisis. Henry VIII causes much of it due to his inability to produce a male heir. In his pursuit of an heir, he severed ties with Rome and the Pope in order to divorce his wife Catherine of Aragon. Instead, he organized a new religion, placing himself as head of this church, a radical move, political in intent and reason. Thus began a series of marriages in his pursuit of women to bear him a son.
The period during which the play was produced was a terrifying time. A plot to kill had just been discovered that involved Catholic soldiers, dissidents, and priests in a conspiracy, famously known as the Gunpowder Plot. It sealed the fate of Catholics in England at that time.
On reflection, Macbeth is not just a story of tyranny and ambition. It is the reenactment of the fall of Man from the Garden of Eden.
BACC’s MAKBET is in close collaboration with the Theater Arts, Production Design, and Arts Management students, with support from Benilde’s Office of the Vice Chancellor for Academics, Benilde’s School of Design and Arts (SDA) Dean’s Office, PHINMA, and TAXI THEATER
