Production Images: Liam O’Keefe
It begins with a rumble so loud that the seating shakes, a disembodied voice and light slowing rising on a woman in military garb. WYRD: SEASON OF THE WITCH will take us from this place into a new created Shakespeare, influenced by Japanese Actor Training and with scant regard for our preconceptions of how MACBETH should be. It’s a world where The Lady will embody both the ambition of Thane and the frailty of a woman who cannot undo what has been done. This is a vision of Macbeth through a different lens.
Our Lady exists in a recognisable form, as does Banquo and Fleance and King Duncan but the fantastical elements are absorbed by the 3 witches, Hecate and the ensemble. As devised by the company and directed by Shy Magsalin, WYRD is a ensemble work which is the first of their offerings during a two year residency at PACT.
The company is the Ninefold Ensemble and they work with the Suzuki Method of Actor Training which has physicality at its core and emphasises breath and imagination and presence. Presence ascending in the performance of Victoria Greiner as Our Lady. Her excellent work helms this production and she is commanding yet vulnerable and cynical. She finds a dark humour in her exterior circumstances, plus, she has a seethe early on which gives her creation a vibrant dangerousness. Greiner also travels an arc through the reprising and circular elements of the work to inspire real pathos in her death and resurrection. Vocally strong, Greiner’s emotional tumult is readily available to the audience through her stance and face and her movement, both in and beyond the stellar ensemble work.
For it is the ensemble who create the images of which the production is made. Superbly fashioned and rigorously applied, the movement-based work is effective and of extraordinary quality. Stillness that one might see in a modern dance work, movement that one could expect from a corps de ballet yet WYRD: SEASON OF THE WITCH is story responsive. Not literally, there is little here that takes the text as gospel. However, on occasion, a word will escape into a vision and those moments are thrilling. “Taste” fills the eyes with a richness of almost mimetic movement which stirs the senses. Equally well created and expressed, the cauldron ingredients provide one of the more memorable sequences in the show.
Every small movement, tilt, run or group travel is beautiful. Early, there is a bloodless battle with archers knelt and ready. It is a powerful beginning, effective and affecting. This is an almost propsless production. There’s a crown and a chair and a black box where sometimes the ensemble cringe on the edges from the power of the protagonist. (Production Design: Victor Kalka) Then a word like “Hellhounds” lets loose pure Suzuki in the athletic imagery of rush and slowness and the ravening vocalisations.
The choral speech works very well on occasions and the text is defiantly not sacrosanct in WYRD: SEASON OF THE WITCH. The text is fractured in places, added to at the finale of the work and changed for circumstances …” Who would have thought the young man had so much blood in him?” (Ensemble members include: Jessica Dalton, Matt Heys, Shane Russon and Stella Ye)
There are other excellent performances also, most notably that of Brigid Vidler as Banquo who is wrought with the simplicity of self-effacing deference. It is such an enjoyable low key turn and Banquo’s relationship with Tabitha Woo’s Fleance is equally lovely to watch. Also thoroughly enjoyable is the strong physicality of the witches who have the pop princess platinum wigged girl group as their overarching visual. (Aslam Abdus-samad, Erica J Brennan, Paul Musumeci) Even in conspiration they are perfectly synced, however the overly dramatic and heavy-handed interpretation of Hecate by Gideon Payten-Griffiths does jar with their smooth consistency. Melissa Hume and Luke Yager are fluid and expressive in their counterpointed roles as the attendants.
Melanie Herbert’s audio compositions have a high tone motif with a metallic feel and the distinct undertones of a tuning fork. The use of a couple of 80’s pop tunes ‘Town without Pity’, for example, surprise and delight once one gets used to their appearance … especially effective to me was the bass and distortion of almost … almost… recognizable music under the Duncan banquet. The audio in that scene was pervasively disorienting without pulling focus away from the visuals. Similarly the instrumental of baboons blood is intense and pigsqueal tensioned. The lighting gives a shadowed moodiness and some eerie final moments. (Lighting Design: Liam O’Keefe) White is well used and the downstage purple and green is terrifically effective in one of the final sequences where transmogrification is taking place.
WYRD is thoughtful work performed with discipline and energy to create haunting visuals that focus the mind to the themes.
WYRD: THE SEASON OF THE WITCH from Ninefold [Facebook] is currently playing at PACT [Facebook] until June 30 and you can read an interview with Victoria Greiner here.
