Macbeth ・ Comédie-Française

For her second time at the Comédie- Française, following Annie Ernaux’s Mémoire de fille (A Girl’s Story) in June 2023, Silvia Costa selected the piece superstition requires to be referred to as “the Scottish play” – while some people even call the murderous couple “M.” and “Lady M.”.

The play was added to the Répertoire in 1985 when Jean-Pierre Vincent directed it at the Festival d’Avignon honours courtyard; this nighttime tragedy remains fascinating due to its intense, bloodthirsty quality combined with the importance of its supernatural dimension.
The Italian director, whose work has been prominently featured these last few years in theatres and operas, tackles the destiny of general Macbeth. He was told by three witches he would become king; obsessed with this prophecy, he commits regicide with the help of his wife. After generous and honest king Duncan is killed comes the turn of his friend Banquo, the troublesome witness. The couple is strangled by guilt and descends into madness. The usurper and his wife – who keeps seeing her hands tainted with blood – seem to mould into a single figure of human complexity.
Since the three fatal sisters’ announcement in the first scene, (“Fair is foul, and foul is fair: / Hover through the fog and filthy air.”) the whole play relies on a disarray of values which draw the intimate up to the moral and political spheres: between right and wrong, soundness and madness, the real and the imaginary, transgression and thirst for power, life and death, the male and female figures... Silvia Costa fashioned a metaphorical environment matching the labyrinth encased within the king’s conscience. “Life’s but a walking shadow”, says Macbeth, whose unearthing of his darkest desires gradually lead to self-discovery.

NEW PRODUCTION

TICKETS CAN BE PURCHASED STARTING
JAN 24

IN CINEMAS
LIVE
APR 25

With the generous support of Aline Foriel-Destezet, great patron of the arts.

Creative team

Adaptation, direction and scenography: Silvia Costa
Dramaturgy: Simon Hatab
Scenography: Michele Taborelli
Costumes: Camille Assaf
Lighting: Marco Giusti
Original music and sound: Nicola Ratti
Assistant Director: Alison Hornus

and the Académie de la Comédie-Française:
Assistant director: Mathilde Waeber
Scenography assistant: Dimitri Lenin
Costume assistantship: Alma Bousquet
Sound assistant: Ania Zante

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