William Shakespeare’s Macbeth has been adapted in Telugu and it will be revisited on stage this weekend in Hyderabad. The 100-minute play co-produced by Storyboard Productions and Canopy Theatre presents the story from the witches’ point of view. “The first thing I told my writer Mohammad Rafi Sheikh was to not Indianise the story for the stage,” says director Eugien Jos Chirammel of Canopy. While 15 actors present the play in a semi-realistic portrayal, Macbeth unfolds on stage with minimal sets, including three stools symbolically representing thrones.
The effort is to build an actor-audience relationship through the stage. “Shakespearean acting is quite dramatic with larger-than-life characters and lengthy dialogues. We have retained some of those elements but the focus was to be less dramatic so that the actors feel more connected to the audience.”
