Friday 25 May 2007

Until 21 July

The Swan Theatre, Waterside, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire CV37 6BB, Box office 0870 609 1110

Performance dates: 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31 May; 7, 8, 14, 15, 19, 20, 23, 26, 27, 30 June; 2, 6, 7, 12, 14, 16, 20, 21 July. All shows at 19.30, except on 23 June and 7 & 21 July, at 13.30
Tickets: £5-£36

Two generals, Macbett and Banco, put down a rebellion. In payment for their heroic service, Archduke Duncan promises to bestow on them land, titles and cash, but he reneges on the deal. Encouraged by the seductive Lady Duncan, Macbett plots to assassinate the Archduke and crown himself King. Trying to maintain his tenuous grip on the throne through a vicious cycle of murder and bloodshed, Macbett is haunted by the ghosts of his victims and discovers that his new wife is not all that she seems.

Written during the Cold War, Ionesco’s Macbett remoulds Shakespeare’s Macbeth into a furiously comic tale of ambition, corruption, cowardice and excess, creating a tragic farce which takes human folly to its wildest extremes.

Romanian born Eugene Ionesco was a member Academie francaise and winner of the Prix Italia. One of the most innovative playwrights of the modern stage, he was a pioneer who revolutionised theatre away from naturalism and towards a heightened imaginative truth which became known as the Theatre of the Absurd.

Silviu Purcarete has worked in Romanian and European theatre for more than twenty years, most notably for the National Theatre of Craiova and Theatre Bulandra in Bucharest. His productions have won many awards and great critical acclaim both in Romania and abroad. In 1996 Purcarete became Director of the Centre Dramatique National de Limoges.

More details on www.rsc.org.uk.