Goblin:Macbeth is a monstrously entertaining show

Screw your courage to the sticking point, for Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre has just unleashed a gaggle of goblins at the Tom Hendry Warehouse in its ghoulishly theatrical Goblin:Macbeth.

The darkly subversive, 95-minute (sans intermission) production is the brainchild of Spontaneous Theatre’s Bruce Horak and Rebecca Northan (also serving as director), with Ellis Lalonde (sound designer).

It stars a trio of larger-than-life, pointy-eared goblins, Wug, Kragva and Moog — fie on anyone seeking to determine their tightly guarded mortal identities — who cavort and kibbitz with audience members before stumbling across The Complete Works of William Shakespeare.

After indignantly declaring “we are not Tolkien goblins,” and sharing a bit of goblin-lore (who knew these demons had 17 genders?) they vow they will attempt to “do theatre” to better understand our culture, choosing the Bard’s superstition-riddled Scottish Play for being the shortest and bloodiest.

And then it’s off to the races, with the three sweetly terrifying goblins pecking at each other, correcting each other’s pronunciation, and debating the merits of iambic pentameter and rhyming couplets. They actually “do” a full performance of Macbeth, chronicling the bloodthirsty thane’s vaulting ambition that ultimately leads to his own demise.

There are plenty of hijinks and audience-participation opportunities along the way, as these unworldly creatures morph through a dizzying stable of characters, differentiated with breathtaking physicality, vocal modulation, some nifty mime and rapier-sharp improvisation laced with a slew of F-bombs that often had the crowd howling with delight.

Kudos to Wug for his title role (among others), as he navigates the emotional trajectory from swaggering warrior general to ill-fated king consumed by his own murderous ambition, delivering his soliloquies — cheekily dismissed as mere asides by Kragva — like a man possessed.

More effective blocking, including a fuller use of the entire stage area, would have allowed his character to pop more as the play’s driving force; this is a minor quibble for an otherwise compelling portrayal.

Kragva delivers a tour-de-force performance with the lion’s share of the roles, including King Duncan, Malcolm and a wild Banquo, who drawls out Shakespeare’s densely packed Elizabethan text like a cool Texan rancher. His Lady Macbeth’s iconic sleepwalking scene might have been given greater weight; her/his/its descent into madness is uttered from downstage right in a blink-and-you-miss-it moment.

Moog, as his own one-goblin band provides a spot-on, live/recorded soundtrack interlaced with a battery of Foley sound effects, including atmospheric owl hoots and crow caws. One of the show’s best moments is when he assumes the role of Banquo’s teenage son Fleance who squabbles with his father for banging out Smoke on the Water on his accordion.

One can’t imagine this show without the goblins’s nightmare-inducing, silicone masks built by Composite Effects, with simple but effective costumes by the late Philip Edwards. Lighting designer Anton deGroot sets the stage aflame in blood-red hues during the murder scenes and breaks the fourth wall with full-on house lights as Kragva eggs us on as an advancing Birnam Wood fulfils the witches’s prophecy.

Just when you think the tomfoolery is all over, the goblins, after first debating their next play (yes, please), pack one final punch during the denouement that offers a surprising love letter to the power of a live theatrical experience.

This brilliantly clever ending hits the coffin nail on the head; these anarchistic rogues, who gleefully invited us into their fantastical playground, were pulling the strings all along.

holly.harris@shaw.ca