DC Theatre Delivers a Classic MacBeth

By Duncan Lorenzi

“T am settled, and bend up

each corporal agent to this terrible feat.
Away and mock the time with fairest
show:

False face must hide what false heart
doth know.”

Intense from start to finish, the
Douglas College Theatre production
of Shakespeare’s MacBeth kept me
in a heightened state from beginning
to end. Director John Cooper’s entry

 

into this tragic and powerful world of
Shakespeare is carried out with a focused
intrigue that belies its uniquely modern
touch. An original, slightly comedic,
slightly fierce introduction worked well,
and along with the score, it played a big
part in seducing the audience right from
the opening moment.

The three “weird sisters” (Clarissa
Long, Candice Langlois, and Jessica
Lewthwaite) portrayed a satisfying
balance of evil, treachery and cruelty

from within a bubbling cauldron
of enticing chants and drumbeats.
Throughout the piece we are drawn into
the tragic story, feeling and sensing the
presence of evil and treachery, but it is
the demonic incantations

bones.

It is always intriguing in a medieval
sort of way to watch swordplay, and
the play’s fight scenes were definitely
visceral and clean. They did come off

as just a little rehearsed,

and atmosphere created “The cast’s but were ultimately
by the three ominous and - believable.
dangerously feminine pr oduction The cast in this year’s
weird sisters that remains comman de d production commanded
a formidable reoccurring = their characters with
force onstage. their characters tremendous confidence
Instilling perverse ° and ability. The set
cruelty and strength into with tremendous and costume design
the mind of a man is an confidence and departments were both
ominous task, but one that top-notch and __ they

Fiona Revill carries out
with vigour and purpose
as fiery Lady MacBeth. The doomed
King of Scotland, played by Lisa
Gendron, in a reversal of Shakespeare’s
traditional gender roles, came across as
a bit passive though solid in character.
Meanwhile, Nick McKechnie embodies
the torment and unease of MacBeth,
and really seems to come into himself
towards the end of the piece. Ashley
Rutherford, as MacDuff, wails in agony
upon hearing of MacBeth’s slaughter,
and her performance was extraordinarily
chilling; it left an unsettled feeling in my

ability.”

did a marvelous job in
establishing the setting
with succinct veracity. The lighting and
particularly the sound design team both
did an excellent job in helping to create
a very intense and powerful ambience
which was maintained throughout the
entire performance. Bravo!

The Theatre Department’s next
production is Ten Lost Years, a play
with music based on the book by
Barry Broadfoot. It details the lives of
Canadians during the Great Depression,
and will run from November 16-24.

 

Song of the Week:

“No Love Lost” by Joy Division

By Pat MacKenzie

J oy Division has always been one of
those bands that have hovered around in
the background for me. Still, at parties,
or at friends’ smoke-filled and stale beer-
smelling basement suites, their signature
synth-pop sound was always easy to
discern. However, it wasn’t until a recent
devastating Sunday morning comedown
that I, in a very real way, heard them for
the first time.

The CD that was in the player when
this realization occurred was Substance.
Itis a compilation of Joy Division’s work
in the short time they existed before
front-man Ian Curtis’s
tragic suicide and
before the band and
its surviving members
were rechristened as
the more recognizable
and more successful

So, it was with surprise (or was it shock)
when, expecting to hear atmospheric,
pop-inflected music along the lines of
Joy Division’s most recognizable track
“Love Will Tear Us Apart” —to coincide
with my melancholic mood—that I was
inundated with a barrage of what I can
only call punk rock.

Needless to say, I was completely
knocked off my chair. Not so much
because I was being exposed to something
completely unexpected, but because
what I was listening to completely blew
me away—pretty good for a band that
hasn’t existed for almost 30 years.

One of 17 tracks that cover Joy
Division’s short career, “No Love
Lost” is one of a handful of songs from
Substance that capture a high energy UK
punk influenced sound. The song begins
with a throbbing bass and is soon joined
by a buzzing guitar that sounds similar
to early Pete Townshend. In fact, the
first two minuets of “No Love Lost” is
an instrumental that bears a remarkable
resemblance to The Who of the mid-
60s. But whereas contemporaries such
as the Sex Pistols were loath to admit
any affinity to so-called rock stars, in
“No Love Lost” Joy Division seem to

“No Love Lost’ is one of a handful of songs from Substance
that capture a high energy UK punk influenced sound.

 

 

New Order—songs of
which you can often
hear and dance to in
the most mainstream
of nightclubs today. An
easy sonic connection
can be made between #
the two bands, but a 4
dark energy, perhaps
coming from Curtis’s
tortured life, endows
Joy Division’s
music with far more |
devastating raw §

power.

 

be content, or at least
unaware, of the influences they are
channeling.

As for the lyrics, they are a bizarre
mixture of first person experience and
third person narrative. Perhaps typical
punk rock angst is being expressed when
Curtis sings in mid-range, “Just to see
you torn apart/ witness to your empty
heart/ I need it/ I need it/ I need it.” But
after the first verse, the song turns into
a story of a woman who is the victim of
some experiment or surgical procedure
that is on display for the public.

It may be that the woman being
experimented upon
is the same one
with the “empty
heart” referred to
in the first verse.
Whether or not
this is the case is
unknowable, _ but
the mixture of
the two narrative
points of view hints
at the complexity,
sophistication and
darknessthatwould
be developed to
gteater depth in Joy
Division’s __ later,
more recognizable
music.

Check it out for
the first time if you
haven’t already.

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