Bell Shakespeare Macbeth 2026: The Scottish Play’s modern day resonance of power and tyranny

The previous time Peter Evans was involved in a production of Macbeth, everyone was struck down with food poisoning and the company had to postpone the opening night.

It’s why he, the artistic director of Bell Shakespeare, still calls it, the Scottish Play. “I don’t whether I should be embarrassed about this, but I do, I do,” he told The Nightly. Perhaps not everywhere in every instance, but certainly inside a theatre.

Superstition has it that saying “Macbeth” inside a theatre, outside of speaking it in dialogue, will activate a curse, raining misfortune upon any who dare utter the syllables. Perhaps it’s silly, but it’s also a tradition that connects each production of Macbeth to all those that came before it.

Evans can point to weird things that’s happened during his previous experiences, but also acknowledged that there’s confirmation bias.

“I also did (a production) in the 90s that didn’t go so well. No one got hurt or anything, and if you actually look into it, Romeo and Juliet has more injuries and things happening than Macbeth because there are a lot of young people doing lots of sword fights.”

Bell Shakespeare is currently on a 20-city national tour of a new version of the Scottish play, starring Anthony Taufa, and so far, the most serious thing to have happened was a fire alarm in the middle of the show locked everyone out of the theatre for about 20 minutes.

This production has re-imagined Macbeth as being set in the immediate aftermath of World War I, still in Scotland, and explores the giddiness of victory, the sting of personal betrayal and the shifting power vacuum that is created from conflict.

The time period also coincides with a resurgence of cultists and spiritualists, which allowed the play to incorporate Macbeth’s three prophesising witches in a literal rather than metaphorical way.

Given this is the third time Evans has staged Macbeth, there were aspects of it he was keen to pull out more. He’d already done one that emphasised the masculine warrior of the titular character, another which was interested in the poetry of how Shakespeare wrote him.

Macbeth is one of the bard’s more violent plays, a portrait of power, ambition and guilt.

The image which underpins this Macbeth is the royal banquet scene, where Macbeth invites the lords and ladies for a party. It’s supposed to be a fun time but on the inside, he’s mentally disintegrating, weighed down by the guilt of his murderous actions.

“Everybody in that room sees that he’s lost his mind, and anyone paying close attention can probably work out why,” Evans explained.

“I was interested in this idea that, in fact, people are watching this country fall apart. They watch this tyrant take it apart, and a number of those smaller characters have to decide if they’re going to go off to Macduff or stay with Macbeth.

“I think most of us are increasingly interested in what people in power do when they don’t stop people who are out of control.”

There’s clear contemporary resonance to those questions, and that’s partly why Shakespeare’s stories have become timeless. As Evans said, technology may change, but human nature doesn’t.

So what Shakespeare was writing four centuries ago is still playing out in some form now. Politics and how power is wielded and received is more explicitly explored in the history plays and the Roman plays.

“It’s not specifically dealt with in Macbeth but it is there. It’s like a background hum in the play, and because (Bell) has been doing a lot of plays about power, we’ve been looking at that, and it just felt like we could press that forward here.

“There are a couple of scenes where people discuss it, but I’m really hoping that the whole production is that you are watching a community, and not just (Macbeth and Lady Macbeth).”

Macbeth will play at the Sydney Opera House from November 18