Director Simon Phillips On Why Macbeth is The Perfect Role For Aussie Action Hero Jai Courtney

It's not an uncommon gambit; casting an A-list star as an irresistible box-office draw is a tried and tested tactic of major theatre companies, both here and overseas. Australia is blessed with an enviable roll call of globally revered acting talents, with the likes of Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, Richard Roxburgh and Rose Byrne amongst the starriest turns to have graced Australian stages in recent years.

However, not all Hollywood hype is equally favoured by theatregoers, and no doubt some eyebrows were raised when Aussie heart-throb Jai Courtney was announced in the title role of MTC's flagship production of the 2017 season, Shakespeare's dark tragedy Macbeth. 

That's not to say Courtney's screen credentials aren't impressive. The Sydney-born, Perth-trained actor cut his teeth in TV hit Packed To The Rafters before landing his first big cinematic break in 2012, starring opposite Tom Cruise in action-thriller Jack Reacher. In the five years since then, he has forged a solid reputation as a mainstream action hero, dodging bullets, fighting killer robots and setting off explosions in big budget blockbusters including A Good Day To Die Hard, Terminator Genisys and Suicide Squad.

But films such as these are not known for their challenging acting, and given his relative lack of live theatre experience, casting Courtney in one of the most complex and tortured roles in the Shakespearian canon may have left some cynics unconvinced. However, director Simon Phillips is quick to point out that the character of Macbeth is a battle-hardened general, so who better to play the ill-fated Scot than an actor who boasts years of experience channelling the warrior psyche on the silver screen. "I think it gives you a great head start, insofar as the central character is hugely dominant. When you bring someone in with a Hollywood reputation to play that character, the fit is effortless," Phillips insists. "Macbeth, first and foremost, is a soldier. He walks into the play with this massive military reputation. He's not much good at anything else, but he has a great talent for war. Jai, quite aside from anything else, is a powerful physical presence, so this imposing characterisation is so authentic. He's very credible in that respect - it's no accident that a lot of what he's done in movies is action based, because he's naturally so persuasive in that mould."

Repositioning an audience's perception of this character, casting off the dusty, thespian stereotype to make way for a testosterone-fuelled, action-centric persona, is not the act of sacrilege some purists might fear. In fact, with much of this Macbeth, first impressions are deceiving. Phillips' vision for this production — a contemporary retelling with a cinematic aesthetic — is shot through with subtle acts of subversion that play with historical precedents as much as they disarm certain intimidating aspects of Shakespearian theatre. In doing so, the veteran director has created a production aimed at engaging multiple audience types, offering an easy and entertaining entry point for the uninitiated, while simultaneously putting a spring in the synapses of hardcore traditionalists.

Take, for example, the production's modern-abstract setting. Phillips' double-hinged approach is as much about theatrical clarity as it is about creative chutzpah, he says. "I think there are still a handful of people whose knee-jerk reaction is to say, 'I shall not darken the doorstep of that theatre if Shakespeare is not treated traditionally.' But using a contemporary setting was a practice used by Shakespeare himself. Whatever part of history his plays were set, he would stage them with contemporary dress - in Julius Cesar, his actors weren't wearing togas, they were wearing doublets. So, using a contemporary setting is authentically Shakespearian," he explains. "But even without that justification, my feeling has always been that if the piece will sit comfortably inside a contemporary setting, then for the majority of the audience, the fact that the visual language is very acceptable helps make the dialogue that bit more accessible. You're seeing people behave in the way that you behave yourself, so even if the text is challenging, there's some degree of familiarity."

Unquestionably, this production’s leading man has been its biggest headline-grabber, but in fact, it's Macbeth’s female characters that have been the most potent muse for Phillips. Unriddling these pivotal roles has become a cornerstone of his staging. “In iconic terms, Lady Macbeth is a more well-known figure, purely for her personality traits. She’s seen as the ultimate ruthless female,” Phillips notes. “But we’ve talked a lot about finding her nuances during rehearsals. There’s one particularly important element that is front and centre in Justin Kurzel’s film adaptation: Lady Macbeth’s childlessness. When you make this one of her greatest motivating forces, when you place this behind her attraction to power, she becomes someone grasping for a way to assert her ego and creativity in a world that has very little room for women outside of raising the next generation of men.”

Directors and scholars alike have long debated the moral intrigue of Macbeth's women. Power hungry, dangerous, “unsexed” manipulators; Shakespeare divorces these characters from any semblance of the romanticised feminine ideal. And yet, these are people of strength and tenacity, almost admirably defiant in a world where women are routinely dismissed and underestimated. The trio of witches who act as the catalyst for Macbeth’s undoing could easily be pitched at a pantomimic level of two-dimensional villainy. However, Phillips has found an uncanny contemporary resonance in his coven, remaking them as extremists, forced onto the fringes of society. “I don’t want to rationalise or sweeten or excuse anything the witches do, but they are more than merely a force for evil. I see them as a force for disorder,” he shares. “These are women who have been ostracised and cast out. So, they embrace dark forces as a solution for regaining some sense of empowerment. All they’re left with is a commitment to rocking the world order.”

In decoding Macbeth’s women and the turbulent psychologies behind their dark deeds, Phillips has discovered more relatable humanity in these roles than most productions offer. Lady Macbeth in particular, portrayed in this staging by Geraldine Hakewill, seems to have stirred a surprising level of empathy in the director. “If you take away those more gothic elements of her character, the gender relationship between them [Macbeth and Lady Macbeth] is incredibly contemporary. And when you look at the way they work together and how she strengthens him when he needs strength, and then how he begins to increasingly abandon and discard her input into the relationship, it’s strangely moving. I’ve said this a few times, but if the subject matter in question wasn’t murder, but something more mundane, than her behaviour would be very recognisable.”

Melbourne Theatre Company presents Macbeth, 5 Jun — 15 Jul at the Southbank Theatre.