How do you get someone to care about Shakespeare? Two words: Goblin Macbeth

If the cast photos don't stop you in your tracks, maybe the title will. Goblin: Macbeth premieres at Vancouver's Bard on the Beach festival Aug. 19, and the show promises something as fabulously weird as the name implies: a faithful retelling of Shakespeare's Scottish play, as performed by a trio of monsters.

The show was co-created by Rebecca Northan and Bruce Horak (Star Trek: Strange New Worlds), acclaimed comic actors who've been working together since university. Like Goblin: Macbeth, many of their past collaborations have been presented through Spontaneous Theatre, an improv ensemble that's led by Northan. She's won two Canadian Comedy Awards for the company's most famous production, Blind Date, a theatre hit that's been touring for a decade. But according to Northan, its success can't compare to Goblin: Macbeth.

"I don't know, there's some sort of bizarre magic around the goblins," she says. "People are really curious about the ride."

It is a tale told by three goblins, full of sound and fury

The show opened to raves last March in Calgary, where it was originally produced by The Shakespeare Company and Hit and Myth Productions. It won a Betty Mitchell Award for best ensemble performance that year, and in October, Goblin:Macbeth was back on stage in Calgary, with Northan, Horak and musician Ellis Lalonde (Fraggle Rock) reprising their roles as three literal goblins who take a stab at acting. 

For the upcoming run in Vancouver, the role originated by Northan will be played by local actor Colleen Wheeler. (Northan is directing the play remotely from Ontario, where she's an actor at the Shaw Festival this season.) But no matter how you cast Goblin: Macbeth, the stars are nearly impossible to recognize thanks to some Hollywood-grade costuming. Everyone performs under silicone masks — ready-to-wear purchases from Composite Effects, an American company that crafts props for the film and TV industry. (Maybe you've heard of one of their clients: Game of Thrones.)

As for the plot, the script's not strictly Shakespeare. There's a bit of improv involved. (Creators Northan and Horak have been flexing those skills since their days at Calgary's Loose Moose Theatre, after all.) And the action hinges on a bizarre but thought-provoking premise: when goblins get their hands (or would it be claws?) on the complete works of William Shakespeare, they're bewildered by human culture. What is theatre, and why the hell do humans care about it? 

To understand the fuss, they put on a play. And Macbeth — with all its bloody revenge and supernatural undertones — is a relatable selection for a cast of actual monsters.

Why goblins?

Putting a quirky twist on Shakespeare is nothing new, necessarily. (Also at Bard on the Beach this summer: a musical adaptation of As You Like It featuring tunes from the Beatles songbook.) But why goblins? 

"We get that question a lot," says Northan, laughing. "And to be honest, my number one answer is, 'Why not goblins?'" 

In a way, Northan had been asking herself that question for years. The idea for the project actually started with the masks.

Way before the pandemic, Northan heard about the off-the-rack nightmares you can buy through Composite Effects: masks of shriveled demons, bat-nosed vampires, cursed dolls  — all expertly sculpted from silicone. "I poked around the website and I was like, "Oh my god, these are incredible. I have to do something with these!"

But she didn't get to act on that impulse until early 2022, when an old friend, Haysam Kadri — the artistic director of the Shakespeare Company in Calgary — reached out to her in crisis. Kadri had programmed a two-person production of Macbeth, with plans to open that show in March, but a COVID-related emergency had shut it all down. "He and I were sort of texting," says Northan. "He was lamenting: 'I'm so stressed out, I just lost the show.' And I said, 'Oh, it's a good thing you know improvisers,'" she says.

Kadri must have agreed. "My phone rang," says Northan. "He was like, 'What have you got?'"

We all know what happened next, and once Kadri had green lit the pitch for Goblin: Macbeth, the script came together easily. Northan and Horak already knew Macbeth backwards and forwards. Back when they lived in Calgary, they actually taught the play to school children through the city's Quest Theatre program.

The real challenge would be achieving true goblin-mode. To do it, they'd need some impressive special effects, and the masks Northan had discovered online can sell for $1,000 each. The show's production budget didn't have that kind of money, so to cover the expense, Horak and Northan sought help from a long-time supporter of their work, an ordinary theatre fan from Calgary who bought them the masks as a gift. 

Technically, the masks they wear in the show aren't "goblins," per se. It's a model listed on the Composite Effects website as an "imp." But with just two-and-a-half weeks to get the show on stage, they decided to take whatever the shop had in stock. "The time crunch forced our hand," says Northan, but the decision was ultimately a blessing in disguise. Says Northan: "Creativity comes from restriction, right?" And when she's performing — and sweating — under her goblin mask, she feels a kind of creative freedom you can only get from total anonymity. 

In a way, it's never been Northan — or any of the show's stars — playing Lady Macbeth or Duncan or Banquo. It's a straight-up goblin, and a goblin doesn't approach Shakespeare like a human actor would. It's an absurd angle, sure, but it's the idea that drives the show. "First of all, goblins do not come from a tradition of there being theatre at all. So they're extremely skeptical of theatre as a practice. They think it's weird," Northan explains. 

Why do people go to theatre? Why do people make theatre? "I think it's such a great question to be visiting," says Northan. "The whole world has become Netflix-addicted. How do you entice someone to put on hard pants and leave their house? Like, I don't want to get out of my pajamas, and I'm a theatre person," she laughs. 

The solution might be goblins. A number of Bard on the Beach performances of Goblin: Macbeth are already sold out, and the show is on its way to the Stratford Festival in October, where tickets to weekend shows are already limited. 

We want to become the Blue Man Group of classical theatre.- Rebecca Northan, co-creator of Goblin: Macbeth

Northan says that several other companies have expressed interest in presenting the show next year, and Goblin: Macbeth is only the beginning. Northan and Horak have a whole Goblin Theatrical Universe in the works. "We keep saying to each other, 'We want to become the Blue Man Group of classical theatre. Like, we want to franchise this," she laughs.

They're already developing a Goblin: Oedipus Rex, and they hope to unveil that show at Calgary's High Performance Rodeo in January. 

"In the goblin world we're imagining, the kind of continued narrative for them is like, 'Huh! Shakespeare was cool. Theatre is not awful. We should go back further to the roots of Western performance,'" says Northan.

"We're like, what other lofty texts do we want to poke at with the goblins?" says Northan: A Doll's House? The Cherry Orchard? The Glass Menagerie? ""Titles where when I was 21, I was like, 'Oh god, who cares? Why are you making me read this play?"

"The moment you meet the goblins, you don't know what to expect. And that's great!" says Northan.

"Our whole thing is we really want to take you on a fun ride while simultaneously being serious about the beauty of the language and the text itself," she says. "Just accept these creatures as they are, and hear the play in a different way."

Goblin: Macbeth. Featuring Bruce Horak, Colleen Wheeler and Ellis Lalonde. Directed by Rebecca Northan. Bard on the Beach. Aug. 19 to Sept. 17. Howard Family Stage, Vancouver. www.bardonthebeach.org