'Strange matters': Silviu Purcarete's absurdist Macbett (2007, 2021)

This chapter argues that absurdist aesthetics provides the lens through which to see Shakespeare in post-traumatic theatre (as distinct from the post-dramatic). Focusing on Silviu Purcărete’s staging of Eugene Ionesco’s Macbett (2007 and 2021), it explores how the dynamics between the Shakespeare–Ionesco encounter has been echoing in staging Macbeth in Romania. This ‘theatricality of political and social criticism … in absurdist idiom’ which emerged as a necessary form of double-talk during the Cold War has ‘metamorphosed after communism into a highly elaborate aesthetics in which critical perspectives were deeply embedded’ (Shevstova & Innes 2013:112). Instead of losing its currency post-1989 (Billington 2007), it continues to have traction, at least east of Berlin, three decades on – and, with the Cold War having entered new stages since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it looks like both the ‘work’ and its ‘reception’ have a lot more work to do yet.