Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy is certainly one of his most famous plays. When I entered the creative process, I asked myself what was the point of performing this tragedy anew today, especially in the genre of object theatre, which then crystallised during the process into the question: What remains of power?

The key sign through which we read this play are the Witches. We understand them as a metaphor for the dark, underground desires that, if we act on them, manipulate us and turn us into puppets. The only goal is power and its preservation. It should be noted that this is certainly not a justification for heinous acts, but a sublimation of what is at the heart of Macbeth's story.

The Scottish tragedy is the story of all wars and all bloodshed. And perhaps the tragedy is precisely the realisation that reign, based only on the argument of power, is barren and can produce nothing, like the relationship between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth. What is left of the longed-for power? All that is left of all the wars and battles are iron skeletons buried under a heap of soil... and from these remains we bring the spirits back to life...

The spreading forest represents nature in tragedy. It covers the story with complete indifference.

Macbeth, one of Shakespeare's most haunting and sombre plays, is a masterful exploration of the corrupting influence of power. At its core, the text is a cautionary tale about unchecked ambition and the consequences of seizing power through violence and deceit. Macbeth, the main character of the play, is driven by a desire for power that is reinforced by a prophecy of mysterious Witches. At the beginning of the play, Macbeth is a respected Scottish Thane, loyal to his king Duncan. But when he hears a prophecy that he himself will become king, he is overcome with ambition and begins to plot the murder of the current king. Macbeth's desire for power grows stronger and stronger and he is encouraged in his relentless pursuit by his wife, Lady Macbeth, who is equally determined to seize power. Together they become entangled in a web of deceit, murder and betrayal. But Macbeth's rise comes at a high price. His goal - to become and remain king - makes him increasingly paranoid and tyrannical. His lust for power thus becomes both his hubris and hamartia, which bring him to his knees.

This production of Macbeth, the fifth puppet Shakespeare for the Lutkovno gledališče Ljubljana, places the question of the remnants of power, after its bearers have long been buried, at its centre. In the damp tunnel, the protagonists of Shakespeare's play become metallic artefacts of what they once were, buried in the still-warm soil. This soil spreads symbolically throughout the entire Scottish play. If the soil is initially a natural source of power and magic, it slowly becomes barren over the course of Macbeth's reign.

“Alas, poor country,
Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot
Be called our mother, but our grave, where nothing,
But who knows nothing, is once seen to smile;”⁵

The soil on which the protagonists walk underlines growth and decay, fertility and barrenness. The soil as metaphor creates a rich and complex web of imagery that uncompromisingly points to an inevitable and identical end for all, whether happy or tragic. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return. And it is not the people who take the first step on this soil, but the Witches – a crucial part of Macbeth's enduring appeal. It is the witches who seem to create Macbeth's future, and more than that, in the third scene of the first act of the text, they even seem to reveal the story in its entirety through a brief narrative about “the rump-fed runnion” and her sailor husband.

“I'll drain him dry as hay:
Sleep shall neither night nor day
Hang upon his penthouse lid;
He shall live a man forbid.”⁶

They know human destiny, they are offended by their deeds, but they also know that all that is necessary to destroy the human soul is to sow the seeds of evil, which fall again and again on the fertile soil and set in motion, like a perpetuum mobile, a series of events that are the same and equally cruel each time. Thus the Witches's first encounter with Macbeth is not the first for them. They have met Macbeths of various kinds ever since man walked on their soil. In this repetitive game, the Witches become distinctly theatrical; a parallel is also found in the puppet animation, bringing long-dead objects back to life. These metal objects are laden with enough associations that their stoic placement in space evokes a narrative with grotesque and ironic imagery. Yet it is the nature of these objects alone (their weight and coldness) that creates the taste of a bloody tragedy, without the need for excess animation. This is evident in the silent constructions where death - the fall of the puppet from the animator's hand - becomes the greatest indicator of the delirium of war. The action in Macbeth is a kind of chessboard, with the Witches making only the first move, while the pieces themselves get checkmated. So the witches in this production are animators, sucking the remains of the previous game from the soil and starting again. And when the playtime is over, the puppets become buried objects again and they can start the game once again.

“When shall we three meet again?
In thunder, lightning, or in rain?”⁷

The potential for repetition manifests itself on stage as a grave. It evokes allusions to the large containers full of bones that accompany the discovery of mass graves. They contain the remains of former great powers, but they take no context, no political party, no motivation with them into the container... they remain only as the bare evidence of pure human cruelty, greed for the top spot, and confirmation that humans keep forgetting that they are only human. And the story repeats itself, even when the container is already full of rusting and rotting artefacts. Macbeth finds a place for his throne again, a new Iron Lady, the next Banquoes, Macduffs, Fleances ... and the Witches he can blame for his madness.

Rusty Macbeth does not try to convince us that we can learn anything from history, nor does it try to show a distant time when cruel things happened. It does not offer a direct reference to the present neither. This Macbeth simply shows the omnipresent point in human history, which can be placed in any temporal determinant and it still works without too much adaptation.