Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009 - 58

companiment, composed by Yang Chiao-Jung, for transitions
within and between scenes. A white translucent screen, lowered at left center for scenes at the castle, served sometimes
as a field for gobo projections, sometimes as a shadow puppet
screen (figure 12).
Trained in Japan, costumer Chao Hung-Hui has also designed for That Company and the Scarecrow Dance Company.
She placed all five actors in similar basic costumes that facilitated doubling: high-necked white backless garments with fitted
long sleeves and voluminous culottes. For Macbeth and Banquo

photos courtesy tainaner ensemble

these were overlaid with black armored jackets, extending into
trailing capes at the back (figure 3), for Lady Macbeth with a
black full-length open robe with sharp epaulettes and pointed
sleeves dangling from the elbow. The witches, three attractive
young women, wore form-fitting red bodices and appeared to
have gold caps and ponytails (figure 13). When they whirled
around the caps were revealed to be masks of old men, the
ponytails their beards (figure 14). They also carried neutral
masks, attached to flexible rods on sticks, which they dug out
of the heaps of rice husks in the opening moments of the play.
These they treated sometimes as toys, sometimes as familiars,
sometimes as voodoo dolls, engaging with them at one moment
maternally, at another sexually. The two sets of masks worked
particularly well in the encounter with Macbeth and Banquo.
The rapid shape shifting of the witches from young woman to
old man to neutral mask gave strong motivation for the breathless confusion of the warriors. Lee Jung-Shen, a Tainan photographer and sculptor, designed the masks.
In the scene in which Lady Macbeth seeks to unsex
herself, she stalked behind the screen, her arms quivering
like a raven's wings, and in silhouette was seen to step into a
huge black skirt that disguised the tall stilts she wore as she
emerged, dwarfing her returning husband. In "Never shall sun
that morrow see," she invited him under her skirt where he
stripped off his armor, emerging to sit barebacked below his
giant wife, terribly vulnerable at "We will speak further" (figure
15). This same height dynamic was produced in shadow play as
she challenged his manhood when he hesitated at the thought
of murdering Duncan. The stilts were later used to show the
shift in power from Lady Macbeth to her husband. Macbeth assumed stilts after Duncan's murder, and in the banquet scene,
at the appearance of Banquo's ghost, ran crazily around the
space, kicking and jumping. In the sleepwalking scene, Lady
Macbeth was made small. (The stilts had to be shortened when
the production moved to the home space in Tainan because of
the reduced ceiling height.)

The lighting designer, who designs under the name Jack,
graduated from National Taipei University of the Arts and has
worked for the company for the past decade. His economical
lighting featured three booms at either side of the stage containing warm yellow high sides, pale blue just above head height,
and clear shin busters. Diagonal backlight from two PARs, also
in warm yellow, which became orange when used at lower intensity, lent a glow to the floor of red rice husks. Downlight
included blue and lavender circuits, used in the night scenes

theatre

design

technology

W I N T E R

2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2009