West End star Reuben Joseph (Hamilton) is set to play Shakespeare’s Macbeth in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s new production.
Currently starring in the title role of hit West End musical Hamilton until this Saturday 17 June 2023, Reuben will make his RSC debut this summer in the title role of Macbeth.
Directed by Wils Wilson (The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart), and also starring Valene Kane as Lady Macbeth, Macbeth is running at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon from 19 August to 14 October 2023.
The actor already has an association with Macbeth, having played Angus in the Almeida’s 2021 production, where he was asked to audition for Hamilton.
In Lin-Manuel Miranda’s acclaimed show, the lead character Alexander Hamilton actually sings “They think me Macbeth” in the song Take a Break, and Reuben Joseph told The Guardian newspaper that: “I don’t think there’s a single Scottish actor who hasn’t dreamt of getting their hands on the part of Macbeth. Playing Alexander Hamilton has me well-versed in the disastrous consequences of ambition. Not to mention Hamilton’s own self-comparison to Macbeth in the show. They share a driving force, though one of them with far bloodier methods. I’m fascinated by the question of ‘how far can a person compromise their moral code, before they compromise their soul?’ It’s a notion that resonates deeply with audiences who, after 400 years, keep coming back to this story.”
The production is billed as a “gripping, terrifying tale of our times”, and will be set in the near-future, where the climate is more extreme and there is scarcity of resources, and war.
Design of the production will be by Georgia McGuinness, with choreography by Julia Cheng (Cabaret), lighting by Kai Fischer, music by Alasdair Macrae, sound by Claire Windsor, fights by Kaitlin Howard, and casting by Simone Pereira Hind CDG and Anna Dawson.
We will get a number of Macbeth productions this year, with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma playing the tragic couple in November, with London dates from 11 February 2024, directed by Simon Godwin; and David Tennant and Cush Jumbo starring in Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse, directed by Max Webster, from 8 December 2023.
There is also a new production of Macbeth coming to Shakespeare’s Globe in London this summer, from 21 July 2023.
Hamilton will star Declan Spaine from 19 June 2023.
