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Interview with Michael F. Goldberg - Actor
Macbeth in Kabuki Lady Macbeth
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Theater Website
Navy Pier
Susan Weinrebe
April 13, 2005 (See Kabuki Lady Macbeth Review)
My interview with Michael F. Goldberg was conducted in the lobby of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater overlooking the breakwater beside Navy Pier. Michael is a tall, open-faced guy with an easy-going manner that belies the force of his samurai incarnation of Macbeth in the current production of Kabuki Lady Macbeth.
As a Master of Fine Arts grad student at the University of Illinois – Champaign, Michael was Professor Shozo Sato’s assistant and through his mentoring, was introduced to kabuki dance, calligraphy, black ink painting, Japanese tea ceremony, and kabuki theater.
SW: You’d never had any experience with Japanese arts before?
MFG: No! It’s so funny because I never thought I’d go to Japan. If someone had asked me, “Where do you want to go?” Japan wouldn’t have been on my list. And then I started to study…and just became fascinated by it. And it hooked me! (Laughs.)
SW: It sounds as though Professor Sato’s mentoring opened up a whole different world.
MFG: It really did and not just from an artistic standpoint…but as far as even approaching Western art too with it.
SW: How so?
MFG: Studying the Japanese aesthetic. But you need to know yourself. You need to know who you are first, before you can start learning about the culture. It’s funny, because my undergraduate degree was in anthropology and I loved it because you studied other cultures and social patterns and you didn’t judge.
Acting as a liaison between the United States and Japan, Professor Sato and Michael brought a “blue-eyed kabuki tour” of Master Sato’s interpretation of the tragedy, Achilles, to a small village, Damine, known for its kabuki tradition.
SW: How were you received?
MFG: They realized we were a hybrid and they really were very receptive to what we were doing. More importantly, respected what Professor Sato had done to bring East and West culture together through his teaching. I think they would like this one (Kabuki Lady Macbeth) even better because it’s a better script and we have a professional company doing it.
SW: This is an interpretation of Macbeth. It seems the characters are painted with very broad strokes. Can there be leeway for interpretation and still be kabuki?
MFG: Some of that goes to the form, the vocabulary, and the style. You hear the vocal patterns and you see the movement, which is based on dance. All kabuki theater is based on dance. The costumes and makeup, all inform as far as social status, sex of characters, age, emotional state. And so, when you have character types like Macbeth, the samurai warrior character, there’s not a lot of room in the vocabulary of kabuki. In this style, even though it’s an English play adapted, there’s not the room or the leeway for the character to act as Lady Macbeth does as far as weeping and crying because a samurai character wouldn’t do that. They would get emotional, but they would turn those tears probably into anger.
SW: Do you feel that it’s confining to be within that structure?
MFG: There’s incredible room to be expansive and explore your artistry. You’re working within a vocabulary and you have to live within that vocabulary. How I bend my timing in the way that I do this certain gesture is within the vocabulary, but you bring your own artistry to it. I find it very liberating, really this form, because there’s a lot to explore.
SW: I understand you “erase” yourself when you put the makeup on.
MFG: You create a mask, so to speak. One of the first things that makes a kabuki actor is the voice. The second thing is talent. Looks don’t come into it because you do erase your face. You put on this white palette. A seventy year-old man can be a twelve-year old girl. [In traditional kabuki, males play all parts.]
SW: What do you want people to see in your interpretation of Macbeth?
MFG: You have to know who you are and understand what your strengths are and know your weaknesses. If you can accept who you are, you know your weaknesses and don’t give in to them. Then you have balance, the yin and yang. Macbeth and Lady Macbeth don’t have that balance. They don’t realize they’re overstepping their bounds and they’re being too hasty in their desire for the shogun title. Hopefully, the audience is taking away an understanding of the human balance.
SW: What do you want to say overall about your role, the production…?
MFG: It feels like people are enjoying this. We’re having good houses…. I think the form is worthy of support, this hybrid that Professor Sato’s done. It does help bridge East and West and hopefully informs people of a new type of perspective on a story in another style. I think it’s important to see different views of the same work.
Michael F. Goldberg as Macbeth
Photo courtesy of Peter Bosy
Michael F. Goldberg
Photo courtesy of Chicago Shakespeare Theater
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