A kookaburra cackling in the Royal Botanic Gardens might be gratifying for the tourists, but Alison Whyte wants more drama.
“It’s a raven!” she says darkly. “We have to reimagine these things.” Already the actor is transforming into Lady Macbeth, ready to transport an audience under a summer sky to a drizzly Scotland crawling with witches and assassins.
The Australian Shakespeare Company – which is celebrating the 30th year of its Shakespeare Under the Stars program – is staging “the Scottish play” in the Botanic Gardens for the first time this month. It’s a savvy move, given the ambience of dusk deepening to darkness, as creatures hoot and caw and spookiness reigns.
Whyte’s partner in crime, screen and stage actor Nathaniel Dean, predicts the setting “will bring something really extraordinary” to Macbeth.
