“Vladimir Macbetin” maps the fall of a fictional bête noire

The Prague-based Spitfire Company is a highly-respected artistic ensemble producing some of the most cutting-edge theatre in the Czech Republic. Last autumn, the ensemble made headlines with the premiere of Vladimir Macbetin which we look at in this edition of the Arts.

'Vladimir Macbetin', photo: archive of Spitfire Company

As the name suggests, the play was inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedy Macbeth crossed with the figure of Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “Macbetin” focusses on the coda or endgame in the career of a similar such politician, after the fall. It is set in an impersonal and anonymous purgatory of sorts after he has lost political power, a waiting area of steel and glass that is the modern airport.

In our interview, author and director Petr Boháč told me more:

“The play is not about political ambition as such because that has already been achieved when it begins. Instead, the story picks up long after that was consolidated and after the main character suffers not the rise but fall from power. Macbetin is fleeing his country, waiting at an airport after upheaval. In the play, I hoped to analyse the character in his defeat.

“Taken on its own, there is no question the character’s ambition is enormous. In the play it is based on two elements: political power and social manipulation. These are capped by a third element which was important for me as the director and that is irony… irony and manipulation. The play is of course not a monograph about Vladimir Putin himself.”

Perhaps, but it is clear from both the work and its marketing that Mr Putin served as a perfect inspiration. Expert – many would say ruthless and cynical – manoeuvring both on the domestic political scene in and on the world stage, has made Mr Putin in recent years impossible to ignore. Events in Ukraine – including the annexation of Crimea – and Syria certainly attest to it. Not everyone puts stock in lists, but many would probably agree with that Mr Putin was ‘rightfully’ named the world’s most powerful person by the magazine Forbes in 2015. On the world stage Mr Putin has played an excellent chess game with clinical and ruthless precision. Director Petr Boháč again:

“Whether there is a sufficient counterweight to Mr Putin in politics is an interesting question. There are certain parallels with 1930s Germany; for instance, a certain inability to accept the facts. As Germany never really accepted Versailles, today’s Russia has not come to terms with the collapse of the Soviet Union. I think what we are seeing by Mr Putin is an attempt to resuscitate at least part of the former hegemony. In my opinion, he has done it in a series of carefully thought out steps using new as well as familiar means. In this sense, Vladimir Putin is one of the biggest players and current movers of the world discourse.”

Observers of the Putin regime like Petr Boháč point out that the Russian leader played his hand expertly in his “castling” move with Dmitry Mědvedev, which allowed him to retain power and on the political stage far longer than many of his political rivals and critics. Mr Putin first became prime minister in 1999; he could run again as president in 2018.

“If I am not mistaken, he can remain in power for quite some time, if reelected. Compare that to the eight-year mandate given to American leaders. This aspect of totalitarian regimes, allows Mr Putin to think in a far broader scope. When it comes to influencing the discourse, he also has turned attention away from Ukraine for example, with actions now being taken in Syria.”

Unlike the fictional Vladimir Macbetin, whose fall is documented in the play, the Russian leader has secured his hold on power in Russia, making such an outcome the subject of ‘what if’ scenarios, highly unlikely, what Czechs jokingly label “science fiction”. Director Petr Boháč once more:

“I don’t think that there could be any kind of overthrow in Russia like we saw in the Arab Spring or in Ukraine. I do not think that any kind of change could currently come from the lower echelons as political opponents are either dead or completely discredited in the Russian media. Nor is there even any kind of mood for change in Russia: there is no mood on the street – democratic or otherwise.

'Vladimir Macbetin', photo: archive of Spitfire Company

“For me what is fascinating, and this is referred to only indirectly in the play, is that Putin is surrounded by a cadre of former KGB or other security services men, who came up with him. Were Mr Putin to fail to keep the pressure on, there is perhaps a chance another hawk might appear who might seize the opportunity. A case in point is those three weeks that Mr Putin disappeared in 2014: was he bluffing, was he ill, was he at his dacha, was there a power play behind-the-scenes? Or was it all just orchestrated by Mr Putin himself?”

In the play “Vladimir Macbetin” the unlikely proves possible and the strongman, played by Jiří Štrébl, is exposed, as weak where he was strong, vulnerable where he was unassailable – caught in a destructive downward spiral.

“The play begins just before Macbetin’s defeat. I always wondered in Shakespeare if Macbeth would ever accept guilt, but instead he takes strength from what has happened. Even in defeat or manipulation, he still hears only what he wants to hear, even from Lady Macbeth.

“In ‘Vladimir Macbetin’ I tried to capture or reveal something of the character’s guilty conscience: but his dark moments aren’t guilt over murders, or responsibility for what happened in Chechnya or at Maidan, they are fears like the fear of homosexuality, or of a certain European decadence.

“He really believes that he is the ‘rock’, the last line of defence who can show Europe a mirror and be the only one to ‘save’ it. If Europe is decadent for him it boils down a single detail: whatever you think of the Eurovision Song contest, the fact that it can be won by someone like Conchita Wurst underlines for him everything that is ‘wrong’ with Europe.

“A defence of human rights and minorities, tolerance, a certain kind of European humour, they are all alien to him. And anything which threatens the definition of family in the broadest sense, is to be punished and repressed. To prevent it from taking hold in Russia; those are the demons he faces.”

Irony in the play is reflected in the stage design, in the arid space of the ‘airport terminal’ full of commercials and ads and other information. My final question to Mr Boháč was how the themes of the play were reinforced by the airport setting.

'Vladimir Macbetin', photo: archive of Spitfire Company

“The airport struck me as very suitable, a transit area where all kinds of people meet; at the same time is very impersonal. I often fly with the company and one thing I noticed, which I tried to get into the play, was all the influx of information. When are waiting before the gate, you see a TV screen with the news: reports on the migration crisis and so on.

“Then, there is an announcement. Then you notice an ad on the billboard. Then, you take in another story off the screen. Then more ads.

“Most critics didn’t really consider this aspect of the production: the aim to show how fragmented the world is today and how manipulated our reality is. There are elements out there are directly in juxtaposition but not at all connected. It is all about manipulation and also how we are losing the ability to contemplate and reflect or analyse things properly and I consider this aspect very important.”