Why Robert Lepage set Macbeth in the world of '90s biker gangs

36:30What if Macbeth was set in the world of biker gangs?

At this year's Stratford Festival, acclaimed Canadian theatre maker Robert Lepage is putting a new spin on Macbeth with a bold reimagining that incorporates leather jackets, tattoos and the sound of revving engines.

It's still the same epic Shakespearean tragedy about greed, betrayal, ambition and murder, but it's set during the Quebec biker wars of the 1990s, which resulted in 84 bombings, 130 cases of arson and 162 deaths.

"It's a play that survives time, I mean, it's really, really easy to find Macbeths around," Lepage tells Q's Tom Power in an interview. "There's so much interesting aspects of Macbeth to be better understood if you scale it down to something like a motel with a lot of leather jackets and a few bikes."

Lepage says the idea for the adaptation came to him 15 or 20 years ago when he started noticing parallels between the story of Macbeth and the deadly turf war in Quebec between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine, which lasted from 1994 to 2002.

• Explainer: Biker gangs in Canada

"It struck me that the whole thing had started, pretty much, with somebody or some people betraying one of the Hells Angels' new chapters," he explains. "[That's] pretty much how the intrigue of Macbeth starts."

In particular, Lepage notes that the internal politics of biker gangs are quite similar to that of medieval Scottish clans, with an emphasis on hierarchy, territory and loyalty.

"[It's] a very interesting small society that still operates according to medieval laws and rules and codes of conducts and respect for the leader," he says. "It's very, very, very structured like the Scottish clan at the time. So it was an easy thing to do, to transfer this play that was written in 1603 to a biker's gang."

You can catch Lepage's production of Macbeth at the Avon Theatre in Stratford, Ont., until Nov. 2.

The full interview with Robert Lepage is available on our podcast, Q with Tom Power. He also talks about his unique approach to theatre and his incredible decades-long career. Listen and follow wherever you get your podcasts.

Interview with Robert Lepage produced by Ben Edwards.