Destiny, fate take centre stage in Shakespeare In The Ruins’ 2025 summer season

Promotional images from Shakespeare In The Ruins' 2025 season preview the company's upcoming productions of "Macbeth" (left) and "Waiting for Godot." (Shakespeare In The Ruins)

A psychotically ambitious Scottish general and a pair of bedraggled acquaintances pondering existentialism are set to take up residency in the Trappist Monastery Provincial Park.

Shakespeare In The Ruins (SIR) announced its new summer season Monday, kicking off with William Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” from June 5 to July 5, running concurrently with Samuel Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” from June 13 to July 6.

On paper, the plays seem to share little connective tissue. However, Artistic Director Rodrigo Beilfuss said they both explore themes of destiny, fate and their inevitable consequences.

“You have this one play about the existential pickle of being stuck, and then you have a play about action and sword fights and muscle and the consequences that come,” he said.

“There are consequences in these two plays from too much action or too much waiting around.”

“Macbeth” has not been performed in a Manitoba theatre company’s season since 1996, Belifuss estimates, while the absurdist fiction “Godot” last meandered onto the local stage in MTC Warehouse’s 2001 season, making the double-bill ripe for revitalization by SIR.

“We’re the only company dedicated to bringing back things to life and seeing how they speak to us now,” Beilfuss said.

Tickets are currently on sale through SIR’s website.

Beilfuss urges Manitobans to secure them fast. Last year’s run featuring “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Iago Speaks” regularly sold out, with the company adding performances to meet demand.

It’s a trend ushered in by the pandemic, the artistic director said. Audiences were hungrier than ever for familiar tales after COVID-19 upended the world, making SIR’s particular brand of outdoor, live theatre particularly alluring in a newly socially distanced world. Beilfuss estimates SIR has doubled its audience since then. Now with enough behinds in seats, Mother Nature has become SIR’s most unpredictable adversary.

“I think people are craving a sense of familiarity with the stories that they hold dear to their own history, so we’ve been very lucky.”