Perth Festival has announced its 2020 season, the first programmed by incoming Artistic Director Iain Grandage. “The entire festival is a celebration of Perth,” said Grandage, the Festival’s first Perth-raised Artistic Director.

“The festival theme is Karla, which is a Noongar word for fire,” he told Limelight. “If you’re going to celebrate a place then you’d better celebrate the Indigenous relationship with that place very strongly. To that end, the entire first eight days of the Festival are Indigenous work only.”

Hecate. Photo © Eva Fernandez

That first week will not only include the previously announced touring productions Bran Nue Dae and Buŋgul, but also a landmark theatre event: an all-Noongar language adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth by writer-director and Perth Festival Associate Artist Kylie Bracknell (Kaarljilba kaardn), titled Hecate. “This is a version of Macbeth, the Scottish play, in collaboration with Bell Shakespeare,” Grandage says. “This is the first full Indigenous language version of a Shakespeare play. So no English at all spoken: there’s names that you’ll recognise, Macbeth, McDuff, Duncan [and] there’s slides, a little like a silent film, just giving you context for the scene you’re about to see.”

Bangarra Dance...