Director Ryuzanji intentionally downplayed the realistic aspects of the setting; instead, he chose to focus on stimulating the audience’s visual senses. He put the actors into a neutral and indefinable space. With the speedy blocking and the hoarse delivering of lines, the tempo of play is tightly controlled. The stairs and platforms of different heights, on the other hand, added layers to the scene, and effectively made the dramatic parts stand out. The Japanese stage designer Yoko Takeuchi used the Eastern drawing technique of splash-ink to decorate the stage and to echo the subtitle of the work: “Paint It, Black!”

When designing the lighting of this production, I did not attempt to create realistic feels with my lighting, either. I designated the colors of strong cold-warm contrast to create an atmosphere of illusion. I referred to the characters’ mental state, instead of the stage environment, for my light distribution. As a result, the audience can easily capture the obvious contrast of chromatic lights that symbolize the roles’ actual frame of minds.

The director added a lot of rock-and-roll music elements, and the music brought out and strengthened the passionate and speedy energy that is quite different from conventional presentation of Macbeth, particularly during the war scenes and the witches’ chorus. Therefore, in the beginning, when I was considering the various possibilities of lighting design of this work, I quickly decided to use lighting fixtures with automated or mechanical abilities (like Moving Head) as my main illumination for singing and dancing scenes. The purpose of this choice was to make use of the high color temperature and the equipments’ unique traits of rapid switching of sizes and colors, in order to match director Ryuzanji’s young version of Macbeth: Paint It, Black !