Over the course of a production’s run, no two performances can be EXACTLY alike. 

However, once a conventionally-scripted show is locked — or, to use industry parlance, “frozen”— it’s safe to assume that any alterations from night to night are minute, be they slight changes in line deliveries, unintended mistakes, and/or the particularities of the audience response shifting the vibe (actors are humans, and humans bring their ever-mutating moods into every proceeding). 

And then there’s director Max Webster.

He appears to believe in restaging his productions to incorporate the differing conditions occurring in the theater on any given day. One example: David Tennant acting into the camera for the filmed recording of Webster’s Macbeth. A more recent example: how he handles the signed performances of his Titus Adronicus at the RSC.

Every single signed performance that I’ve ever seen has shunted the signer into a corner of the house, detached from the actual staging. But Webster integrates the signer into the blocking; she’s a moving body on stage, costumed and illuminated in full view, indistinguishable from the actual characters in the text.

In fact, because the ensemble directs certain lines towards her, she becomes an unscripted character, and it’s up to us to analyze what she represents (which could change from scene to scene), based on when and how the cast acknowledge her, in relation to what’s happening in the play during these moments.

Webster seems to understand that a defining trait of theater is that it’s not a static art form, which can be utilized for artistic purposes.