The Royal
Shakespeare Company gives us a free-wheeling, modern production of Macbeth
in Stratford-upon-Avon directed by Polly Findlay. It uses projected titles,
children as witches and other unorthodox artifices as well as taking a casual
attitude toward the text. There are some brilliant touches and some head
scratchers but overall it is a dazzling production with an outstanding cast.
Macbeth, as everyone knows, opens on a blasted heath in Scotland with three
scary witches babbling in rhyming couplets. Nope. This production opens with a
large, very comfortable-looking bed centre stage on which an old man is
sleeping. Three children appear wearing red hoodies and holding plastic dolls
of babies. These cute girls are the three witches and they toss the dolls
violently on the ground to tell us who they really are and then try to decide
where to meet again.
Niamh Cusack and Christopher Eccleston as the Macbeths. Photo by Richard Davenport (c) RSC
Unfortunately, they
are still children with children’s voices and there is nothing sinister or
mysterious about them. They do speak to Macbeth and Banquo promising kingship
to the first and a royal line to the second. The witches, if you will, do
appear again according to the text, but they make a few out-of-the-text
appearances and at times are used to push props like the bed and a desk off the
stage.
Findlay uses the
Porter (Michael Hodgson) in ways that I simply could not figure out. He has a brief
scene when he opens the gate to Macbeth’s castle and Shakespeare, generous to
actors even is in minor parts, gives him some very good lines that evoke
genuine laughter. He is the one who tells us the positive effect of alcohol on
the desire for sex and its negative impact on the ability to perform it. Findlay
has him sitting on the side of the stage almost throughout the performance. He carries
a broom and interacts with some characters but whether he is supposed to be
some kind of Chorus simply escaped me.
He is given a
few lines that are usually spoken by other characters including telling Macbeth
that Lady Macbeth is dead.
Designer Fly
Davis splits the back of the stage horizontally in two creating an upper
playing area. Quite brilliant because then we can have some of the characters
above watching the others below. Very
effective staging.
Christopher
Eccleston plays a very dramatic and frantic Macbeth. He shows us that Macbeth
has the ambition but not the ability to be a true tyrant. He is in fact a bit
of a coward who is pushed into acts that he would normally not contemplate.
This is in stark
contrast to Niamh Cusack’s Lady Macbeth who shows us in a superb performance
that she is capable of anything to fulfill her ambitions. Her example of her
ability to toss a child and bash its brains out if it is in her way is a fine
illustration of this Lady Macbeth. The witches smashing the dolls is obviously
related to this Lady Macbeth.
Edward Bennett
is exceptional as Macduff. When he is told that all his children have been
butchered by Macbeth’s henchmen he is stunned and all he can do is repeat the
word “all” in shock and disbelief. Raphael Sowole is a bloodied and effective
Banquo.
There are titles
projected on the stage telling us about the play, I suppose. One of them is
“THE FUTURE IN AN INSTANT.” Findlay wants to emphasize the importance of time
by having a digital clock prominently displayed which shows the time some
scenes are taking.
All of the
components mentioned and many more add up to a
brilliant production. The role of the Porter, the children as the weird sisters
and other details may be somewhat confusing but the production leaves you bowled
over by its effectiveness.
__________
Macbeth by William Shakespeare continues until September
21, 2018 at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon, England. www.rsc.org.uk
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