“There is some excellent acting and production work on show here and is a sharp contrast to Ralph Fiennes recent effort and in many ways more satisfying.“
Con Nats
3 Wayward sisters
This month’s theatrical production is yet another presentation of the Great Scottish play. Why? Because: David Tennant, although it was nice to see a Macbeth with a Scottish accent for a change.
Director Max Webster’s (Life of Pi) set was a minimalist black box with a raised glowing white floor which also acted as a table, awkwardly. The back was dark glass where the musicians played their traditional Celtic music, and which actors stayed behind and provided imagery with a light thrown on them. The costumes were also greys, blacks and only Lady Macbeth is in white.
Another interesting choice was to have the actors wearing microphones and the audience with surround sound headphones. (These are not provided for the film.) This allowed the actors to drop their voices to whispers and growls and have every word heard without asking the actors to project. It seemed pointless in such a theatre as small as this one, the Donmar Warehouse. The speakers would have carried their voices far enough, but this space was used to shoot this version on film before moving onto the bigger Pinter theatre. It explains why the actors played to the camera, often staring down the lens to deliver lines.
In the style of minimalism, Webster went as far as to not bother with three witches (now called wayward sisters), floating daggers or even Banquo’s ghost. These are replaced by shots of smoke and whispers or emptiness. This gives the protagonist an air of madness from the outset.
In this version, Tennet’s Macbeth is ambitious from the start. The sisters’ predictions play on his mind and any honour or loyalty shown to Duncan is presented as a mask to his real ambition, which he reveals in his asides to the audience. Any inner struggle is more like a momentary lapse of reason. This is more about his conflict between what he needs to project and how he actually feels rather than any internal moral conflict.
This also makes Tennant’s Macbeth a more malevolent tyrant without remorse or empathy. His delivery is excellent and choices are clear. There is not much honour in this version of Macbeth. His lust for power comes through every look and word.
His desire is more than matched by Lady Macbeth’s ambition, in a brilliant performance from Cush Jumbo (The Good Wife). She has real presence, great chemistry with Tennet and her ambition is powerful. Her madness less so, but she more than matches her fellow star. She is more an immoral support than the traitorous woman others typically play her.
Webster has decided to play with the script in ways which may upset traditionalists. The Porter’s scene is butchered. Instead we have an actor (Jatinder Singh Randhawa) playing the drunken Gate Keeper, bantering with the audience, mocking their headphones and cajoling them into a Knock-Knock joke, without a punchline. It keeps the spirit but not the humour of the original scene. Often lines are delivered by different characters and I did welcome the Scottish dancing to remind us of the play’s setting.
The support cast are excellent although the scene where Macduff is told about his family’s death didn’t move me like others have. He switched on the tears like they were on automatic. There are so many cuts to the script Macduff is a late entry cameo rather than a central character.
The soundscape and choreography were very good, although the final fight scene was clumsy. It was impossible to tell who was killing who or what side they were on. It was choreographed like ballerinas rumbling.
At two hours, it is obvious many scenes were excised, but this did not ruin the central story (and is a relief to those of us who have seen this play so many times.) There is some excellent acting and production work on show here and is a sharp contrast to Ralph Fiennes recent effort and in many ways more satisfying. It still raises the question: Why?
Con Nats, On The Screen
