November 28, 2007
To borrow an old commentator's cliché, this was very much a play of two halves.
The first act of Will Cudmore's abridged staging shows us a Macbeth tantalised by hope, racked with misgivings and bolstered by his driven wife, desperate to fulfil the prophesy that he is to become King of Scotland. The second act sees Macbeth career down a path of violence, madness and obsession that, once started upon, he seems unable to control.
The first act was excellently staged and directed, with some astonishingly good acting from Jonathan Tilley as King Duncan and Dan Wilner as Banquo, and also from Anna Popplewell ('Susan' of recent Narnia fame) as Lady Macbeth, all of whom showed real presence, confidence and charisma on stage and were a pleasure to watch. The judicious cuts to the narrative lent it real pace and excitement, and most of the dialogue was clear and communicated well. The only element that jarred was the decision to render Macbeth as overly unstable and hysterical from the opening scenes; having plunged into madness faster than Lady Macbeth later falls from the tower, there was nowhere left for Macbeth's character to go.
This caused particular difficulties in the second act, which, having started at fever pitch had no hope of maintaining the momentum for the remaining hour. Ed Chalk (Macbeth) tried valiantly to wrest the impossible from the jaws of the inevitable but just ended up alternating shouting a lot with introspective, wide-eyed muttering of a thespian nature. However, the slightly sluggish pace of the second half was very much enlivened by some fabulous fight scenes, the memorable arrival of Banquo's ghost and by Anna Popplewell's extremely convincing rendering of the famous sleep-walking scene.
The sparse staging and simple costumes made the play astonishingly difficult to pin down in time or place, and brought into focus the universality of the subject matter. Regardless of the time and place, Shakespeare shows us that there is a price to be paid for laying aside ethics, empathy and love in the service of ambition; even if we silence the voices of dissenters and antagonists, we still have to live with the voice of our conscience.
A final, unexpected bonus was the music, composed for the occasion by undergraduate music student John Murton. It blended beautifully with the narrative, adding depth and colour to the experience in a subtle, almost unnoticeable way. We will no doubt be hearing of him again.
The first act of Will Cudmore's abridged staging shows us a Macbeth tantalised by hope, racked with misgivings and bolstered by his driven wife, desperate to fulfil the prophesy that he is to become King of Scotland. The second act sees Macbeth career down a path of violence, madness and obsession that, once started upon, he seems unable to control.
The first act was excellently staged and directed, with some astonishingly good acting from Jonathan Tilley as King Duncan and Dan Wilner as Banquo, and also from Anna Popplewell ('Susan' of recent Narnia fame) as Lady Macbeth, all of whom showed real presence, confidence and charisma on stage and were a pleasure to watch. The judicious cuts to the narrative lent it real pace and excitement, and most of the dialogue was clear and communicated well. The only element that jarred was the decision to render Macbeth as overly unstable and hysterical from the opening scenes; having plunged into madness faster than Lady Macbeth later falls from the tower, there was nowhere left for Macbeth's character to go.
This caused particular difficulties in the second act, which, having started at fever pitch had no hope of maintaining the momentum for the remaining hour. Ed Chalk (Macbeth) tried valiantly to wrest the impossible from the jaws of the inevitable but just ended up alternating shouting a lot with introspective, wide-eyed muttering of a thespian nature. However, the slightly sluggish pace of the second half was very much enlivened by some fabulous fight scenes, the memorable arrival of Banquo's ghost and by Anna Popplewell's extremely convincing rendering of the famous sleep-walking scene.
The sparse staging and simple costumes made the play astonishingly difficult to pin down in time or place, and brought into focus the universality of the subject matter. Regardless of the time and place, Shakespeare shows us that there is a price to be paid for laying aside ethics, empathy and love in the service of ambition; even if we silence the voices of dissenters and antagonists, we still have to live with the voice of our conscience.
A final, unexpected bonus was the music, composed for the occasion by undergraduate music student John Murton. It blended beautifully with the narrative, adding depth and colour to the experience in a subtle, almost unnoticeable way. We will no doubt be hearing of him again.