Peter Viney's Blog

Macbeth
by William Shakespeare

Directed by Polly Findlay
Designer – Fly Davis
Music – Rupert Cross

Royal Shakespeare Company
Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Stratford-upon-Avon

Friday 16th March 2018, 19.15

CAST:
David Acton – Duncan
Afolabi Ali – Lord / Young Sieward / Murderer
Donna Banya – Donalblain / Lady
Stevie Basaula – Boody captain / murderer
Edward Bennett – Macduff
Katy Brittain – doctor / lady
Raif Clarke- Aide
Niamh Cusack – Lady Macbeth
Paul Dodds – Siward / Chamberlain
Christopher Eccleston – Macbeth
Josh Finan – Aide
Bally Gill – Ross
Mariam Haque – Lady Macduff
Michael Hodgson – porter
John Macaulay- Chamberlain / Lord / Murderer
Luke Newberry- Malcolm
Tom Padley- Security Guard / Murderer
Tim Samuels – Lennox
Raphael Sowole – Banquo

MUSIC LIVE:

Soprano- Alexandra Ferrari, Sara Jones
Tenor – Dale Harris, Matthew Sandy

with a recorded string quartet soundtrack

Donablain (Donna Banya) and Duncan (David Acton)

The major rebuilding of the RSC theatres finished in 2011, and the first major production was Macbeth (LINKED) It has taken seven years to come back round to the play, and it’s also this year’s RSC / National Theatre contest with both our major theatres running versions of Macbeth at the same time. The opera’s on too. Given the wide very negative response to the National Theatre production (which I haven’t seen yet) the RSC should be onto the winner. The cast list is immediately “different” to normal, with Donalblain becoming female and new roles such as Security Guard, plus Murderer x 4. There are eight witches listed, all children, so taking turns. Funny, last time we saw child witches was also at the RSC and in 2011.

Is modern dress even worth mentioning in Macbeth? It’s years since I saw a claymores, kilts and chainmail version of the play. This version is not a dystopia, more smart business suits, dinner jackets, office furniture and battledress.

The programme cites horror film as an inspiration, hence the three little girls in pink onesies / jim-jams with their dollies as the witches. They mention Carrie. I don’t watch any horror films post James Whale in black and white, or 60s Hammer horror. I have no idea of the references with children. I was reminded of the TV sitcom Mum earlier in the week, where a character boasts of going to the theatre, he explains that the audience were all old, but looked clever. Sadly it has truth in it, so not the audience to reference with modern horror films, I suspect.

The Witches, briefly in the gallery. They don’t look remotely scary down on the main stage.

Child witches worked in 2011 when the children were a major ghostly part of the theme, echoing the hints that the Macbeths have had children, but lost them, then becoming the murdered MacDuff children so a projection back from the future. All eerie. Here? They look about  as scary as my granddaughters.

I thought they were getting maximum effort from the kids who had to do much of the scene shifting too.  Why get little girls moving furniture? What was the point? Was there one? As ever when using kids, you need mics. They didn’t appear to be switched on for the opening lines spoken in unison, which they had to deliver under a loud screech of electronic music. The initial lines were totally lost, and we were in the second row from the front.

Later horror film bits are the ghosts of the slaughtered with zombie dust on them. I know people rewatch horror films, but isn’t the thrill supposed to be surprise and tension? Wouldn’t it be great to see Macbeth with fresh eyes (while still understanding all the language)? I’ve seen it so often on stage and on film since it was introduced as our first Shakespeare at age 14 at grammar school. My grandkids started simplified Shakespeare years earlier. For most of the audience there won’t be much surprise and the twist at the end will not come as a shock.

The thrust stage was the place for most of the solo work, with the ensemble of courtiers often wining and carousing behind a Perspex window in a gallery above. Result? Woe betide delivering any important lines from up there; the sound was amplified but muffled. There was a lot of music and SFX behind lines elsewhere. Overall, it is poor sound design. The messy music did not impress me, and while I guess the listed opera singers introduced the Coronation of Macbeth with the ensemble, it’s hard to see why they were there.

L to R: porter (seated), Macbeth (Christopher Ecclestone), Lady Macbeth (Niamh Cusack)

The good news is the principle actors. The play is after all called Macbeth, and the production put full focus on Christopher Ecclestone as Macbeth and Niamh Cusack as Lady Macbeth. Ecclestone is an ideal Macbeth, rough-hewn face, and he looks strong enough to cleave enemies from bottom to top. He also delivers the lines with absolute clarity and meaning, and the North-East accent helps. I can’t stand Macbeths who look wispy or mild-mannered. He is terrific throughout, and has so many looks of low cunning and plotting.

He gave a wonderful performance, and we walked out worrying about his fall from the thrust diagonal walkway. Before the battle, a spotlight hits him frozen in various poses between blackouts. He has to move into positions in the dark, and he went right over the edge of the walkway next to me (I was at the end of row B) and fell onto the three steps, brushing into me. I was turning expecting to help, but he was straight back up and into the major fight scene with MacDuff. I’m sure he’ll feel it after the adrenaline  wears off. I’d been thinking “very clever lighting” initially, but I’ll withdraw that. “Daftly risky lighting plot given the theatre layout with diagonal walkways.”

Irritatingly, the production photos online haven’t any really good ones of Christopher Ecclestone as we recall him. Had he shaved or greatly reduced his beard between photos and production?

The coronation of Macbeth. Macbeth (Christopher Ecclestone), Lady Macbeth (Niamh Cusack)

Match Macbeth with his missus. Niamh Cusack was my choice for “Best actress of 2017” for My Brilliant Friend. She’s superb. Total line clarity, a tiny touch of Irish inflection to colour it.  Lots of physical ideas and movement to pressurize Macbeth into murder and clearing up. She looked great (she had the best costumes), and interacted with the audience in her mad scenes.

So two excellent star performances. Both Banquo (Raphael Sowole) and MacDuff (Edward Bennett) excelled in the next two major roles. In many ways we thought Edward Bennett under-employed for his talent outside a lead role, but then again I’ve never seen such a subtle, nuanced MacDuff reception of the news of his family’s murder either. Interestingly the RSC café has a towering photo of him as Benedick with the Globe’s new artistic director, Michelle Terry, as Beatrice. That’s his status for us.

MacDuff (Edward Bennett)

We wondered why they’d added a false stomach to Edward Bennett, but found out why in the final fight scene.What we never worked out was why he was dressed in a cardie and heavy spectacles while in England, to go with the paunch, making him look middle-aged and anything but a fierce man of action. When the MacDuffs leave Glamis, he is burdened with a baby in a front sling, and the bright blue outdoor babygro accentuated the weirdly sticking out arms on the doll. You can get very good model babies, used in schools to simulate child care issues for teenaged pupils. We’ve used them on film. This one looked ridiculous. In the photos online, he’s simply holding the baby, which looks better than the sling on this night. Was it meant to look funny? I wonder because the porter was later used for bits of comedy in serious scenes.  So, yes, I assume comic effect or at least incongruity was intended. Even odder was that the baby model would be 6-9 months old, but Lady MacDuff is about 8 months pregnant, or Up the Duff in vulgar terms (plum duff … pudding … in the pudding club). We both noticed the incongruity at once.

A word for Tim Samuels as a scarily-corporate Lennox. He looked uncannily like a friend of mine. King Duncan (David Acton) was very good, not that he lasts long, and has to work from a wheelchair.

The porter (Michael Hodgson) starts chalking. He will cover the entire wall.

Then there’s the porter. Michael Hodgson never leaves the stage. He’s on at the beginning too, when the auditorium doors open, nearly  20 minutes before the play starts. So is King Duncan, stretched out on a bed, plus the three little girl witches at corners of the stage and the (female) Donalblain. The porter is enigmatic, laconic, sarcastic, slow. He gets several odd lines throughout, walks about, shifts chairs, interacts with people, spends a long time putting chalk marks on the wall, whether marking time or deaths, I don’t know. He comically points out Banquo to the murderers and mimes killing him to prompt them. It’s an odd addition, perhaps Seaton, gatekeeper to the underworld rather than simply the porter. He’s very good at looking and sounding like James Bolam, whatever.

The omnipresent porter (Michael Hodgson)

There any accolades stop. That’s how the production is focused and most of the rest of the cast suffer between not noticeable, and in two or three cases, positively weak. I thought the concept failed, and the set with its flashing slogans didn’t turn me on either. The armies?  The Scots had black battledress. The English, yawn, had the inevitable Desert Storm camouflage gear. How often have we seen that in Shakespeare or Jacobean plays in the last decade? Macbeth’s armour was weirdly sci-fi, and that was OK.

There was however one impressive thing. The programme obsesses about “time.” The production is 2 hours 5 minutes plus a 20 minute interval. So 2 hours 25 overall. At 1 hour 50 minutes from the end, so 35 minutes in from the start, a clock appeared with hours minutes and seconds counting down. It reminded me of plays and pantomimes at Bournemouth Pavilion where you could always see the clocks either side of the stage. In the production photos online, the clock appears in earlier shots with one at 2m 23s. We didn’t see it on this show till it hit 1 hr 50 m 00s. I don’t think we had failed to notice it earlier.

Anyway, the countdown included the interval, and as I had guessed, 0.00.00 would arrive at Macbeth’s moment of death, and indeed it did. OK, I can see how they got it exact. They can extend or shorten the final fight with an eye on the clock, but that still gets them accurate otherwise to no more than a minute. We’ve seen many RSC productions 5 to 15 minutes longer than the time printed on the free cast lists and in the programmes, so this was extremely tight direction and performance. Pace was very good, no lagging at all. I guess that clock will constrain the play from expanding itself on business.

Lady Macbeth (Niamh Cusack) early on

Overall?  It reminds me of the Benedict Cumberbatch Hamlet, which the consensus had as a five star lead role in a 2 star production. That’s about right. I thought the four main actors all hit top ratings, and pace was excellent,  but overall? The concept failed for us. I was critical of aspects of costume, sound, lights, music and set. To be really picky, if you’re in the first few unraked rows, the added rim around the stage for this play (which I think allows for more than usual mist and fog) means you’re too low to see action on the floor, and the red carpet shown in the programme was never seen by us. Though we knew they were rolling something out. When you decide to raise the front of the stage 4- 6 inches, you should sit and look from the front. It must have been the same in the front rows at the sides.

But you really do have to see Ecclestone and Cusack as Mr & Mrs Macbeth. Both fabulous.

***

Macbeth will be broadcast live to cinemas on 11 April 2018.

MUSIC

Recorded backing is a bad way to go. It’s only a four piece after all. I hope it’s not a precedent.

We saw this before Press Night, though at a full price £60 a ticket, it can’t be described as a preview.  I’m posting this on press night itself.

I won’t amend the review after press night, and will stick with my 3 stars, but will note the ratings as they come in. Of course they could iron out some of the points I quibbled about. The drowned out witches voices at the start is a matter of two volume sliders. Down on music, up on voices.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID
Several reviews note that the clock countdown begins with registering Duncan’s murder.

4
Fiona Mountford, Evening Standard ****
3
Michael Billington., The Guardian ***
Christopher Hart, Sunday Times ***
2
Domenic Cavendish, Telegraph, **
Ann Treneman, The Times **
Sarah Crompton, What’s On Stage, **

COMMENTS
Ian Hughes, Stratford Observer:

Michael Hodgson’s Porter equivocates well, but ‘stabbing’ motions behind backs and ‘he’s over there’ pointing are simply trite.

Domenic Cavendish, in the Telegraph has an interesting point:

… this lamentable Macbeth the second dismal account of the Scottish play from a major subsidised theatre we’ve had to suffer in a fortnight. What’s alarming is that both this revival by Polly Findlay for the RSC and Rufus Norris’s for the National did sell-out business at the box-office prior to opening night. By my reckoning, excluding the cinema screenings, the Barbican run and the NT’s autumn tour, that’s potentially around 130,000 underwhelmed punters.

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

Macbeth, RSC 2011 Jonathan Slinger as Macbeth
Macbeth – McAvoy 2013, Trafalgar Studio, James McAvoy as Macbeth
Macbeth – Tara Arts 2015 (Shakespeare’s Macbeth) on tour, Poole Lighthouse
Macbeth, Young Vic, 2015
Macbeth – Globe 2016, Ray Fearon as Macbeth
Macbeth, National Theatre 2018, Rory Kinnear as Macbeth
Macbeth, Wanamaker Playhouse 2018, Paul Ready as Macbeth
Macbeth, Watermill Theatre, 2019. Billy Postlethwaite as Macbeth.
Macbeth, Chichester 2019, John Simm as Macbeth.

POLLY FINDLAY
The Alchemist, by Ben Jonson, RSC 2016
As You Like It, National Theatre, 2015
The Merchant of Venice, RSC 2015
Arden of Faversham, RSC 2014

EDWARD BENNETT
Love’s Labour’s Lost– RSC at Chichester, 2016
Much Ado About Nothing (Love’s Labour’s Won)– RSC at Chichester, 2016
Watership Down, 2016
Photograph 51
The Rehearsal, by Jean Anouilh, Chichester Minerva Theatre
Love’s Labour’s Lost– RSC 2014 (Berowne)
Love’s Labour’s Won RSC 2014 (Benedick)
The School for Scandal by Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Bath Theatre Royal

NIAMH CUSACK
My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante, Rose Kingston, 2017
(Best Play of 2017; Best actress 2017 on this blog)
The Winter’s Tale, Wanamaker Playhouse, 2016

MICHAEL HODGSON
Strife by John Galsworthy, Chichester 2016
The Shoemaker’s Holiday, by Thomas Dekker, RSC 2015

PAUL DODDS
Titus Andronicus, RSC 2017
Antony & Cleopatra, RSC 2017
Julius Caesar, RSC 2017
Timon of Athens, NT, 2012