Peter Viney's Blog

Macbeth 
by William Shakespeare

Saturday 9th March 2019, matinee

CAST:
Victoria Blunt – Malcolm / percussion
Sally Cheng- Lady MacDuff, Ross, Nurse / violin, keys, percussion
Eva Feiler – Fleance, Porter, Seyton, Messenger (all as Porter) / keys
Lillie Flynn – Banquo, Doctor /  electric guitar, keys, percussion
Emma McDonald- Lady Macbeth / percussion, lead vocals
Peter Mooney – Donalblain / bass guitar, percussion
Offue Okegbe – Lennox / electric guitar (principle)
Billy Postlethwaite – Macbeth
Max Runham – Duncan / lead vocals, electric guitar, bass guitar, keys, percussion
Mike Slader – MacDuff / percussion, bass guitar

All other parts by the ensemble

The Watermill Theatre: I always add a new picture …

This is my first theatre review in months, probably the longest gap since I started this blog. I’ve had knee surgery which meant avoiding long journeys or cramped theatre seats. It’s good to be back and especially at my favourite theatre of 2018, the Watermill.

We saw three versions of Macbeth last year, and none of them knocked me out.So here’s the good news. This thrilling, fast moving production was in a different league to all of them. I gave the RSC version with Christopher Ecclestone three stars. I gave two stars to the National Theatre starring Rory Kinnear, and two stars to the Wanamaker version with Mr & Mrs Michelle Terry as the principle actors. So before you read further, this gets a resounding FIVE.

Paul Hart’s Shakespeare productions at The Watermill have a strong stamp. There’s a small ensemble cast, just ten. They all play instruments and sing. They utilise modern rock songs. There’s is strong choreography. They’re firmly cut, and played at flat out energy. Their ensemble is a genuine ensemble (unlike The Globe’s attempts which just means “director-less”), accentuated by the residential nature of The Watermill for the cast. They credit the modern songs too, which is unusual. Their website lists Paul Hart’s “inspiration” playlist for Macbeth. Hey, when writing novels (as Dart Travis), I always have a playlist made up to keep me focussed on time, place and mood too.

More than any Shakespeare, it depends on the two main characters. They are such big parts in the canon, that actors hit them well into their careers. Patrick Stewart was 66. Christopher Ecclestone was 54. Ray Fearon was 46. Sean Bean was 43. Rory Kinnear was 40. Paul Ready was 38. James McAvoy was 34. You see the descending order  It may be churlish to do the same with Lady Macbeth but I will … Michelle Terry (Wanamaker) 39, Anne-Marie Duff (NT 2018) 47, Niamh Cusack (RSC 2018) 58, Tara Fitzgerald (Globe 2016) 49.

Billy Postlethwaite as Macbeth, Emma McDonald as Lady Macbeth.

Suffice it to say that Bill Postlethwaite at thirty, and Emma McDonald bring youth, strength and potency to the role. It works with the sexuality of the characters, It throws a different light on their energy and ambition. The 2015 Young Vic production also looked young (though they were a bit older) and also focussed on movement and sound and was one of the best recent versions (though the critics were between luke-warm and negative).  Postlethwaite and McDonald are also both striking in appearance.

I don’t see Macbeth as a short, scheming bureaucrat as so many have been, and always praise versions where he looks as if he could be a powerful warrior (as with Sean Bean and Ray Fearon). This was set here right at the start where we have a stylized dance battle to music. Postlethwaite is probably the tallest in the cast, but at least two other guys are tall. In the stylized battle the tall guys were kept right to the side, so that Macbeth towered over the other combatants. We saw his father, Pete Postlethwaite, in King Lear and equally close up too. The talent is inherited.

Billy Postlethwaite as Macbeth

I always like it when lines that had never struck me forcefully are brought out afresh by an actor. I went home and looked up two here that he brought to powerful life. First was the start of the second half, after he confronts the witches (five writhing females in tight miniskirts too):

All: Seek to know no more.
Macbeth: I will be satisfied. Deny me this,
And an eternal curse fall on you.

This is a Macbeth tormented by the images in his head, but is he cowed by these supernatural apparitions?  No, he throws it right back at them.

The other one that stood out for the first time (Act III, Scene 3):

Macbeth: O full of scorpions is my mind …

He is tormented by the bewildering visions and course of events, but he is not afraid … he leaves all the guilt and descent into total madness to Lady Macbeth. This is not a guilt-ridden self-questioning 21st century man. Right to the end, he might be maddened, but he is a fighter. I’ll add that Lady Macbeth’s hand-washing may have been equalled by some great actresses, but never bettered. She gripped the hands of the front row.

Emma McDonald as Lady Macbeth

The very end of the play has a fascinating cameo- Macbeth and Lady Macbeth (both now dead) appear in the larger shell-hole above the stage together, holding a baby. No comment. No focus, though we all discussed it afterwards. An alternate reality? What might have been? Was the loss of a baby hinted at by Lady Macbeth what distorted their world view and ambition? A What if … moment.

It’s a play where fashionable gender blindness sits particularly badly (as it did three times last year), but having seen the Watermill’s constraints with a small cast, there is more justification than usual. They have a 50 / 50 gender balance in the ensemble and distribute parts accordingly. They’re also compressing nearly 40 roles to 10 actors.  They get it right where our great institutions (NT, RSC, Globe) get it wrong. Yes, Banquo becomes female, and then they refer to Banquo as “she” and Fleance is “her daughter.” The porter is female (not a problem). Malcolm is female, and keeps the name but is referred to as “she.” What they don’t do, Globe take note, is have a female Hamlet played as a man, or a male Rosalind played as a woman or (heaven forbid) the announced female playing Falstaff for 2019. The other thing, is they use the cast they have, but do not eliminate sexuality. A lot of the time, the women are in battledress, but then when the role calls, they’re in slinky minidresses … as in the five witches at the start of the second part, or the female chorus on the murder of King Duncan.

Max Runham as Duncan is a fine singer. He does The House of The Rising Sun from on high, but then we have the going to bed at Glamis scene. They show the murder of Duncan. He starts the scene singing Roy Orbison’s In Dreams and the chorus of four women join him … and the song is interrupted by the murder. Going from Roy Orbison with sexy backing singers to a genuinely disturbing murder is one of the feats this production excels in. I’ll add that Raoul Malo of The Mavericks is probably the only person I’ve heard sing Roy Orbison as well as Max Runham does here.

The cuts are well chosen – recently, the Malcolm and MacDuff speeches back in England have been done at full length. Here they’re cut to the essentials.

Malcolm (Victoria Blunt) and MacDuff (Mike Slader)

The set by Katie Lias is battered brick as if we’re in a hotel badly hit in a battle. There are two shell holes in the walls, and three doors (open in outdoor scenes). The numbers have fallen off, so what used to be 67, 68, 69 now reads ‘666’. The HOTEL sign later loses the O and T to read HEL.

The porter becomes the receptionist in Grand Budapest Hotel bellboy uniform. This is Eva Feiler, who played Puck in last summer’s Watermill production. She brings the same quirky but arresting delivery to this part – and the “porter” naturally doubles with various messengers and Seyton, bringing Macbeth’s armour, at the end. She’s always funny, so that the porter’s usually very brief respite appears elsewhere. I’m not sure quite how a hotel fits, but room keys are used, a reception bell is used to great effect. It works.

Macduff (Mike Slader) finishes off Macbeth

I must praise the decision to devote a whole page of the fine (and at £3 a bargain) programme to a list of the songs used. They list the versions that inspired them rather than originals or the writers. Paint It Black by The Rolling Stones was an outstanding ensemble piece.

Paint it Black

The one that perplexed me was L-O-V-E by Gregory Porter. I’ve never heard his version, and it’s sung here as a torch song by Emma McDonald as Lady Macbeth, but to me it’s “by Nat King Cole” though so many have sung it over the years. Similarly The Animals did not write House of The Rising Sun, though a canny Alan Price enraged the rest of the band by claiming it as “Trad. Arr. Price” and hoovering up all the royalties. Eric Burdon says he told them it was because it was alphabetical and “Alan” came first, before Eric. Mr Burdon was not aware that alphabetical order follows family names.  On Hurt, they do note Johnny Cash then (originally by Nine Inch Nails). Bloodflood by Alt J gets reprised.

Programme list. This is what EVERY theatre should be doing.

Let’s try and find SOMETHING to criticize. OK. Hairstyle. Victoria Blunt as Malcolm and Lillie Flynn as Banquo both have their hair tied up in a bunch at the back when in battledress. They’re both blonde and of a similar height and build, even facially not un-alike. At the interval, we heard two people saying they found it confusing knowing which was which (same battledress too). They didn’t look so alike at all when in dresses with their hair down. But I would try and differentiate their hair when in battledress more. A grey armband for Malcolm is too subtle.

On the overall rating, Karen overheard two women in the Ladies … “Far better than the National Theatre or RSC last year” they were agreeing. So we were not alone in thinking the same.

We discussed the five stars. Yes, I’d have to say that the individual roles outside the two leads don’t get the space to shine … you will have seen a Malcolm, Banquo, MacDuff who have been given more space and focus.  I can think that most “murder of the MacDuffs” scenes were more tragic or heart-rending. The point is the overall effect of the ensemble, which is what this production is about. It’s thrilling, involving, rapid, musical. It has a feeling of wildness and unpredictability that plunges you into a world which escalates at high speed until you can see why Macbeth feels he sees Birnham wood striding towards him.

*****

THE PROGRAMME

Excellent. A good historical essay on Scottish history and sources. That list of songs. The cast get space to comment. Then they add an article on how wives of leaders find themselves categorized as Lady Macbeths, though the same was never applied to husbands:  Mr Thatcher or Mr May. I’d add that in Private Eye both were seen rather as figures of fun. Before I read the article I noticed the large photo of Tone and Cherie, and I must admit we always thought of Cherie Blair as Lady Macbeth here. It was also said that Cherie Blair and Hilary Clinton were both brighter than their husbands.

That’s not the point of the article, but I recommend the novel Ghost by Robert Harris about a ghost writer and an ex-prime minister. It is obviously based on the Blairs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAID:

4 stars

Judi Herman, What’s On Stage ****

The Macbeths are perfectly matched just because Billy Postlethwaite’s gangling, fidgety Macbeth is complemented by the contrasting stillness of Emma McDonald’s glamorous, damaged Lady Macbeth. The sexual tension between them increases with the violence and their desperation and there is also a sense that Postlethwaite’s thane grows into the role of man of action, outstripping his need for his Lady. Both speak the verse entirely naturally.

Dave Fargnoli, TheStage ****

Kitsch and off-kilter, this tightly adapted take on Shakespeare’s classic story of regicide and reckless ambition feels surprisingly cheerful. Watermill artistic director Paul Hart applies his typically buoyant style to the grim tale, lacing the show with black humour and energising, melodic music.

3 stars
Emma Gradwell, The Spy In The Stalls ***

LINKS ON THIS BLOG:

MACBETH

• Macbeth – McAvoy 2013, Trafalgar Studio, James McAvoy as Macbeth, Claire Foy as Lady Macbeth
• Macbeth, RSC 2011 Jonathan Slinger 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, RSC 2018, Christopher Ecclestone as Macbeth
• Macbeth, National Theatre 2018, Rory Kinnear as Macbeth
• Macbeth, Wanamaker Playhouse 2018, Paul Ready as Macbeth
• Macbeth, Chichester 2019, John Simm as Macbeth

PAUL HART
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Kiss Me Kate, Watermill 2019

BILLY POSTLETHWAITE
King Lear, Bath 2013 (Edgar)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream Bath 2016 (Lysander)

VICTORIA BLUNT
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Maria)
Lady Windermere’s Fan, Classic Spring 2018
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018

SALLY CHENG
Twelfth Night, RSC 2017

EVA FEILER
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Othello, RSC 2015
The Merchant of Venice, RSC 2015

LILLIE FLYNN
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018
Fantastic Mr Fox, Nuffield Southampton 2016 (Mrs Fox)
Johnny Flynn & The Sussex Wit (Hyde Park, 2018) MUSIC

OFFUE OKEGBE
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Feste)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018 (Theseus / Snout)

MIKE SLADER
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Andrew Aguecheek)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018 (Theseus / Snout)

EMMA MCDONALD
Twelfth Night, Watermill, 2017 (Antonia)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Watermill 2018 (Hippolyta / Titania)