I must
confess I did not really get on with this production. Reduced to two hours with
no interval, I felt the pruning and modernising lost a good deal. Luckily I had
read a detailed synopsis during the afternoon and so was able to identify the
supporting characters; otherwise, I fear I would have been rather at sea.
Somehow (or maybe it was me) the pruning seemed to lose the lines identifying
the characters!
There were
also innovations which seemed to me distracting. The witches were on stage a
good deal of the time – sometimes as the witches but at other times as dancers.
The murderers of Banquo also seemed to be on
stage more than they should be. The dancing itself did not really work for me
and seemed to take time up that was already at a premium.
The stark
set was, however, arresting – consisting of a receding ‘corridor’ in which all
the action took place. Towards its end was an entrance that slid across the
corridor, admitting and exiting characters. The acting of Macbeth and his wife
was fine but I did not feel gripped by the psychology in the play. However, the
reaction of MacDuff to the killing of his
family stood out as did Macbeth’s mistaken belief in his invincibility towards
the end and his demise was visually striking with the stream of blood making its way down the stage..
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