12 November 2018. Macbeth at the Barbican

This RSC production was directed by Polly Findlay. It followed, for me, fairly hot on the heels of the Rufus Norris version at the National.
The most memorable and startling aspect of the RSC production was the use of children as the witches. Dressed in red, they had an almost satanic feel to them and were certainly unsettling. As with the National production, my issues were more with the play than its rendition - in particular the over-hasty and unplanned murder of the king and subsequent murder of his guards. However, in this production, the latter murders seemed more plausible.
The acting was very good, particularly Niamh Cusack as Lady Macbeth. She positively spat out her contempt for her husband's (played by Chrisopher Eccleston) lack of resolve.
The Barbican theatre was on the night of my visit like a giant school outing and it must be a testimony to the quality of the production that one would never have known the audience was mainly schoolchildren while the play was taking place.
 

9 November 2018. The Wild Duck at Almeida

This translation / version of Ibsen's play by Robert Icke got a poor review in the Guardian but rave reviews elsewhere. At the outset, I rather sided with the Guardian. The play's dipping in and out of theatre with asides as to what the character was really thinking or what the context was of the plot (e.g., Ibsen himself fathered a child by one of his servants) became a bit tedious and distracting to me. However, I found that I warmed to the event as it unfolded, partly because it is a gripping story and it is also thought provoking - Are we better off knowing the truth or living in a happy delusion?
The outline of the plot is that Charles Woods (a name substituted by Icke for Werle in the original) has had an affair with a servant, Gina. He has engineered her marriage to James Ekdal and they have a daughter - Hedwig - with macular degeneration. James's father, Francis, was Charles Woods's business partner but has fallen on hard times since being disgraced and sent to prison for his assumed liability in a forestry scandal. The play opens with Charles Woods's son, Gregory,  returning home after a long absence, He takes it upon himself to make his friend James aware of some horrid truths - not the least of which is that the daughter who James had believed was his, in fact was fathered by Charles Woods - who himself is now suffering from advancing macular degeneration. The unhappy ending is that the daughter Hedwig shoots herself having lost James's love - whereas the meddling Gregory had advised her to sacrifice her beloved wild duck that she kept in the loft - a fairytale territory visited by her and her grandfather and where they kept other animals including a collection of rabbits,
The play was good at getting the audience involved in the unravelling of the Ekdals lives and in provoking irritation at Gregory's self-righteous interference. The acting was excellent - including the child who played Hedwig. All in all, I thoguht a good evening and one that will stay in the memory.