Review: MACBETH - Shakespeare North Playhouse (15/09/26)
Candlelit production makes for perfectly eerie atmosphere in this intimate new staging
-----
In a time when directors of Shakespeare's work are becoming more and more inventive, coming up with bold, often bizarre new ways in which to tell these centuries old tales, it is rather a breath of fresh air to come across a company who have done away with all the histrionics, completely stripped back the creative elements, and in many ways taken the bard's work back to its technologically scarce roots. Once the house lights are down, we are plunged into little more than candlelight, with a total of 84 individual candles across 7 hanging wooden chandeliers which, for a story with the inherent darkness and intensity of MacBeth, could not be more apt.
The tragedy is one known to more audiences than many due to its consistent inclusion in school syllabuses since the 19th century, so there will be many in the audience who will already know this tale of murder, betrayal, deceit and vengeance, centred around the newly anointed Thane of Cawdor, his conniving, manipulative wife, and those whom he seeks to remove from the picture in order to realise his power hungry ambitions. Such is the collective sense of familiarity with the play among many audiences, that it is perhaps easy for a company to inadvertently operate under a sense of complacency, so it is wonderful to see a director's vision so cogently realised, where both delivery and characterisation are at the very core of what they have achieved.
What is especially impressive about director Ben Crystal's vision is that he has managed to do an awful lot with very little, from the dimly, spookily lit auditorium, featuring hand held candles to light actors' faces, to the sound design and score being improvised by a sole musician (Semay Wu) by means of just a cello and various percussive elements, this may well be the first time we have seen the stunning Shakespeare North Playhouse main auditorium used as it feels like it always should be, following in a similar vein to the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, and almost making it feel like its northern counterpart.
This clearly isn't done for the sake of cheap gimmicks however, rather this aesthetic sparseness feels like it leans marvellously into the ominous, menacing nature of this story, like there's danger around every corner, and that we ought to fear what's about to come. The dimly lit space works especially well when it comes to the three weird sisters, and their three-in-one malevolence that has us on the edges of our seats, as they prophesy the various unsettling, nefarious events that come to pass, including the rise and fall of our tragic hero through their own perfectly calculated manipulation. Mark Bailey's costumes should also be highlighted, most notably for how they depict the distinction between the living and the dead, with ghosts of those who'd lost their lives having their faces veiled in black, in a rather straightforward but ingenious creative choice.
Assembled for this production is as diverse a cast as you are likely to find, and all work brilliantly with one another like a well-oiled machine, and whilst one or two individual performances were a touch wooden, this never detracted from the overall presentation of this most behemoth of fables. There were, however, several members of this company who shone particularly brightly, both in terms of their delivery and physical embodiments of their characters. Megs Kumari as Lady MacBeth is hearty and headstrong, showing an expert command of the Playhouse's circular stage, then perfectly encapsulating the character's descent into madness.
Likewise Janelle Thompson as a gender-swapped MacDuff was a masterstroke in adaptation, almost shifting our perception of MacBeth's main friend turned foe as opposite but equal, as she displays great sturdiness and an abundance of fire and fury, which comes to a head brilliantly during the final confrontation. In the title role we have the show's director Crystal whom, like his on stage spouse, depicts a gradual but discernible descent into maniacal rage, driven to the brink of madness by the three weird sisters. He begins as enormously charismatic, witty even, before paranoia and extreme guilt become the architects of his ultimate demise, and it kept us on tenterhooks right until the death (pun intended).
Overall this is a production that is bolstered hugely by how clever the director has been in his minimal visual and auditory presentation of this most grisly of tales, sure there was the odd moment when it felt a touch like a community theatre group, however we are most certainly gripped by this latest staging of a Jacobean juggernaut, and it is one that will be remembered for all the right reasons.
★★★★☆ (4*)
"MacBeth" runs at Shakespeare North Playhouse until the 3rd of October (tickets)
{PR/invite}
Comments