Reviewed by David Spencer
I had not read any particulars about Rupert Goold's Chichester Festival Theatre
Production of Macbeth, that recently played at the Brooklyn
Academy of Music and
just moved to the Lycuem Theatre for a limited Broadway run, so I promise you, when I
traveled to the theatre thinking, I wonder if this is going to be one of
those modern dress productions that likens the nefarious politics of the play
to the goings-on in a fascist state, it was in all innocence, and I was surprised and a first
a little disappointed to discover upon arrival that such was precisely what it
is.
I can't say that my
disappointment ever lifted completely—this metaphorical ground has been
well-trod in Shakespeare productions before—but Mr. Goold manages a few spins,
twists and effects that are striking and in keeping with contemporary
sensibilities as shaped by modern media. That the set (designer: Anthony
Ward) in which
everything occurs is a bleak, austere, industrial-looking kitchen, with an
ominous cage-elevator at the back; that the three witches are portrayed as
ghoulish, grey-faced military nurses; that the appearance of Banquo's ghost is
presaged by a computer animation of blood spreading out on the walls to either
side of the descending elevator; all and their particular “look” signify a
production whose creative team are as conversant with genre television, graphic
novels and horror movies as they are with political history and the Bard. So
whatever else might be said, Goold knows how to keep things well-paced, plus
visually brisk and bracing.
As with all such productions,
his eventually falls victim to aspects of the original text that don't fully
support the metaphor; in my view, these are passages that come to the fore in
the final third of the evening—the battle scenes. Shakespeare was very much a
man of as well
as ahead of his
time in honoring certain audience expectations and storytelling conventions of
his era; you see it happening when these delicious, dark, psychological character
studies he’s put forth suddenly morph into dramatizations of war maneuvers,
wherein the villain anti-hero's subtleties give way to less interesting, less
consistent and at times unconvincingly motivated manifestations of troubled
conscience; while the forces of good rave on about vengeance and honor and
justice. Call me a blasphemer if you wish, but in my experience, Macbeth (along with a few other
Shakespeare plays, like Richard III) always seems like two different plays conjoined by a
single production. And in the case of this production, the battle scenes
feel labored. They don't belong against the charnel house backdrop because they
feel at odds with contained interiors; the modern weaponry (machine guns and
pistols) never quite feels in sync with the text; in short, such "straight
action sequences" are never as friendly to modern re-envisioning as the
more up-close-and-personal psychological stuff because they are by nature more
literal and more logistical.
Even so, Goold's staging holds
onto its mojo longer than most that I’ve seen in this modern mold, and this has
in large measure to do with his lead performers: Patrick Stewart manages to keep Macbeth's mental
deterioration a continuing process even through the battle scenes, by putting disturbing
spins on foursquare speeches, thus painting a true and vivid portrait of
absolute power corrupting absolutely, not just the morals, but the soul and the
grip on sanity...and Kate Fleetwood's vulpine and sensual take on Lady Macbeth is a study in
various lusts that cannot sustain intensity, for having burned so brightly they
must inevitably consume themselves. Like Stewart's, her performance seems
hauntingly authentic.
It takes a lot for me to cite a
Shakespeare production as a must-see, and despite the accolades of other
critics, I can't say that this particular Macbeth quite reaches that watermark on my
personal scale. But it's certainly worthy, and it's certainly closer than most.