When: 28th October 2021
Where: Live streamed from The Almeida theatre
Writer: William Shakespeare
Director: Yaël Farber
When this play was announced I was eager to get a ticket, I am a big fan of Shakespeare and with such a star-studded cast I knew this would be one of those performances that would be remembered. Clearly it was the hot ticket of the year as it was very difficult to get tickets for, with them selling out within minutes. Sadly I was unable to acquire a ticket to see this performance in person, but I was lucky enough to watch the live stream from home.
I had high hopes for this performance, and I want to start by saying that although it did not live up to my expectations I still found it to be a very entertaining and intriguing piece of theatre. This performance of Shakespeare's Macbeth took a very interesting approach to the material, and there were some very clear choices made by the director to make this piece stand out from the other thousands of performances of the play. First of all the distinct choice to place much of the piece in darkness, using a majorly black colour palate. Whilst is was effective at creating a moody atmosphere that worked well, it was very difficult to see actors faces in many points throughout. This did not help in identifying characters particularly when they were all wearing black, had beards and were speaking in Scottish accents. I also felt that there was too much set, the Almeida is a very small theatre and for the amount of space they had there was too much clutter, much of which was unnecessary and unused. There was a very stop and start nature to the performance and there were a lot of moments where the lights went down and we could see shadows rushing around, moving furniture such as the bed that came on at multiple points during. Whilst Lady Macbeths (Saoirse Ronan) movement around the bed was interesting, I did not feel that it was interesting enough to make moving such a big object on and off stage justifiable. There were other obvious moment where some of this set also got in the way of the actors and they had to work around it in a way that felt odd and unnatural. I think they would have been better to have one set and manipulate it to fit certain scenes without moving any of it, I just felt the director was trying to be too clever that it felt forced and didn't flow as nicely as it could have.
However that being said, I found the use of the tap and flooding of the stage very intriguing, it added another layer of mystery to the performance, and made moments such as Lady Macbeths death all that more interesting. They way she was reflected onto the floor I found exciting, it was ambitious but it created such a lovely image. I also liked the way that lighting was reflected into the water to create shapes on the back wall, I felt the darkness of the water almost looked like blood at certain moments, which was very fitting for a play with such a high death count.
Another thing that sort of annoyed me was the fact that they played with the text, they moved scenes around and reordered sections. I somewhat understand why someone would cut parts as it is a long play, but this play was still 3 hours long! I know the play quite well and there were moments that confused me, such as Lady Macbeths monologue for example, I was very confused when after reading the letter Macbeth appeared and a whole other scene took place before she continued. It felt unnecessary and I didn't understand the purpose of this. In fact there were a lot of things in this play that I have been told to not do by my drama teacher when staging a play, and although I don't agree with all of them this play has made me understand more why some of these ideas could hinder a performance.
As always in a production of Macbeth I was excited to see how they chose to approach the 3 witches, and I felt that they explored these characters really well. I loved that fact that the women were all much older than the majority of the cast emphasising their knowledge, and the fact that they were suits was cool. I also liked how they stayed on stage for the whole performance watching from the back, this created the idea that they were watching the action take place, or maybe even they were showing us the story. it was ominous and I really enjoyed that.
I was excited to see Saoirse Ronan's portrayal of Lady Macbeth, I have seen her in a few films and always thought she was a strong actor. However, I felt there was something off about her Lady Macbeth, unlike her previous performances in films, her performance felt a bit too toned down. She didn't emphasise the insanity of the character or play with her power. This could have been a choice but the majority of the other actors were playing their characters quite melodramatic, in a very stage Shakespearean style. I wondered whether this was due to the differences between stage acting and screen acting, and that her performance was more on the screen side, meaning it was much more internal and subtle. I also felt that perhaps she was too young and innocent for the character, and that the character is more suited to be played by someone a little older. However I liked the costuming choice to have her be the only character wearing white, it reflected her godly power over Macbeth and having the blood stain it at certain moments added to the idea that Duncan's death will haunt her and ultimately lead to her death. It's just a shame Ronan's performance didn't entirely match this.
On the other hand I found James McArdle's performance as Macbeth, much stronger but still off putting at times. Overall I found his portrayal of the character to be interesting, but I struggled to get past the choice to make Macbeth seem unknowing, and there were many moments during the play where it felt as though he had forgotten his line. I am almost certain now that this was a choice, but I struggle to see why and to me I just thought he kept forgetting his lines which I would not expect from such a hyped up performance.
Overall I enjoyed this production it was intriguing and there were lots of interesting choices made. I really enjoyed the moody atmosphere and there were sections of the piece that excited me. This is definitely one of those performances that will be remembered and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to see it. Although I do not think it will be a play I will reminisce for years to come.
Comments
Post a Comment