Macbeth | Bouquets & Brickbats

Clemmie Sveaas, Jessie Oshodi and Ana Beatriz Meireles in Macbeth. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith John Heffernan (Macbeth) and Anna Maxwell Martin (Lady Macbeth) in Macbeth. Photo by Richard Hubert Smith (2)

Home, Manchester

02/02/16

OK, so it’s yet another Shakespeare adaptation. And it’s Macbeth too – one of my favourites, but certainly not one that’s under-performed. Its length and relative simplicity make it a school curriculum staple, so regular airings are always assured: it’s an easy one to sell out.

But it’s this ubiquity that means it’s in danger of being – dare I say it? -boring. I’ve watched and read this play so often that, unless the director is bringing a fresh eye to it, I really don’t want to see it again. Especially after the recent much-acclaimed-but-actually-rather-dull film version, by Justin Kerzel (see previous review).

Luckily, Carrie Cracknell and Lucy Guerin’s production (for Home, Young Vic and Birmingham Rep) certainly brings that fresh eye. It’s not perfect by any means – there are a few jarring moments, and some lines that seem misjudged (that long pause between ‘hold’ and ‘enough’, for example, turning the latter into capitulation instead of a defiant battle cry), but it’s dirty and dangerous, just like it needs to be – and it’s sharp and witty too.

It’s set in a version of the present, in a stark underpass, as grim as night. There are flickering fluorescent lights, and a sense of menace prevails. The body count is high, and murder is rife; the corpses are wrapped in plastic and tossed aside quite casually. This is certainly a brutal world.

And the witches. They’re my favourite thing. They’re twisted, haunted mannequins, moving their inhuman limbs in a foul and fearsome dance. They’re genuinely frightening, like horror-story dolls – sometimes pregnant, sometimes breast-feeding – and their gruesome game of Blind Man’s Buff makes the Macduff family murder a truly awful act.

The banquet scene is nicely done; Lady Macbeth’s madness is also a high point. It’s a strong production: daring and innovative and certainly not dull.

Highly recommended – although I suspect it will divide opinion.

4.2 stars

Susan Singfield

08/09/15

Macbeth has been filmed many times with varying degrees of success. Indeed, the story is so familiar there’s no point at all in describing what actually happens, since it is indelibly imprinted upon most people’s consciousness. Yet every single film made thus far has overlooked a really important opportunity. Macbeth and his wife need to be teenagers. Only the overbearing hubris of youth and rampant ambition can ever fully explain their actions. Of course, when you’re in the business of financing a movie, the simple truth is that you need names that will put bums on seats, so the chances are we’ll never get to see such an interpretation on the big screen. Which is a shame.

Here, Michael Fassbender gives us a grimy, muscular Macbeth, while the usually dependable Marion Cotillard struggles somewhat with her Scottish accent as his scheming wife. If you’re going to film this play, you really need to have something different up your sleeve and apart from a few neat flourishes, director Justin Kurzel doesn’t have an awful lot to offer us. He opens with the funeral of the Macbeths’ young son (something alluded to in the text but not, to my knowledge, ever shown before) and then he gives us a big slow motion battle, set against some bleak highland scenery. The witches are nicely restrained (some of their most famous lines summarily dispensed with) and from there, matters proceed at a funereal pace, with Fassbender and Cottilard reciting their lines whilst gazing into the middle distance, like actors in an Ingmar Bergman film.

It isn’t terrible, you understand, but the leaden quality rather neuters this most virile of Shakespeare’s plays, making you long to push on to the next action sequence, rather than relishing those wonderful words. There’s also a terrible misstep when Macbeth appears to discuss the assassination of Banquo (Paddy Considine) as the entire court listens in. It must have been Kurzel’s intention to do it this way, but it looks, frankly, risible.

The closing sections, in which the avenging forces set fire to, rather than transport the woods of Dunsinane, finally allow a touch of awe into the proceedings and the confrontation between Macbeth and Macduff (Sean Harris) is visceral enough to ensure this probably won’t be suitable to show in schools. There’s also a nice twist at the end involving the King’s sword – but by this time, it’s a little too late to salvage proceedings.

Advance reviews for this had led me to expect something extraordinary, but overall this felt like just another version of a tried and tested story. Decent but not a game changer.

3.5 stars

Philip Caveney