MACBETH. To 15 November.
Nottingham.
MACBETH
by William Shakespeare.
Nottingham Playhouse: To 15 November 2008.
Tue-Sat 7.30pm Mat 30 Oct, 6, 13 Nov 1.30pm 8 Nov 2.30pm.
Audio-described/Captioned 8 Nov 2.30pm, 12 Nov 7.30pm
BSL Signed 14 Nov 2.30pm.
Post-show Discussion 6 Nov.
Runs 2hr 25min One interval.
TICKETS 0115 941 9419.
www.nottinghamplayhouse.co.uk.
Review: Alan Geary 23 October 2008.
Not a flawless production, but an outstanding central performance.
The outstanding thing about this co-production with Edinburgh's Royal Lyceum Theatre is Liam Brennan's central performance, one of the best pieces of acting we’ve had at Nottingham Playhouse in recent years.
Shakespeare’s text in this particular play always seems strikingly realistic, and Brennan’s delivery emphasises this. He fractures his lines quite often in unexpected but psychologically plausible places and he addresses his soliloquies head-on to the audience. The voice is hoarse and battle-weary; when it needs to be, it’s harsh.
Allison McKenzie, as Lady Macbeth, evil-eyed from the start, gets the vaulting ambition and gradual disintegration of personality beautifully. The sleep-walking scene is superb and there’s a hungry, unhealthy, almost crazed sexuality between Brennan and McKenzie especially in their first scene together.
It’s notoriously easy to get the Scottish play wrong but, on the whole, Lucy Pitman-Wallace’s interpretation is a good one. Save for a clunkingly inappropriate allusion to the credit crunch from Jimmy Chisholm’s otherwise excellent Porter, it’s gimmick-free: Pitman-Wallace doesn’t try to get between Shakespeare and the audience. Costumes are early-medieval; and, reasonably for a production from Edinburgh, accents are Scottish - there’s a Scottish feel to the whole thing.
Outside on the misty heath the Witches, covered in white rags that look like ectoplasm, are wraith-like and convincing. But their subsequent appearances, at key moments elsewhere, are over-done and obtrusive, almost comical. They even get tangled up in the final swordfight, and Macbeth’s death scene is seriously spoilt.
After he’s been killed a Witch appears, helps him up, and leads him off-stage, for all the world as if he’s a first-time customer in a bordello.
But the banquet scene, always a potential pitfall, is well done. Intentionally or not, Banquo (Martin Ledwith) looks oddly like the wounded Christ sitting at table - we could be at the last Supper or even, given the wounds, in the Upper Room.
The way that Christopher Brand makes Macduff go weak in the knees at the news of his family’s murder and take it, literally, in the gut is admirably true to life.
But so, in a psychological sense, is the whole of this play.
Macbeth: Liam Brennan.
Lady Macbeth: Allison McKenzie.
Banquo/Seyton: Martin Ledwith.
Duncan/Seyward/Doctor/Porter: Jimmy Chisholm.
Macduff/Captain/Murderer: Christopher Brand.
Malcolm/Murderer: Sam Heughan.
Ross/Young Seyward: Donald Pirie.
Lennox/Murderer of Lady Macduff: Stuart Nicoll.
Witch/Lady Macduff/Messenger/Soldier: Claire Brown.
Witch/Macduff’s Son/Servant/Soldier: Joanne Cummins.
Witch/Gentlewoman/Fleance/Soldier: Pauline Lynch.
Director: Lucy Pitman-Wallace.
Designer: Lucy Osborne.
Lighting: Jenny Kagan.
Composer/Musical Director: Philip Pinsky.
Movement Director: Sue Nash.
Fight director: Terry King.
2008-10-25 12:18:59