MACBETH. To 8 April.
Hornchurch
MACBETH
by William Shakespeare
Queen's Theatre To 8 April 2006
Tue-Sat 8pm Mat 8 April 2.30pm
Audio-described 8 April 2.30pm
BSL Signed 5 April
Runs 2hr 40min One interval
TICKETS: 01708 443333
Review: Timothy Ramsden 29 March
Visceral production misses out on the moral dimension.
'Cut to the chase...', director Bob Carlton's resident Queen's ensemble, has had a patchy history with Shakespeare, including a wearisome Romeo and Juliet and a lively Comedy of Errors. With such precedents, it's unsurprising Carlton's Macbeth should have a fast-paced surface but miss out on the play's inner life.
Updating the action to a modern underworld where King Duncan becomes drugs baron Duncan King, and adding in lashings of slashings, plus gang-war icons of shootouts and a car-bombing in a desolate underground car-park, certainly relates Shakespeare's action to the world of modern action pictures. So do the urgently throbbing guitars played live on the coldly neutral space of the Queen's stage. And projections create times and places for each event, giving the action a fast pulse.
The 3 Weird Sisters remain weird as 2 sluttish young women, one ever-itching with addictive compulsion as the bags of white powder pass round, plus a male hoodie. They're surrounded by the black-and-white garb that has typified London gangsterism since the Kray/Richardson era.
So is this London? It certainly sounds like it, and Malcolm ends being crowned "King" (Scotland gets cut). But where on this turf are the Birnam and Dunsinane still in the script? It's part of the problem of such adaptations. Far more severe is the loss of the moral dimension. If Macbeth is no longer the rightful king's loyal servant but a member of a criminal gang, the sense of inner corruption central to the drama is lost.
Bright ideas crop up - Banquo's Ghost comes and goes as a projection on a waiter's white clothing in the smart restaurant where the banquet takes place. But the language remains stubbornly there and this company just don't cut the mustard when it comes to Shakespeare's verse. There are barely audible moments and there's no richness in the speech.
Carlton's emphasis is clear. "Blood will have blood" frames the action and there's the (rather easy) idea that what happened to Macbeth will begin again with Malcolm. But, in this context, what did happen to Macbeth? The play's becomes a 'Gangsters-will-be-Gangsters"-show, and there's more to it than that.
Duncan: Neil Boorman
Witch 3: Ed Bruggmeyer
Lady Macbeth: Allison Harding
Macbeth: Anthony Hunt
Banquo: Nick Lashbrook
Witch 1: Naomi Lee Schulke
Macduff: Kevin Pallister
Witch 2: Emily Parker
Ensemble: Phillip Reed
Director: Bob Carlton
Designer: Rodney Ford
Lighting: Matt Eagland
Sound: Nik Dudley
Musical Director: Carol Sloman
Video Projection: Paul Kenah
Fight director: Malcolm Ranson
2006-04-05 13:02:24