Macbeth at the Royal Exchange – Review
March 7, 2009
Matthew Dunster’s gory, graphic production of Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’, on at the Royal Exchange until the eleventh of April, is as gripping as it is horrible.
Dunster uses a war zone in modern day Scotland as his setting, and the use of laptops, mobile phones and video recorders during the play is surprisingly unforced and seems to work. The soldiers in the play wear authentic camouflage, guns are commonplace, and Lady Macbeth is a highly charged cocaine user. The ideas are original, although we could do without the modern music – it takes something away from the horror of Lady Macduff and her children being brutally murdered when it’s accompanied by jolly pop music.
The play begins with soldiers seizing and raping young girls, and it never becomes any cheerier. Dunster tries to tackle the issue of the effects that war has on children in this play, and the three ‘weird sisters’ are depicted as mentally unhinged, psychologically unstable girls, who have lost their normality as a direct cause of the war going on around them. These young girls play their parts unnervingly well, with seductive dances for money and unearthly visions for Macbeth both handled with an assurance and power exceeding their years. The only point in the play that we could really do without is one of these seductive dances straight after the interval. Here the three girls are dancing for money, but why they are doing this is entirely unexplained and has no relevance to the storyline. To anyone who had not looked at the programme, where Dunster talks of the terrible effect war can have on children, this scene seems like it belongs in another play, certainly not Macbeth. The music that the girls dance to (namely Pink) is, again, surely unnecessary.
However, other than this scene, the play works fantastically well. Nicholas Gleaves’s Macbeth is fascinating. Before his murder of King Duncan, Gleaves acts well within himself, his voice not quite monotonous but certainly lacking in passion. Famous lines such as ‘Is this a dagger I see before me?’ and ‘Let not light see my black and deep desires’ are delivered without any of the importance that should surely be placed upon them, and this is immensely frustrating when we hear them. However, once Macbeth has killed Duncan, and the reality of the crime that he has committed sets in, his change is absolute. Gone is the calm, ambitious Macbeth, in its place a crazy monster who will go as far as he has to in order to secure his own power. The sheer scale of this change in character is extremely effective, and we realise that this is why Gleaves acts so within himself in the opening. It is an interesting take on the character of Macbeth, and one that makes a powerful impression on the audience.
There are no obviously weak characters or actors in this production, and some very good ones; notably Hilary Maclean’s gradual descent into madness as Lady Macbeth is well handled, Christopher Colquhoun as Banquo’s ghost was suitably haunting and judgemental of Macbeth, and the three weird sisters almost stole the show as the best performers, although for me Gleaves wins this prize with his Macbeth. The special effects and sounds were magnificent, suitably scary and timed to perfection, with the idea of using screens around the stage to show certain ideas working well.
The play is very gory; watching blood pour out of Banquo’s mouth in Macbeth’s vision is really horrible, as is seeing Macbeth’s decapitated head being brought on stage by Macduff. Dunster’s dark and psychological take on the play is summed up in his grim interpretation of the ending (I won’t spoil it for you!). As a whole, this is an utterly gripping, intensely horrible and unashamedly gory performance. Go and see it if you can!
The performance is not for the faint hearted!
Gleaves's interpretation of Macbeth is fascinating
(Pictures taken from the Royal Exchange website)
