TWO DIFFERING SHORTER REVIEWS ON THE SAME PRODUCTION
Educating young people in Shakespeare and its deeper meaning was one of the worst experiences of my life at school. Not because I was lazy, indeed I loved Shakespeare, but the fact teachers insisted on you sitting down to read the text in the most boring beige and cinder block schoolroom was enough to kill all imagination and love for the words. Shakespeare is meant to be experienced and is an interactive experience at that. People forget that his work was visceral, and the plays toyed with peoples fears, hopes and dreams. They were of course incredibly rude too! School never explained the REAL meanings of Malvolio's monologue in the letter scene.
The reason for my reminiscence is because ths performance of Macbeth is a school performance. Over 14,000 students from 96 schools got to see Macbeth, commissioned by Deutsche Bank, who offered free tickets so that many thousands of students could witness the works of the Bard where they should be seen; on a stage, rather than in a classroom.
Now it comes to YouTube, so your kids can watch it too! I enjoyed how they put the show together, a lot more flash and gruesome spectacle to what you usually see, well aware of the type of audience they are performing too. This was clear from the first scene when the witch bit off the soldiers thumb or when she ate what looked to be a heart was met with delighted squeals of squeamish teens who were totally dragged into the piece. It was great to see that they incorporated a more interactive approach, having the witches in the audiences with young people looking on at them with distrust, thinking they were member of the audiences. One of the witches played by Jessica Murrain was brilliant with the young crowd with her wonderfully weird behaviour. I also enjoyed the Porter, who threw up on the audience. Yeah, that happened! And I have to say as someone who has done quite a bit of immersive theatre, it's incredibly freeing and a little nerve-wracking as you never know how a audience member will react! The fact it was so immersive was a lot more to how it would have been performed in the day, giving it a true representation of Shakespeare's theatre. I would definitely recommend this performance especially for younger viewers. If you want to get your kids to appreciate the bards work, this would be a great start!
Reviewer - Keziah Lockwood
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I have a great love of Shakespeare, always have had, and yet I come from a slighter older generation; the generation that was taught how to speak the verse "correctly", and venerate Shakespeare as some kind of god! That is of course, not the correct way to view Shakespeare and his works. However, neither is the contemporary modus operandus.
After watching this production, aimed primarily at teenagers, my heart yearned for those old school days to come back again! This was "wrong" on so many levels. Not only was some of the dialogue omitted, to make it a shorter running time for the audience, but ad-libs, and even quotes from other Shakespeare's plays were added. The Porter enters half-way through, breaking the fourth wall and talking to the audience directly.. she is being a stand-up comedian and telling jokes. Where is Toby she asks? with the punchline being "Toby or nor Toby!" It gets a laugh. She then proceeds to vomit into a bucket, since she is drunk! Another ad-lib faux-pas occured when MacBeth started playing and toying with the audience at his banquet giving high fives to the crowd and saying "Nice to see you guys! What's up?!"
The production was at best - and I'm being kind here - a mixed message one. The "modern dress" was bizarre. Some of it was indeed contemporary, others looked like they had been designed by the team behind Star Trek! Historically the blue saltire flag of Scotland - used throughout as part of the costume - was not the flag of Scotland during MacBeth's reign (1040 - 1057); and neither was there a British Union flag at that time too! The accents were all over the place. Why did some speak in Scottish accents, but not all, when some of the Scottish protagonists had London accents?? Very inconsistent! Swords and water pistols on stage at the same time?? really??
The set was minimalist and poor, with abosolutely no sense of place. We had no idea of the location of each scene, and those actors who multi-rolled, we had no sense of which character they were at any one time. MacBeth is a tragedy and yet, there was more comedy injected into this play than in the entire script of Midsummer Night's Dream!
My overall diagnosis is this. I believe that each performer had their character in their mind's eye, since all on stage were obviously consumate performers; however there seemed to be a lack of a deeper understanding of and connection to the whole, which was simply alowed to exist without gounding. The directing was too concerned on 'presenting' the play and 'entertaining' the audience. There was absolutely no chemistry between performers on stage, and yet their chemistry with and connection to the young audience was palpable. It was facile and without substance. Perhaps the worst version of MacBeth I have ever seen.
Reviewer - Chris Benchley.
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