There will be blood... so look out if you’re in the front row!
The Tragedy Of Macbeth Almeida Theatre, London Until November 27 3hrs 5mins
The first surprise of Yaël Farber’s The Tragedy Of Macbeth, writes Holly Williams, is that it’s taken her so long to tackle the play – it is perfect for the director’s moody aesthetic. The second is that she’s managed to stretch one of Shakespeare’s briskest plays to over three hours. But if the first half is perhaps too restrained, the second roars towards its bloody conclusion.
Of all the Macbeths I’ve seen, this one gives its central couple the furthest distance to travel. Initially, they are positively ordinary: James McArdle’s Macbeth is a cheerful, decent sort, speaking the verse with easy naturalness. And while Saoirse Ronan (left, with McArdle) makes a powerful British stage debut as Lady Macbeth, she starts off more scornful, exasperated wife than any kind of monstrous vamp.
By the second half, however, they are both completely destroyed by guilt. McArdle’s burns hot; prizes surely await for this wild, searing performance. Ronan, meanwhile, casts a chill – you shiver to watch her mind crack. There’s a nightmarish quality to her restlessness.
Farber turns the screws further with some canny interventions. Children are both witness to, and victims of, the blooming violence. Farber inserts Lady Macduff and her children into earlier scenes, so we have a greater emotional investment when they are brutally murdered – but she also makes Lady Macbeth an aghast witness to this butchery. Special mention must go to Akiya Henry as Lady Macduff, whose reaction to her child having its throat cut is utterly nerve-shredding.
As an audience, we’re implicated in the action: the banquet where Banquo’s blood-dribbling ghost appears is almost like a political rally, the Macbeths addressing their speeches into microphones to us. And the dark-suited witches’ famous first line, ‘When shall we three meet again?’, becomes the far more incriminating ‘When shall we all meet again?’ – jarring, to be honest, until it’s repeated at the play’s conclusion, as the young Fleance wields a gun. Farber hammers home the idea that violence begets violence.
Farber’s work always delivers stunning imagery, and she conjures a murky, misty Scotland, soundtracked by growling cello and witches’ sighs. As we move towards a high-octane ending, Farber extends Lady Macbeth’s inability to wash herself clean of blood into a visual metaphor for the Macbeths drowning in remorse.
Let’s just say the production comes with a warning that the front rows may get splashed.
Ian McKellen must be relieved, writes Mark Cook, after taking on the arduous role of Hamlet at the age of 82 in Sean Mathias’s inaugural summer season at Windsor, now to be playing a relative bit part in
The Cherry Orchard (Theatre Royal Windsor, until November 13, 2hrs 50mins HHHHH). Of course, as the failing old servant Firs, he steals almost every scene he’s in.
Chekhov’s final play – with its tragicomic depiction of an eccentric bunch of self-deluding idealists, dreamers, would-be lovers and philosophers, and the rise of the middle classes over an indolent aristocracy – requires a delicate balancing act. Mathias marshals a real ensemble, capturing moments of farce, tragedy and fragility with admirable fluidity.
There’s a lovely performance, too, from Francesca Annis as the debtridden Ranyevskaya returning to her country estate only to find her home and its orchard being snapped up by Martin Shaw’s self-made Lopakhin. Emotionally OTT, she is also impulsive and generous to a fault, and sobs at the news of her loss as dance music plays in the background. It’s a moving juxtaposition. But I shan’t forget in a hurry the sight of the stooped Firs, left alone and forgotten in the house. Audience laughter at him struggling with the locked door freezes as he folds, collapsing on his suitcase, and dies. A trademark Chekhovian moment seamlessly fusing comedy and tragedy.
Conor McPherson’s Shining City (Theatre Royal Stratford East, London, until Saturday, 1hr 50mins HHHHH) gets a worthwhile revival. Set in the run-down consulting room of a Dublin psychotherapist, Ian, it mostly involves his sessions with John, a sales rep who recently lost his wife and claims to see her ghost. Though it’s clear that Rory Keenan’s shrink has problems of his own.
It’s a wordy piece but McPherson also has a nice ear for the comedy of male interaction and verbal tics. As John, Brendan Coyle gives a beautifully nuanced performance of bewilderment and pain but Nadia Fall’s production feels sluggish. MC