Macbeth, presented by the Royal Exchange Theatre Company at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 6 March 2009.
Kevin De Ornellas
University of Ulster, Coleraine
k.deornellas@ulster.ac.uk
Kevin De Ornellas. "Review of Macbeth, presented by the Royal Exchange Theatre Company at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, 6 March 2009." Early Modern Literary Studies 15.1 (2009-10) <URL:http://purl.oclc.org/emls/15-1/ornemacb.htm>.
Directed by Matthew Dunster. Designed by Paul Wills. Lighting by Philip Gladwell. Sound by Ian Dickinson. Choreography by Aline David. Fight direction by Kevin McCurdy. Assistant direction by Ben Fowler. With Nicholas Gleaves (Macbeth), Hilary Maclean (Lady Macbeth), Rebecca Callard (Weird Sister and Lady Macduff), Niamh Quinn (Weird Sister and Nanny), Alexandra Kenyon (Weird Sister), Robert Gwilym (Duncan and Old Seyward), John MacMillan (Malcolm and Murderer), Matthew Randell (Donalbain, Young Seyward and Murderer), Jason Done (Macduff), Chinna Wodu (Angus), Heather Peace (Lennox), John Stahl (Ross), Christopher Colquhoun (Banquo and Scottish Doctor), Vincent Bernard (Fleance and Nurse), Leigh Symonds (Bloody Captain and Seyton) and Tom Glynn-Whitehead (Son of Macduff). Other parts were played by the Company.
- This outstanding modern-dress Macbeth, performed to a rapt audience in Manchester’s superb in-the-round Royal Exchange Theatre, did everything that can be hoped for in a staging of Shakespeare’s tragedy. There was a fast
pace throughout; technology was used to illustrate the distance of politicians
from their wars; the actors were verbally clear and physically committed; the
inevitable doubling was done discreetly and unobtrusively; props were used to
chillingly murderous effect; lighting (or lack of lighting) conveyed vividly, when appropriate, a sense of interior opulence or night’s blackness; and the text was amended
only when necessary to progress smoothly the director’s vision of a bleak world
where many suffer because of the rabid ambitions of a few. The intellectual
direction of the production was admirably clear and straightforward, making this an excitingly visceral Macbeth rather than a complex one. The director’s
vision was of a Scotland that suffered ferociously because of the vacuous
arrogance of a usurping tyrant who did not even attempt to display a veneer of
charisma. In this production, Macbeth was an uncared-for autocrat, a thug bereft of charm. The tragedy was not that of a misguided protagonist – the audience
could not care for such an empty-headed opportunist – but a tragedy of
realisation. That realisation emerged from an extraordinarily bold ending to
the production, one that suggested, depressingly, that even superficially attractive
politicians retain an ambitious egotism that Macbeth brings to an extreme but
logical conclusion.
- The audience felt unsettled even before entering
the auditorium. From somewhere offstage, somewhere that projected noise and
light inside and outside the auditorium, we could hear the muffled sound of
distant explosions and the odd stroboscopic flash that suggested distant shelling.
Those who knew the play would assume these bombardments to be desperate,
indiscriminate attacks by either Scottish or Norwegian forces; those new to Shakespeare
would have felt a general sense of confusion and unease as they wondered about
the origins of these weapons of mass force. It was typical of this production
that both Shakespearean experts and novices were stimulated in different ways. As one entered the auditorium itself, long before
the play’s dialogue started, we saw three young, apparently pre-pubescent girls
sitting on the bottom of a bunk-bed in a room, playing with each other’s hair
and idly watching some innocuous light entertainment on one of the eight large
digital televisions that were placed around the stage. So, the audience was
privy to a most innocent scene, an innocent scene that contrasted vividly with
the anonymous menace of the merciless shelling in the distance. To explain the
theatrical and ethical practicalities of the shock that soon followed, it is
vital to stress that one of the young girls was played by a (very
young-looking) adult actress, the outstanding Rebecca Callard. From out of
nowhere, two ferocious groups of faceless, all-black wearing soldiers stormed
in; it was impossible to know who or what any soldier was fighting for – they
were supposed to have no recognisable identities. One set of men threw down the
bunk-bed, using it as a makeshift barricade against their enemies. This set of
men managed to kill the other set with automatic rifle fire. When they had finished
shooting their enemies, the men ran off with two of the young girls. Then,
shockingly, with Callard wrapped up inside a carpet, her character was
viciously raped in front of an appalled audience, then dragged out off stage
for yet more humiliation and pain. When the three girls returned, they were
dirty, speaking in venomous riddles, visually and psychologically scarred and,
in the case of Callard’s character, wearing tights that had been crudely ripped
aside. In other words, the three innocent, young, pre-pubescent girls had,
through random violence, transmogrified into the Weird Sisters. Foul was fair
and fair was foul because any logic in their moral world had been rendered
meaningless by a victimhood that they couldn’t possibly understand. Their new
malevolence, a malevolence born out of passive suffering, would animate the
play – or at least animate the opportunistic malice of Macbeth. The simple
moral point, delivered through a breathtaking and galling theatrical outrage,
was that initially blameless victims of political violence can become
cheerleaders for active perpetrators of subsequent political violence.
- In Act One, Duncan and Macbeth appeared to be
moral equals. Equals, that is, in that neither offered any sort of humanity or
particular generosity. When Robert Gwilym’s harsh-toned Duncan ordered surgery
for the blood-covered Captain who spoke of Macbeth’s supposed heroics, he did so with a certain sense of begrudgery – he helped out this wounded warrior because he
had to be seen to care about the welfare of a committed follower. The
implication was that only very brilliant and very lucky servants of this state
would receive help from their ungenerous King. The audience was almost audible
in its disdain when Duncan suggested that he had learnt a lesson from the
treachery of the former Thane of Cawdor: Shakespearean audiences often wish to
shout at a gullible, trusting character (Othello is the most obvious fool of
this type). Macbeth, played with relentless, selfish coldness by Nicholas
Gleaves had a lack of charisma that was exposed as soon as we saw him first, when he and Banquo came across the Witches or Weird Sisters: faced with the extraordinary sight
of three child-witches, he could say nothing witty nor profound: he even lacked
the imagination to express much interest in the odd sight. His disposition was
supercilious and disinterested, even when the Weird Sisters spoke with such immense
ambiguity and such striking rhythmic incantation. He only seemed to realise
that the sight was extraordinary when he grasped that there was indeed a
possibility that “chance will have me king” (I.iii.144). Lady Macbeth, played as a haughty but bored, short-dressed housewife by Hilary Maclean, grasped more immediately
at a chance of advancement. She read her husband’s report about the prophecies
of the Weird Sisters on her computer, becoming almost erotically aroused as she
imagined a life married to a man “crowned withal” (I.v.29). She physically
leapt on her husband when he arrived. Brazen and confident, Lady Macbeth mocked his lack of drive and determination, but, using a mixture of aggressive
sexuality and coquettish cajolement, she convinced Macbeth that murdering King
Duncan was a good idea. When assuring Macbeth that his part in the assassination
plot is simple, Lady Macbeth tells him that he should “Leave all the rest to
me” (I.v.72). Because Macbeth was at this point being led off the stage by his
determined wife, it seemed that she was alluding to sexual domination as much
as to the practicalities of treacherous murder: this Macbeth was dominated by
Lady Macbeth in sex well as in political ambition.
- Macbeth’s fatalistic drive is cemented by the
time of his reappearance in Act Two. His arrogance was conveyed vividly as
Gleaves stressed the rhyme of “knell” and “Hell” and the simple iambics of his
verse as he asserted that he would send Duncan “to Heaven or to Hell ”(II.i.63-4). This simplistic
arrogance was undermined by his visual immersion in panic after the murder of
Duncan and his guards. Macbeth became visually less manly after the killings, not more manly. Gleaves’ body language became jerky and inchoate. He needed to be calmed down
by his wife, who failed to convince him that “A little water clears us of this
deed” (II.ii.70). Stripped naked in front of the surrounding audience, Macbeth frenetically showered – having been ordered to “get some water” (II.ii.49) by his wife
- to remove the blood from his hands and body. Rendered baby-like by his panic, he whimpered as the unimpressed Lady Macbeth had to tell him to dress: “Get on your nightgown”
(II.ii.73), she ordered sharply. The Weird Sisters returned to clean up the blood
and excess water – they clearly enjoyed getting their hands dirty with the blood
and sweat of the murderer who was crass enough to listen to them.
- The inebriated Porter was dropped
from this production. This was a disadvantage because a skilled clown could
have engaged the in-the-round audience directly, but his exclusion was
advantageous in that the pace of the action and the clarity of the narrative
was retained as we were plunged immediately into a general sense of alarm as
senior followers and relations of Duncan realised quickly that he had been the
victim of crude regicide. Lennox, unusually, was played by a female, Heather Peace. Consistent throughout, Peace played Lennox as a no-nonsense practical woman, one who had immediate suspicion about the ascent of the Macbeths. She was visibly contemptuous
of Macbeth when he limply responded to the sense of dread by mumbling that it
“’Twas a rough night” (II.iii.59). Malcolm and Donalbain responded to the
crisis with a proportionate sense of outrage and calmness. The characters have
the presence of mind to split to England and Ireland: the actors did well to
dramatise their matter-of-fact, pragmatic response to their father’s murder.
Donalbain was played by the white actor Matthew Randell; Malcolm was played by
the black actor, John MacMillan. Macmillan’s physical, African-American-looking
appearance facilitated the sensational ending to the play some time later.
These multi-racial brothers were impressive in their united determination to
avenge their father’s death. At this point in the play, the audience was
avowedly on their side as they sought sanctuary from and revenge over the
hypocritical, whimpering Macbeth. By the end of Act Two, it was made apparent
that Macbeth had, in a stroke, alienated many would-be allies. Macduff spat out
with sibilant contempt the news that Macbeth had so quickly “gone to Scone / To be invested” (II.iv.31-2). From this point, it was clear that there would be a
major patriotic drive to rid Scotland of the instantly despised new ruler, King Macbeth.
- Macbeth seemed to regain a measure of control in
the earlier stages of Act Three. His major aim in the Act’s early scenes is the
elimination of Banquo and his son, Fleance. Using journeymen in murder like a
typical Jacobean dramatic villain, he ordered his one-time ally’s slaying. The murderers
were anonymous Eastern Europeans, economic opportunists whose venal malice
reflected pointedly the opportunistic malice of Macbeth himself. Smug in a
brutal henchmen-like way, they dealt efficiently with the struggles of Banquo, but their complacency was shattered when Fleance escaped. Macbeth’s own complacency is
shattered at this point, as the banquet scene follows quickly. During this
banquet, Macbeth completely lost self-control, roaring emotively at a Banquo
that only he and the audience could see. The other characters could not see the
grim, grey and red corpse of Banquo: Lady Macbeth was an embarrassed hostess, apologising unconvincingly for the “unmanned” husband who had let her down publicly. Lennox, as no-nonsense as ever, seemed to imply that Macbeth was drunk rather than “not
well” (III.iv.73; 52). Using technology superbly, the production presented the audience
with two subjective views of this chaotic scene. On stage, we could see what
Macbeth saw: the Ghost of Banquo that was unseen by the other characters. But
on the television monitors we saw (obviously pre-recorded) CCTV images of the
events. The screens showed the banquet, supposedly in real-time – but without
the Ghost, so we could access both the hideous vision seen by Macbeth and, on the television screens, the apparent delusional folly that the other characters saw. But
there was no sustained sense that we could sympathise with Macbeth because we
can access the spirits that plague only him. The Weird Sisters then came into
the now-deserted banqueting hall. Like greedy Dickensian oiks, they voraciously gulped at the Macbeths’ wine and stuffed their faces with the lavish food: as
mischievous as ever, the Sisters were the only beneficiaries of the largesse of
Macbeth’s decadent, but prematurely ended dinner party. We were relieved soon
afterwards when Lennox and Ross stopped speaking allusively and determined
firmly to work for a future without Macbeth, to a future Scotland where law-abiding citizens could “sleep to our nights” (III.vi.34).
- After an interval which allowed the audience to
get a welcome break from the urgent campaign to oust Macbeth, the three Weird
Sisters returned. This time, they used an extremely loud ghetto blaster to
blare out the Pink song, “So What”, which they danced to precociously with
uncompromising agility and commitment. The song lyrics deal with a rebellious
girl’s desire to cause trouble, to get drunk, to start a fight. These Weird
girls were certainly enjoying the trouble that they had caused for Scotland. Watching children gyrate rebelliously to such supposedly subversive music may
have made the audience uncomfortable – what certainly made the audience
uncomfortable was the smallest Weird Sister running around the audience with a
soldier’s upturned helmet, demanding money from the appalled, unwilling
spectators of this crass burlesque busking display. Macbeth then came on stage
to hear the predictions of the various Apparitions controlled by Hecate and the
Weird Sisters. During this scene, which was soundtracked by a disco hit by
Girls Aloud, Rebecca Callard’s Weird Sister performed an extremely suggestive
lap dance for Macbeth. By the end of the scene he was exhausted with the erotic
stimulation that this Sister had given him as well as the mental confusion that
the Apparitions cause through their enigmatic prophecies. The scene also afforded
Heather Peace’s Lennox another opportunity to express impatience with Macbeth’s
apparent delusions. Twice, she spat out ‘No’ in response to Macbeth’s query
about whether or not she saw the Weird Sisters.
- Callard doubled up as Lady
Macduff – a woman, like Lennox, who projected impatience with a man through
hassled, frustrated body language. Lady Macduff, of course, is outraged at her husband’s disappearance. Callard played her as a frustrated young mother.
The company added an extra child to the scene: so, as well as the Son of
Macduff we got a Daughter of Macduff too. The Daughter played at her computer
game while Lady Macduff put away her shopping as she bantered
unenthusiastically with her boring Son. The banality of this seemingly loveless
domestic situation made the family’s murder seem all the more excessive and
shocking. There was an almost baroque air of ritual as one of the killers
casually drank Lady Macduff’s bottled water to relax after the physical effort
of murdering three albeit weak persons. He relaxed further as he settled down
to listen to a jaunty song by the Ting Tings: again, the frivolity of the music
created an unempathetic backdrop to grim, disturbing action on stage. Act Four, scene three is one of the wordier scenes in Shakespeare’s shortest play. This scene worked as
something of a comforting breather, as Malcolm’s stature rose almost visually
as he delivered assurance to his followers, Macduff and Ross, that “Gracious England” (IV.iii.43) would help him in his campaign to extricate the despised
Macbeth from the Scottish throne. John MacMillan’s Malcolm, who was fast becoming a master of inspirational rhetoric, convinced all who listened that
“Macbeth / Is ripe for shaking” (IV.iii.239).
- Act Five began with an intriguing vignette that
gave a little bit of surprising character to Shakespeare’s Nurse (or
Gentlewoman). Vincent Bernard played the character as a male Nurse in a private
hospital. He was, clearly, an immigrant doing the unloved graveyard shift. But
seeing Lady Macbeth’s odd behaviour had given him an unexpected interest in his
work. No mere functionary any longer, he was enthusiastic and caring as he told
his senior colleague, the Doctor, all about his patient’s nocturnal wanderings.
The Doctor was as impressed by the quality of information delivered to him by
the Nurse as he was flabbergasted by Lady Macbeth’s bizarre conduct. This
fleshing out, this conveyance of a suggested interiority for a minor character,
was one of many small touches that coloured this generally exciting and
involving Macbeth.
- The pace stepped up to its most frenetic
soon after the hospital scene. Lennox’s role became ever more crucial as she ordered
about other followers of Malcolm. The army used high-tech tracking equipment to
locate the rumps of Macbeth’s followers: the actors were utterly convincing as
soldiers who were defined by motivated, disciplined, swift but conscientious
professionalism. Gleaves’ Macbeth bitched with feckless alliteration about the
“English epicures” (V.iii.8) who plotted against him, but it was clear that
there was now a virtual union of English and Scottish forces moving unstoppably
against him. The television screens were employed to great effect again: during
a brief respite from the movement on stage, the screens showed outdoor location
footage of soldiers moving through a wooded area: as well camouflaged as they
were well armed, it was clear that Birnam Wood really was coming to Dunsinane. Nobody
was going to miss the faltering Macbeth. His nadir came during his extremely
impersonal epitaph for his dead wife. It was obvious that Macbeth himself could
not fight off the sense that he himself was a particularly “poor player” and a
“walking shadow” who would soon be extinguished by Malcolm’s momentum (V.v.23).
His end came in a fittingly spectacular and violent fashion: I don’t think that
I have ever seen a so-called tragic protagonist die with so little regret from
audience or company. This Macbeth was not mourned at all.
- Concluding the action, Malcolm thanked his supporters, and then produced the evening’s greatest and most thought-provoking
surprise. Malcolm’s closing speech was delivered in a soliloquy – which, of course, it is not in the text because it is delivered to his victorious Thanes (now Earls).
Here, John MacMillan spoke the lines diffidently, in an exploratory fashion, because he was composing and rehearsing the lines prior to their public utterance. He was
particularly pleased with himself as he eventually found the perfect adjective
for Lady Macbeth: “fiendlike” (V.viii.69). He exercised this informal rehearsal
as he got dressed. Handsome, tall, thin and black, MacMillan dressed smartly in
dress trousers, a white shirt and a red tie, like a spitting image of that
other careful orator, Barack Obama. The audience liked this Malcolm: everyone
appreciated his coolness, his articulate persuasiveness and the sheer feelgood
factor that he inspired. Malcolm, in short, was an Obama-like political
performer. Initially carried away by the apparent justness of Malcolm’s cause, the audience latched onto him. But we became struck by a sense of a tragedy of realisation
about the contrived front displayed by all self-serving leaders: even
superficially compelling politicians are ultimately conniving and selfish. At
the end of the play, as we applauded every actor’s superb performance, we were, though , asking ourselves a difficult question: as with Obama, do we like Malcolm simply
because he is less obviously egregious than the illegitimate, intellectually challenged fool that he replaced?
- Overall, this was a fantastic, visually rich, viscerally vital and deceptively thought-provoking Macbeth: I consider myself very lucky to have seen it. Contemporary English Shakespeare performance is largely dominated by the heritage dross that the RSC delivers year-after-year in Stratford and by celebrity-driven West End shows in London. Great Shakespeare productions still thrive in England – simply, one has to travel away from London and Stratford to find them.
Works cited
- William Shakespeare, Macbeth, ed. Jeese M. Lander (New York, NY: Barnes & Noble, 2007).
