I read it at school, where obviously I hated it, but subsequently it’s become one of my favourite Shakespeare plays. In performance it’s been responsible for my absolute best theatrical experience ever, in Ken Branagh’s perfect Manchester International Festival production which was completely magical and which, I’m rapidly concluding, should have been the one and only time I saw the play staged. On the other hand, the awful interpretative dance version the Young Vic decided to stage a couple of years ago (forever known as MC Banquo and The Unitard Witches in my circle of friends) remains one of the worst things I’ve ever seen on stage.
Enter, pursued by a shit ton of bin bags, Rufus Norris’ new production at the National Theatre. On paper, this production should have been a dream: directed by Norris and starring the formidable pairing of Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff. On stage, though, it’s more of a drug addled nightmare. It is, hands down, the ugliest production of any play I’ve seen, ever. It looks ugly, it sounds ugly. It is overwhelmingly, distractingly, bafflingly ugly. Possibly even fugly, I’m not sure where the line is drawn.
Plot-wise, Macbeth is always going to be fun and certainly not boring. But the version of the text used in this production is just - bear with me whilst I consult my thesaurus for synonyms of ugly - deeply unattractive. So much of the more poetic verse, and there’s some beautiful stuff in Macbeth, is cut. So much is chopped and changed and fucked around with for no fathomable reason. Even some of the iconic stuff (there is no ‘eye of newt’ to be found here, unless that’s what they’ve used to glue the hideous set together) is gone - in the end a small mercy given what’s been done to the Weird Sisters here but an odd decision nonetheless. And not one that helps the production.
Not that there is much that could help this production, frankly. I’m not honestly sure what Rufus Norris was aiming for with his ‘today, post-civil war’ (between Scotland and Norway?) setting but whatever it was he hasn’t hit it. I can’t find anything about the direction he’s taken his production in that I like. It looks hideous, the design - from set to props to costumes - is visually unappealing and makes no sense. It sounds terrible, in its treatment of the text and the horrid music and pointless ‘new instruments’. The treatment of many of the characters is downright odd, especially the Witches who, stripped of most of their dialogue, are reduced to a pointless sideshow, their scenes almost unwatchable. Even the pacing of the show is wrong. Why does the action have to stop in ridiculous freeze frame every time Macbeth delivers a soliloquy? How has this ended up being the longest Macbeth I’ve seen despite all the vicious cuts to the text? Bluntly, it just doesn’t work. It smacks of directorial arrogance too.
I really feel for the cast, trying to salvage something from the flaming wreckage of this show. And they are trying too. They are trying so hard. You can feel them fighting for it and, to the extent it’s possible, they do save the day. They make this horror show watchable. Occaionally one of them makes it good. You can’t help but respect them for their effort. For me they actually succeed, insofar as they make this only the second worst Macbeth I’ve seen (sorry, Young Vic).
Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff have the toughest job here, as they are the most hamstrung by the production. Kinnear suffers from this in particular; his 100% unsympathetic and brutal Macbeth is far from his best performance, but what else could he do within the confines of Norris’ vision? When he does occasionally let fly a bit, he’s strong as ever. His ‘is this a dagger...’ in particular is really well done. Duff fares better, giving something more nuanced and deep, but Lady Macbeth is weirdly underused in this production. The best work, for me, is to be found elsewhere: Kevin Harvey’s charismtic Banquo, Patrick O’Kane’s earthy and tragic Macduff and Parth Thakerar’s earnest and confused Malcolm (the best scenes in the whole show are between the latter two for my money).
Let’s be real here, this production is a mess and Rufus Norris has to shoulder the blame for it. It is just unfathomably ugly. I really can’t stress that, or the impact it has, enough. And that’s ultimately his fault. The cast fight to make it work, as far as that’s possible, and they deserve credit and respect for that. This isn’t the worst thing I’ve ever seen at the NT, because of them, but that’s hardly a reason to go and see it.
Macbeth is in the Olivier at the NT, in rep, until 23rd June after which, remarkably, it will tour.
My seat, which regrettably I paid for, was C56 in the stalls. It was £15.
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