This new production of Macbeth presents the Classical motif of the pervasive, uncontrollable cycle of violence through a very contemporary vocabulary of symbols and references. The audience enters to a tape loop of white noise and the sound of helicopters and tank fire, encircling a scene set as a child’s bedroom. This juxtaposition is the one of the production’s hooks: the three Witches begin as little girls who, brutally violated by soldiers, return as vengeful weird sisters, a conceit that maintains its power throughout thanks to admirably intense performances. The toning down of the supernatural enables the madness rampant in war to maintain a solid foothold in reality.
An unsettling dimension of voyeurism is always present: every brutal killing or violation is filmed on mobile phones and watched back on laptops, suggesting the way that violence is perpetuated through the reproduction of its images, as well as raising questions about the purposes of viewing in an image-saturated society. The old role of the theatre as a place where the unspeakable, the uncontrollable, could be brought into viewable space and thus understood, is embattled in a culture of pornographic violence and the raw flow of information.
The use of weapons, bulky combat gear, white noise and white light seems to draw on Kubrick and Coppola; while no allegory is sustained (a good thing, in my book), the production draws on the images of Vietnam, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. There are incongruities; Hilary Maclean’s cocaine-snorting Lady Macbeth seemed to belong in a David Lynch film, particularly since Nicholas Gleaves’ Macbeth seemed excessively callow and hen-pecked in the first act, making his moral crisis and near-madness at first seem less than convincing. I assume this was intended to enable his stature to grow through the production – which it did, to impressive proportions – but the weakness displayed at first seemed rather too thoroughgoing.
The whole maintains an unnervingly contemporary feel, although some moments feel a little heavy-handed, such as the soldiers carrying Starbucks Styrofoam cups. This is a production whose facility with contemporary images culminates in the metamorphosis of John Macmillan’s Malcolm from battle-scarred soldier to slick politician: the final image of him on a television screen about to address a cheering crowd deliberately simulates the inauguration images of Barack Obama. I found this unsettling and unexpected; others may find it a little clunky.
As one expects from the Exchange, Macbeth is a slick, well-designed and innovative piece of theatre, making great use of its space and minimal, well-judged sets. Not for the fainthearted, nor for those who prefer their Shakespeare without the politics, but for those looking for a version that really gets to grips with the violence of vengeance and the madness of warfare, this production is not to be missed.
Alphabet Rain 