I enjoyed the spectacle and lavishness of this Macbeth, which rang with some similar tones to Phillips's excellent Richard III and also-quite-good Hamlet (both starring Ewen Leslie during that period when he was suddenly everywhere) from a few years back.
It's a handsome - even extravagant - set, in a dark staging that has some strikingly weird imagery for an MTC production and makes a pretty good fist of its various phantoms (although, disappointingly, we don't get to see the woods of Dunsinane advancing on Macbeth's castle), and includes some interesting and effective directorial choices (eg the way the witches haunt the action throughout; the foreshadowing with both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth glancing at their hands before the murders start, and Macbeth's extinguishing of the candle several scenes before he delivers the line).
On the downside, the musical cues were a bit much, which - when taken in conjunction with the blocking of the scenes and overall use of televisual/cinematic idiom, caused the play at times to come across like an unsubtle HBO piece, and the fight between Macbeth and Macduff didn't work particularly well. Some of the line readings landed with a bit of a thud too, though the flip side is that the attempt to render them naturally (as much as possible) generally worked well. The cuts to the text are in service of streamlining the action, and having just refreshed myself on the text itself I see they're not to blame for what feels like far too long around the middle-to-end when Macbeth is offstage and instead we get a whole lot of Macduff, Ross, Malcolm and others plotting, testing each other, having their families assassinated &c.
So all up, not amazing but not bad either.
(w/ Erandathie + her friend Eleanor, and also Cass)
It's a handsome - even extravagant - set, in a dark staging that has some strikingly weird imagery for an MTC production and makes a pretty good fist of its various phantoms (although, disappointingly, we don't get to see the woods of Dunsinane advancing on Macbeth's castle), and includes some interesting and effective directorial choices (eg the way the witches haunt the action throughout; the foreshadowing with both Macbeth and Lady Macbeth glancing at their hands before the murders start, and Macbeth's extinguishing of the candle several scenes before he delivers the line).
On the downside, the musical cues were a bit much, which - when taken in conjunction with the blocking of the scenes and overall use of televisual/cinematic idiom, caused the play at times to come across like an unsubtle HBO piece, and the fight between Macbeth and Macduff didn't work particularly well. Some of the line readings landed with a bit of a thud too, though the flip side is that the attempt to render them naturally (as much as possible) generally worked well. The cuts to the text are in service of streamlining the action, and having just refreshed myself on the text itself I see they're not to blame for what feels like far too long around the middle-to-end when Macbeth is offstage and instead we get a whole lot of Macduff, Ross, Malcolm and others plotting, testing each other, having their families assassinated &c.
So all up, not amazing but not bad either.
(w/ Erandathie + her friend Eleanor, and also Cass)
