MacBeth at the Folger Shakespeare Theater

[fabrisse]

kestrell wrote about her take on this production, at a larger theater if Mr. Teller's blog is to be believed, here.

My comments are

The effects were brilliant. The Art Nouveau/Glasgow School gates at the back of the stage were made to appear of different metals and even slightly different designs with lighting. The piece began and ended with a single figure on a platform about ten feet up (maybe higher, I'm notoriously bad at estimating these things), and the curved stairs, low platforms, and right and left doors were all well used consistently giving a sense of place. The entrances and exits were made differently for MacDuff's castle than they were for the MacBeth place, for instance.

I caught one disappearing spot in the structure, and I'm positive there was another which could also be used for the first appearance of Banquo's ghost. By disappearing spot I mean something engineered by a stage magician to keep the audience from seeing where the actor disappears. The place where I think it had to be looked far too narrow for most of the actors' bodies, which is why I think there's something engineered. It loaned itself to some terrific effects, though.

The costumes nodded toward traditional highland dress without going tartan on everyone. The families and alliances were color coordinated (MacBeth and his lady in shades of purple, the Duncan lineage in a strong blue, the MacDuffs in greens) which made it easy for the audience to look and figure who belonged with whom. The English wore trews under their kilts which made them easy to differentiate, too.

Lady MacBeth's hand washing scene had some spontaneous eruptions of blood which were the right kind of disconcerting. At one point toward the end of the scene the actress very briefly turns her back to the audience. When she faced us again, her entire face was covered in blood. I think I figured out how it was done, but it was definitely effective.

So. Those were the things I liked. *rereads what she's written* Yep. With two exceptions, which I'll mention with the acting notes below, that's it.

On the downside:

There's a portable mirror which is used in Lady MacBeth's scene where she reads the letter through the whole "unsex me here" speech and MacBeth's return. It stays there. And stays there. The gun finally goes off, er, the mirror is finally used during the "is that a dagger I see before me..." soliloquy. It's a cool effect exactly mirroring (pun not originally intended but I can't think of another word) the speech itself. But it takes so long for the apparition to appear that the prop distracts from the action.

I didn't mind the blood too much, or even the (Lord, I hope) simulated arm breaking during the death of young Siward. The cauldron apparitions were suitably revolting and the last one, involving an actual person instead of a prop, also made use of Teller's vast knowledge of illusion.

Could have done without the large arrays of severed heads, even if they were wrapped, but I recognize that's a personal squick.

There's not a single Shakespearean play that doesn't have some comedy in it (though arguments can be made for Richard II and Titus Andronicus). Nor can I think of a single comedy that doesn't have some sadness, or at least seriousness, in it.

Having said that, the actors went for the comic reading of every line they could. They ignored the scansion in some cases to get the laugh.

Let me be clear, this isn't "Fabi doesn't think Americans can play Shakespeare." I've seen some brilliant US productions including a version of As You Like It which had the Forest of Arden set in West Virginia that was hilarious. It also scanned perfectly because US accents, especially certain Southern ones, are closer to Shakespeare's rhythms than most modern British ones.

This was either a directorial or an acting choice. By the time the report came that Lady MacBeth had died, I was ready to kill the leading actor myself. It's a little known fact that I pushed the Lady off the battlements as she was by far the worst of the actors involved.

There were one and a half exceptions to this.

The child who played MacDuff's son was a fantastic little actor. He fought the murderers like a tiger cub and gave the single most convincing death scene on the stage. Yes, he got the comedy in the line reading about there being more liars than good people, but he did it within the limits of the play rather than by breaking the language. Sadly, the kid really had only the one scene.

The half was one of the all purpose actors. He played a weird sister, he played a murderer, he played a doctor and did all of them very well. He was creepier as the murderer than as the weird sister and, in this production, that's going some. When he went to kill the very pregnant Lady MacDuff, he hummed a little lullaby.

But he also played the Porter. The Porter is funny. He's supposed to be. And this guy was very funny. However, he didn't play the entire Porter's speech. Instead audience members were offered hankies, treated to a series of knock-knock jokes, and generally treated like a commedia audience. There's nothing wrong with Commedia and, if Will Kemp originated the Porter, there's probably always been some improvisation involved with the speech, but the improv can't take away from the throughline of the play as this did.

I wanted to love it. My original acting training was at the Folger before I went to study at Weber-Douglas in London. The theater itself is a lovely tribute to the Blackfriar's theater where some of Shakespeare's plays may first have been performed. Plus, I love stage magic. This should have been a slam-dunk for me. Instead, I found myself looking back at the production I saw with Bob Peck twenty years ago with great longing.

Comments

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

Sorry you were disappointed. My own commentary is here. I was also somewhat disappointed, but by very different aspects than you were!

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

I left this comment in your journal, but I figured, if anyone wanted to know, I'd duplicate it here.

The bags read as heads to me, but the props people were very careful to make certain that the facially molded side faced toward the audience. I wonder if there'd been comments during the earlier run similar to yours here.

Since it's a personal squick, it was extremely disturbing.

I found the sound annoying. The percussion was excellent, but the constant underlining of anything supernatural with that high pitched glissando irritated me very quickly. Again, they didn't trust the language (or the actors) to do its job. One or two of those touches at the beginning, or only using it during the weird sisters' scenes might have heightened rather than detracted.