Macbeth ( NT 2018)

Having read the press reviews this morning along with the comments from board members who have been to see the production, I did the online return of my ticket without any hassle and have got the credit voucher sorted. I feel bad for sending back the ticket, but with such negative reviews from a number of sources I would rather spend the money as well as my time on some other production as I will be only down for the weekend and would rather not waste a theatre slot having previously been caught out by watching the NT’s Common which I found to be dull as ditch water.

It can’t have been pleasant reading for the cast and crew this morning reading the reviews (but that’s part and parcel of being in the the theatre)but what is most concerning in my opinion is that the majority of the press are saying the same things regarding the production and this would maybe put people off from future productions directed by Rufus. It will be interesting to see what they do with the tour based on these reviews.

I really wanted this to be great and was really looking forward to it. Shame it’s gone the other way.

No they don’t, it is only when a paying audience sees a show that you know what you have. Many times a show that is good in workshops or rehearsal doesn’t look so in front of an audience. In any case ‘going well’ isn’t synonymous with success and vice versa, ‘going well’ can mean unexamined. The show that is the toughest to find in rehearsals can be successful because things aren’t as smooth sailing.

if what you state was true there would be a fraction of the flops that we get happening.

I agree, I would never return a ticket based on reviews. Also I disapprove of leaving at the interval although I have done so twice. Not sure on Norris - would he even want to continue ? He strikes me as just being in the wrong job, he would have been fine running the Almeida and Goold would have been fine at NT.

If the rest of 2018 and 2019 is as bad then he will prob go anyway. The Ant and Cleo ought to be good and he would hope for a hit with the Hare play but Exit the King appears to have been moved back. No wonder he wants to bring back Follies!

At the moment, I don't think we will return the tix - they are only £15 first row of the circle and it's not a long evening.

But, from the sound of this, I think this is a real shame. Kinnear, in particular, I think could have been really, really good in this. But, as someone suggested above, he's best when rooted in something naturalistic/psychologically believable. I LOVED his performance as Angelo in 'Measure for Measure' at the Almeida - he made incredible sense of it: horrible, funny, pathetic, believable. Ditto his performances in The Revenger's Tragedy and Othello. I think he could have done something really interesting with this.

As someone who has been involved in a lot of student productions - as soon as bin bags form part of either a set or a costume, I know we're in trouble.

It's been an awfully long time, it seems to me, since Duff has been in a good production. She's been good in mediocre or poor shows, but I don't associate her with a good evening out.

I've no interest in seeing this, and never did have.

Hearing more about it bit by bit is fascinating and very amusing tbh. Witches with body parts around their necks, dead characters rampaging about and brown tape costume

So the positives: they spoke the lines nicely, that is the lines not drastically cut; Rory and Ann Marie will make a nice pairing someday in another play, probably yet to be written; it cracked on at the beginning; the revolve didn’t break down. I had a good seat. I saved most of the jelly babies.

A few negatives: what with the different accents? Was this the remnants of a Celtic fringe in a post apocalyptic wrecked state, now beset with gangs? Why do the dead people keep popping up thus weakening when they are supposed to, I mean Banquo. Duncan is never meant to be a ghost. Where was Donalbain? He is there for a reason and would make a nice point about the U.K. if he were there. I didn’t mind Fleance being a girl. I know we are supposed to be very aware of equality in casting but funnily, this is a play where Lady M is isolated as a woman and where she denies her womanliness.

Why no guns? The English army appears, comically in its desert pale uniform at the end and narry a gun in sight. In fact we know, don’t we that when the end comes, they will hang on to the guns. The machete type knives were meant to look like ISIS beheading knives were they? The fight at the end was pathetic. I mean, come on, it was school play standard and a bit less. Did they not do enough practice on it? The fight at the end is supposed to be the BIG thing. The audience on the left probably couldn’t see most of it anyway as it was at the side of the ramp. The ramp, the poles, the frilly bits, the torn bin bags, the brown wrapping tape were distractions because the whole shebang didn’t make sense. Where were we? And why? Had Macbeth thought of the murder before or not? They said the words but somehow they didn’t have power. The Witches did not horrify me half as much , if at all, as the children as witches in the Slinger RSC. They believed in witches, we don’t. So you have to make them something we are scared of. Evil children are something we are scared of. And sticking em up poles doesn’t help.

The shelf was full of school parties and it was lovely to see and hear them chitter chatter in the foyers afterwards but I do hope the schools ask the exam boards to take into account the changes to the text and the usual stage directions. They will get a lot of Lady M cutting her throat and dying in M's arms and the guy at the beginning reporting on the battle being Macduff and as said before, a female Fleance ( who could hitch up with Malcolm at the end and make the prophecy true.. cos you would have to do someat like that since the line is supposed to be Kings from Banquo, just a suggestion, Rufus) and a wonderful female Ross who made sense of her part quite well.

Im looking forward to the RSC show later in the year. 😳

MACBETH Wherefore was that cry?
SEYTON The queen, my lord, is dead.
MACBETH She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time,
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

This doesn't make any sense if she cuts her throat and dies in his arms.

M says out out brief candle at he point he reaches her and is holding her as if she is the candle. Kind of thing. Ask Rufus.

The National reviews are no worse than Macbeth at the Globe last year.

However the bad reviews aren’t a terrible thing as it demonstrates what the National is and put in a nutshell it’s a risk adverse theatre, that can take such creative risks, sometimes these pay off handsomely, but more often than not it can be middle of the road or bad as in today. But this is one of only a few theatres that could take such a gamble, if not the only theatre.

It would be interesting to see a comparison of how different Shakespeare plays get reviewed. I get the impression that A Midsummer Night’s Dream would be towards the top end and Macbeth somewhere near the bottom. MND is pretty indestructible whereas Macbeth has so many things that can go wrong. 

Yes plenty of other theatre allow returns. One oddity at the NT is if you buy a theatre gift voucher from them it is time-limited - it expires in a year - but the credit vouchers they issue have no time limit. I wonder how many there are outstanding. When BA air miles had no time limit the nominal value of those outstanding ballooned to some massive value that was dragging down their balance sheet.