Macbeth

The Lyceum Theatre opens their 2008/9 season with the Scottish Play. There is, however, something strangely lacking in the current production of “Macbeth” and that something is passion. This is a play with murder, intrigue, witchcraft, madness and massacre, and some of the best known language from Shakespeare, yet it is somewhat stolidly declaimed by the main characters with no real sense of vaulting ambition or evil. There is such blandness in the way that Macbeth (Liam Brennan) and Lady Macbeth (Allison McKenzie) deliver their lines, that it comes as a relief when Jimmy Chisholm appears and proceeds to give us some well-paced banter in his Porter scene.
Interestingly enough, in the theatre programme, Alison McKenzie talks about the passion and electricity between herself and Liam in the rehearsal room, and says that they are portraying characters with a lot of love, a great need for each other and a great marriage. Unfortunately, apart from some intense groping when they first meet up on Macbeth’s homecoming, this passion is not in great evidence. Even the witches are not horrible enough - no maniacal cackling or wild shrieks from them, just the measured chanting of their spells in a strangely flat and indifferent way.
Lucy Osborne has designed a very interesting, slanting stage set, however. To use her own words:
“The set has a feeling of a medieval castle but it’s a medieval castle in a rather wild, strange landscape which is the witches’ landscape.” There is much scope for imaginative interpretation, and the slanting set is a great visual metaphor for a time when events are totally out of kilter.
The sword fighting at the end is rather clunky and unconvincing. The leafless staves of Birnam Wood are a bit too minimalist.
The whole performance fails to give us the sense of shock and horror that the bloody deeds and evil intent should arouse. The appearance of Banquo’s luminescent, pallid ghost is one of the livelier scenes.
This is a co-production with the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company and runs till 11th October.