Saturday, July 9, 2011
Macbeth at the RSC in 2004 was a revelation of economy and horror. The work ran for about an hour and the clever approach to staging and technical aspects added to the overall atmosphere of the work. In its current incarnation, directed by current RSC artistic director Michael Boyd, the production is a muddled disaster. The weird sisters are replaced with children: ghosts of sorts who run amok at various moments in the piece. We have seen The Shining; we know what horrifying children look like--and these Nordic looking dolls in pastel blue with dirty faces are not it. Further, the set was largely comprised of a church in a state of decay and defacement after the war. As such, there were all kids of holes in the walls and blown out windows. The children could have haunted us throughout. Instead, Boyd had both the children and each subsequent murder victim running around as though there was an ongoing game of tag being played. Between that and the gratuitous blood that added nothing to the work (competing with the far superior co-production of the Folger and 2 Rivers Theatre Company in 2008, currently available on DVD I imagine). Jonathan Slinger's Macbeth and Aislin McGuckin's Lady M were both powerful and formidable (though Lady M was ineffectively done up as Elizabeth I), but the melee in which they were performing was too unwieldy to really allow them to shine through.
Of the new RSC theatre, the space is indeed more intimate than its cavernous predecessor. However, having lots of new gadgetry and ramps running here and there are too many toys for a director who apparently has a limited faculty in discerning what adds to the narrative and what detracts from it. With time, hopefully he'll strike a more considerate balance.
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