You don't go to Stratford and not see play. We were scheduled to see two: one by Shakespeare, and one by a contemporary of his. I was really worried that we were going to see Romeo and Juliet—one of my least favorite plays, and probably the most overdone of any Shakespearean play—so I was excited to hear that we were seeing Macbeth.
I’ve read Macbeth twice; once as a mere high-schooler, and the other, as a university student. The second time around I picked up one a lot of things that I hadn’t really thought about before, especially relating to the portrayal of the witches and of women. The witches are always shown a little bit different—from pretty young women, to disgusting hags, from clairvoyant but fairly harmless to aggressive and rather scary. But they were always adults—and I think always women.
The director of the play went a little overboard with the special affects—he lowers Macbeth from the ceiling on a throne, he has a child run across the stage to scream the “shriek of the owl,” a ladder extends from the floor for Macbeth to climb during his “tomorrow” speech. But the strangest thing that the director did was he changed the “weird sisters” into “weird children”! The first appearance of the witches was literally hung (the looked dead) from the ceiling and later lowered. There were two boys and one girl, not more than ten years old, making prophesies about death and destruction, carrying around creepy dolls (as the severed head, bloody child, etc). They were creepy, that I can say. But it didn’t work with the play! It was a strange interpretation, and I don't think it added anything to the play.
When I read the play for class, there was a huge emphasis on the witches and Ldy Macbeth; Macbeth himself was sort of an afterthought, a villain, a corrupt man in the way that must be overcome. Yet in this play, it was Macbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth. The witches only appeared in two scenes (the famous “double double” scene was removed, as was all the other scenes but the first and last), and even worse, the actors later become Macduff’s murdered children, just to add to the confusion. The ”evil” witches suddenly become innocent children? It seems as though this sends very mixed message, one that goes against the original play.
Lady Macbeth, in this version, also seemed somewhat an after thought. Even before she helps murder the king, she seems insane. There was no slow progression to insanity—she already seemed insane from the beginning, not that we meet her for long. She is barely in the play before she becomes a murderer; they removed at leaset one opening scene with her in it. Even Macbeth himself—where this director put the emphasis on—seems crazed from the very beginning. Banquo, a large passionate man with a commanding voice and style, was one of the few instances where it seemed like the original play shined through.
The play itself was decently well done—the set and costumes were all good. The actors were decent (if somewhat “crazed”), there was blood everywhere (which made it exciting!) and some of the special effects (like water coming down from the ceiling when the king was crowned), where nicely done. If you did no know the play, it probably would have been fine.
But for somebody who has studied the play twice before, the changes seemed to really hurt the original play, twisting some of the messages around, like confusing good and evil, as with the witches, or placing emphasis on certain characters and not on others—before she died, Lady Macduff was only in one scene (thten she died and proceeded to follow Maduff around.) Macduff too had no role until the very end; before that he was in the shadows.
No comments:
Post a Comment