This version of Macbeth, which runs until May 5 (after previous performances in London and Edinburgh), is expertly directed by Simon Godwin, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater Company. Taking place on a hangar-like soundstage in Washington's Brentwood neighborhood, he transports the setting from 11th-century Scotland to the modern world.The three witches who tell Macbeth (Ralph Fiennes) a pun prophecy are re-identified as humans. Exiled due to war. They wear scuffed sneakers, denim jackets, and overalls (costumed by Frankie Bradshaw), with dirt on their faces. The script, adapted by Emily Burns, specifies that these characters awaken with a shared “premonition that their building will be hit'' by a missile, and discover their otherworldly powers after the cataclysm. has been done.
Macbeth takes their spell to heart. Rather than wait to convey the witches' harsh sentence directly to Lady M (Indira Varma), the lord of Glamis chooses to inform his wife before returning from the battle. Samuel Taylor Coleridge described Macbeth as the “fastest'' of Shakespeare's plays, and this production largely confirms that claim.
Fiennes, who renders Shakespeare's poetry with charming naturalism, takes his role to the lees. As you would expect from someone who has played both the fearsome Roman warrior Coriolanus and the Dark Lord Voldemort (whose name carries similar reprehensible sins), his “leaping ambition” has led to his inexorable downfall. He gives a powerful performance as a man connected to the world. What's even more surprising is that Fiennes' Macbeth is one of the few characters I've ever seen with a sense of humor, which is evident in the banquet scene and in the fight to the death with the nobleman Macduff. ing.
Unlike Coriolanus, the Scottish Thain is not a nihilistic “blood thing” who wishes to become “something like nothing.” Conversing with one of the murderers (in this production there are two instead of the usual three), he is “locked in a shack, dressed in a crib, imprisoned, bound by impudent suspicions and fears. ” he confesses. After his rampage as royalty, he realizes that he has been misled by the witch's prophecy and finally cuts the engine. After the branches of Birnam Wood descend on Dunsinane, Macbeth falls not only from his rival's sword but also from a misinterpretation.
Lady M is comparable to her spiritually ill husband, but her heart is famously unraveling in a different direction. Varma's brutal queen is more restrained than we'd like at certain points, but she makes us feel her intimate relationship with her husband, which she reads like an open book. Masu. Sometimes Macbeth even concedes his power over him. When he demands that she give birth to only her man, he says these lines into her womb on her knees. Apparently, when they usurp the throne, Lady M is the only one to wear the crown.
Her advice to “trick time and make it look like time” can also be partially credited to design. This work looks subversive for our time. There are almost no supplies on stage. All we can see are the cloudy facades of concrete-colored houses. The frosted glass sliding door occasionally opens and closes like a nictitating membrane. The blood dripping from the wall above in one scene is easily overlooked from certain seats. No one would confuse this piece with the extravagant Stonehenge-esque creation that Rob Ashford and Kenneth Branagh devised at the Park Avenue Armory a decade ago, but Godwin's no-fuss version is visually It more than makes up for its relative lack of spectacle. The actors are within a few steps of the audience. At one point, a dozing Lady M even reached out to touch a member of the audience.
What is less satisfying is that some minor roles were cut. There is no serious comic porter who calls “an ambiguous expressor who can swear on both scales to servants on either scale.” This line may be a somewhat vague reference to the Gunpowder Plot that hit England in 1605, but “obscure” also has other meanings related to the theme. Some regret the loss of Hecate in a play that attempts a new interpretation of the witch.
Coincidentally, another Macbeth-derived psychodrama is being shown at the same time at Brooklyn's Theater for a New Audience. Compared to the omissions in Godwin's work, the omissions in Ginny Harris's Macbeth (The Undoing) will be striking to Shakespeare scholars.
In this version, Lady M (Nicole Cooper) and Lady Macduff are related, the latter is pregnant with Banquo's child, the three witches are innocent neighbors rather than transcendent beings, and Lady M has had five failed births, and it's Macbeth, not Macbeth. A sleepwalking wife. This “undoing” of revisionist works turns out to be a trap for the Chinese. The more the play attempts to psychologically analyze its protagonist and deepen our understanding of the other female characters by constructing entirely new scenes and subplots around them, the more fragmented the work becomes. I'll go. . The idea of a schizophrenic Lady M isn't entirely without appeal, but despite the overall good acting, the film quickly hits a snag.
macbeth, Through May 5 at 1301 W St. NE. Approximately 2 hours and 45 minutes with a break.Click here for tickets and information shakespearetheater.org.
Macbeth (ruin), Runs approximately 2 1/2 hours, with intermission, at Theater for a New Audience, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY, through May 4.Click here for tickets and information tfana.org.