Macbeth by GRADS

Fri, 19 Mar 2010, 01:53 pm

Amy Welsh7 posts in thread

Macbeth by GRADS

DISCLAIMER: In the interests of objectivity, I obviously must disclaim that I viewed this production knowing, and counting as a friend, the director (Garreth Bradshaw), and the actors playing Macbeth (Cameron Clark), Macduff (Michael Lamont), Banquo (Patrick Downes) and Witch/Ross (Jo Williams).

I originally did not wish to write a review, as I know many people involved in the show. However, following Pettigrew's comments, I thought I would like volunteer my "considered" opinion for Bass Guy and others. :)

To my friends; please don't kneecap me! I just thought you deserved an honest, and explanatory review.

DISCLAIMER 2: I saw this production on opening night, and am going again on closing.

DISCLAIMER 3: This is my first review on this website. Previously, I have mainly contributed a rather... unpopular blog on blackface makeup. :P

Overall, I would summarise this production of Macbeth as being hit and miss. There were some techniques/ideas/performances and that worked for me and some that didn't.

I'll be nice and get the constructive criticism out of the way first, before I say what I liked.

Firstly, where I think the production ultimately "missed" for me, was the pacing.

I know that Garreth loves pace and energy in his shows, but unfortunately, especially when I saw it, the pace was pushed too hard at times, and became detrimental to the emotional weight and understanding of the show. I felt sorry for the miriad of school kiddies in attendance, as even I found it hard to follow initially, and it took me longer than usual to get my "Shakespeare ear" in and working effectively. And especially unfortunate was the performers who initially suffered the most from the overly eager pace: Mr and Mrs Macbeth.

As mentioned above, Cameron Clark (Macbeth) is a good friend of mine, but I did feel his performance was hindered by starting at such a high energy/delivery level. He started at an 8 (so to speak), but this left him with nowhere to go performance wise. He could only become more manic, and you could see him absolutely slogging his guts out trying to show the deterioration and mental decay in his character. However, his performance in the quiet moments showed great growth and charisma.

Similarly, Lady M absolutely sped through most of her dialogue, and this meant that most scenes between her and Mr M only left you with an overwhelming feeling of pace. Any beats, revelations, coercion or sense of mental games between the two tended to get lost in the break-neck speed of their scenes. All the "risque" stuff between them lost its shock or effectiveness because any sense of the intention behind the action was drowned in the pace. After most of their scenes, I would only realise at the end of the scene that a character had changed their mind/or had their mind changed by another, and I had missed it completely.

As this tended to occur mainly at the start of the show, perhaps this was the main contributor to some people's perception of this production as having "style over substance". (That's for you, Bass Guy :P)

What also didn't help is that, I felt that only 5 out of the 12 performers had any real command of the text and their characters. This is despite knowing that Garreth has a tendency to beat iambic pentameter into his actors with a stick! Perhaps this also was a contributor to people's reception of the show. Additionally, there were some sloppy entrances and moments of dead stage at missed cues.

Despite this though, I did enjoy some elements of the production. The director, Garreth, has recently been exploring the use of rhythm and beat (ie. stamping/chanting) in his works, in line with the theories of David Suzuki. (EDIT: Its actually Tadashi Suzuki. Apologies, I should've checked.)

I personally have done hours of chanting and stamping under Garreth's direction (even with the aforementioned stick). I thought his exploration of this in the opening five minutes of the play, and indeed, all the witches' scenes was especially effective. The witches scenes, for me personally, were the strongest of the play. The "bubble bubble" scene with the cauldron and Hecate mask was especially strong.

That being said, towards the end of the play, I would've actually liked the rhythm and stamping to return. Through the last act especially, when I felt the pace dropped off, I would've liked to see the stamping re-emerge to help build tension and Macbeth's sense of entrapment and despair as his world crumbled. Garreth used this technique very effectively in his production of The Life of Galileo. As part of my own aesthetic tastes, I also think it would've made a nice "bookend" so to speak with the opening scene of the play.

In my own juvenile way, I also liked some of the Tarentino-esque gore; it made me laugh out of shock/comic relief. I thought the vomit and the eyeball were especially effective. They provided a nice break to the text and visceral way of exploring characters reactions/situations. Some of the other gore moments I thought were less effective- but more so out of the prop design and execution, than the directors intention.

EDIT: Additionally, I also liked the fight choreography between Macbeth and Macduff. The eye jab in particular looked awesome from where I sat. The pace and intensity of the fight was good. Some of the other smaller "stunt" stuff was good, especially the Lady Macduff moment. It got a genuine gasp from the audience. Solid work. :)

In lieu of my comments above, I felt I should note some of the performances I did enjoy. As written above in my disclaimer, I am friends with four of the main cast in Macbeth, and though I know this could paint a target on this post for trollers and critiques, I thought generally, they, along with the actor who played The Porter/Doctor/Shaman/Priest provided some of the strongest performances. Not because they are mostly my friends and colleagues (though any of them will tell you I am a critical and opinionated theatre goer) but because I thought they had the best command of the text and stage-presence of the cast. Patrick Downes and Jo Williams in particular had the best command and delivery of the iambic pentameter. On pure emotional range alone, I enjoyed the scene where Macduff found out about the death of his family (IIII:iii), and the sleepwalking Lady M scene. The emotional weight was well performed and stood out for me as being especially strong.

I agree that some elements of the prop and costume design were a little... odd, but I liked the simplicity of the set, which in typical Garreth fashion was probably done with the intention of cutting the superfluous dressing and c**p that can sometimes pad out/soften Shakespeare for audiences, and make you focus on the text. The use of the banners in particular was really well done and a great concept. :)

So there you are, my considered opinion of the show. I am looking forward to going again tomorrow, and seeing how it may have changed and grown over the last 2 weeks. Chookas to the cast for their next shows. See you there. :)

"Macbeth"

Tue, 23 Mar 2010, 11:24 am

Walter Plinge

Whilst an avid though occasional theatre goer I have never written a review before but I was raving so much about this production to a friend who is involved in the theatre scene she suggested this website to do so and get it all off my chest. I’ve been working to word this right since. I went along on the final Friday to a packed theatre with my wife who after seeing a professional Perth Macbeth a few years ago and being fairly bored was rather reluctantly dragged along. We went on recommendation by our teenage daughter who had attended with her school that Tuesday and hadn’t shut up about it until we promised to book tickets and go ourselves. I am unsure how to structure a review so I will just list the things and performers that stood out to my wife and I though I stress that the whole production was excellent. I have a program open in front of me and will try my utmost to not spell anyone’s name wrong. I will start with the man and woman themselves: the Macbeths. Before the play opened my wife was having a flick through the program and her first comment was “they look a bit young don’t they?” in reference to Cameron Clark and Maja Liwszyc, having gone first to match actors to characters. We eyeballed each other apprehensively when the play opened in its creative fashion and these two actors stepped out onto the stage as the infamous couple. Did the director consider youthful beauty to be more important in his leads than performance maturity? This was certainly our first reaction and this goes to show that the old proverb about book and cover still holds true. The first thing we noticed about Clark was his presence and command of the stage one which actors twice his age playing half as challenging a role have yet to master. Every line was articulated with confidence and knowledge of the text. Not a single section of dead dialogue can I remember coming out of this young up and comers mouth. His Macbeth had a very believable evolution from a outwardly confident general teeming with latent insecurities easily manipulated to a murderous maniac half crazed with secret guilt and blinded by unreasonable ever growing ambition. His chemistry with the witches and his wife was especially notable, as was his ability to find moments of outrageousness in dark scenes (snacking on eyeballs anyone?) His command over the very large audience never wavered. To be fair my wife thought he was “too zany a Macbeth” at first and didn’t share all my flattering opinions until just before the second act when she too was sucked in by the young actors charm. Onto the ambitious wife who had the certainly not undemanding task of matching Clark’s energy and charisma. And match it she did. Their scenes together were some of the biggest standouts of the play and I’m not just saying that as a dirty old bugger enjoying some gratuitous smut ;) They sizzled their way through Lady Macbeth’s dirty manipulations of her husband and gave us a nicely disturbing moment where the roles are reversed as Clark gave Liwzsyc a taste of her own medicine. She like Clark lit up the stage as soon as she stepped on it and my wife confessed to having involuntarily shuddered at one part during the infamous “come unsex me here”. My daughter hadn’t mentioned Lady Macbeth much only saying “she played nasty good” making us worried that the more emotionally complex side of the character may have been lost in this interpretation. We needn’t have worried as her madness scene as well as being quite creepy was played emotionally intense to the point where my wife said her heart physically hurt for the young lass with all her defences and pretentions now stripped away in madness. If anyone has read this far I won’t dwell on the actors too much longer but to quickly mention from memory other performance standouts. From a very truthfully played Banquo (Patrick Downs) with an exciting death scene and some impressive bloodied FX scars to witches (Desiree Crossing, Caroline Parkinson, Joe Williams) that actually frightened and commanded, whose cauldron scene especially was absolutely top notch. To the most engaging Macduff (Michael Lamont) we’ve seen so far particularly in his enjoyable fight scene with Macbeth and painfully palpable heartbreak at his wife and children’s slaughter. And Clayton Zwanenburg’s Porter. A cheeky rascal who despite pushing us around at intermission won our hearts for giving us the best laughs of the evening and with his clear voice demonstrating a very good knowledge of his text. I won’t mention anymore individuals for fear of writing too much more but to say that as a whole the cast shone and worked fantastically as a unit to bring this piece to life. Some more production notes follow both complimentary and not. The set (Jonathon Beckett) was effective in its minimalism particularly as the stage already has so much character of its own. Lighting (Fiona Reid, Marke Tearle, Noemie Lengendre) was kind of boring and faded into the background, sound (Jaymes Brown) was fantastic and really added another dimension. Costuming (Alexander Wettstein, Amy Webb) opinions see my wife and I divided I didn’t mind the minimalism, she being a more visual person than I found some of them kind of boring and still wanted something “more”. She also said if they had been a bit more dynamic it might have been easier to distinguish between characters more for all those playing multiple parts which was at times confusing. The fight scenes were wonderful Lady Macduff’s (Desiree Crossing) murder scene was suitably disturbing, the blood generally realistic. Now onto the pace of the show which the first reviewer on here makes a lot of note of. I very much enjoyed finally seeing a Shakespearian production where the actors are not constantly slowing everything down which usually serves to bore the audience more than help them understand the text, that being said I did feel that a few moments were lost that could have been slowed down and made focal points. I can’t now recall what exactly they were, I think perhaps one was an exchange between the Macbeths?, but I do know that I preferred losing those moments than having the whole show slowed down if that was the choice. I think the sometimes slightly manic pace was a big reason I could see attentive faces on all sides truth be told. And since we went on a night packed with teenagers an “old school” play getting that kind of attentiveness is quite the feat I’d say. I’ve written far too much already so I shall summarize shortly and rather lamely by saying that this was a fantastic night out seeing some highly enjoyable theatre. Cudos to Garreth Bradshaw and his talented team, good luck for the rest of your performances everyone.

Thread (7 posts)

Threaded Flat

Macbeth by GRADS — Amy Welsh19 Mar 2010

Hey Amy, thanks for the— Garreth19 Mar 2010
Oops...— Amy Welsh19 Mar 2010
Mabeth shall sleep no more!— stinger20 Mar 2010
"Macbeth"— Walter Plinge23 Mar 2010
That Scottish Play— DazzaB25 Mar 2010
I hear what you do NOT what— Walter Plinge6 May 2010

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