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I was so taken with Ralph Fiennes’ performance in Antony and Cleopatra that when I saw he had also starred in Macbeth, I was on that like white on rice.
We read the play in one of my English literature classes in high school, and may have watched the film. More clearly, I remember the picture book we had, based around the idea of Shakespeare and company giving a royal performance before King James. (During the scene where Macbeth asks the weird sisters if Banquo’s descendents will rule Scotland, one of the weird sisters held up a looking glass before the king’s delighted face.)
I loved the weird sisters in the National Theater version. They are indeed weird, the eerie way they speak in unison, the way they so easily toss a sentence one to another as if they’re playing catch; their strangeness depends only a little on special effects (when they disappear it is simply into blindingly bright light) and is all the stronger for that.
Fiennes is excellent yet again, although this part gives him less food for his comedy talents than Antony and Cleopatra, which has a strong comic element even though it ends in a heap of bodies. Macbeth is grimmer tragedy, although there was an exquisitely funny moment when Lady Macbeth (Indira Varma) demands that Macbeth give her the daggers he used to stab Duncan, and Macbeth retreats like a naughty child. The whole audience laughed.
Indira Varma was excellent too—the sane, strong one for most of the play, until she starts to crack up in Act Five. In fact, everyone was excellent: Banquo as Macbeth’s cheerily unsuspicious friend and then a deliciously creepy silent ghost/hallucination, Macduff struck dumb with grief when he gets the news that Macbeth’s killed all his family (“What, all?” he repeats, understanding and yet unable to understand), even Macbeth’s servant who tried to warn Macduff’s family but not, alas, quite soon enough… He goes to join the forces arrayed against Macbeth in Birnham Wood at the end.
The play is filmed like a movie, much moreso than the other National Theater productions I’ve watched, and I think largely to its detriment. There are a lot of close-ups of actors’ faces, and when you’re in close-up you can’t see anything else about the staging, what any of the other characters are doing—any of the things that make theater a distinct and different experience rather than just a cut-rate movie, in short.
Perhaps because of this filming choice, or perhaps because the sets were so spare, or perhaps just because Macbeth is a grimmer play, I didn’t like it as much as the other plays I’ve watched this month. But hey, they can’t all be top tier. I’m still glad to have seen Macbeth, finally.
***
My dad once saw Macbeth performed by puppets, and apparently it was great. Now I yearn to see Shakespeare puppets someday.
We read the play in one of my English literature classes in high school, and may have watched the film. More clearly, I remember the picture book we had, based around the idea of Shakespeare and company giving a royal performance before King James. (During the scene where Macbeth asks the weird sisters if Banquo’s descendents will rule Scotland, one of the weird sisters held up a looking glass before the king’s delighted face.)
I loved the weird sisters in the National Theater version. They are indeed weird, the eerie way they speak in unison, the way they so easily toss a sentence one to another as if they’re playing catch; their strangeness depends only a little on special effects (when they disappear it is simply into blindingly bright light) and is all the stronger for that.
Fiennes is excellent yet again, although this part gives him less food for his comedy talents than Antony and Cleopatra, which has a strong comic element even though it ends in a heap of bodies. Macbeth is grimmer tragedy, although there was an exquisitely funny moment when Lady Macbeth (Indira Varma) demands that Macbeth give her the daggers he used to stab Duncan, and Macbeth retreats like a naughty child. The whole audience laughed.
Indira Varma was excellent too—the sane, strong one for most of the play, until she starts to crack up in Act Five. In fact, everyone was excellent: Banquo as Macbeth’s cheerily unsuspicious friend and then a deliciously creepy silent ghost/hallucination, Macduff struck dumb with grief when he gets the news that Macbeth’s killed all his family (“What, all?” he repeats, understanding and yet unable to understand), even Macbeth’s servant who tried to warn Macduff’s family but not, alas, quite soon enough… He goes to join the forces arrayed against Macbeth in Birnham Wood at the end.
The play is filmed like a movie, much moreso than the other National Theater productions I’ve watched, and I think largely to its detriment. There are a lot of close-ups of actors’ faces, and when you’re in close-up you can’t see anything else about the staging, what any of the other characters are doing—any of the things that make theater a distinct and different experience rather than just a cut-rate movie, in short.
Perhaps because of this filming choice, or perhaps because the sets were so spare, or perhaps just because Macbeth is a grimmer play, I didn’t like it as much as the other plays I’ve watched this month. But hey, they can’t all be top tier. I’m still glad to have seen Macbeth, finally.
***
My dad once saw Macbeth performed by puppets, and apparently it was great. Now I yearn to see Shakespeare puppets someday.
