Macbeth

Performances of The Scottish play could do well to take Lady Macbeth’s advice and be bold, bloody and resolute. Baz Productions’ offering is certainly bold in parts: performing the play in an ancient crypt underneath St Andrew’s church, recruiting only five actors to tell the tale, and if that wasn’t enough, having the performers switch roles every few minutes.

“Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment? No man.” Baz take this line of Macbeth’s rather literally, with their actors exchanging labeled costumes to help the audience keep track of who’s who. Harder to keep track are the motivations behind this and many other questionable decisions that result in this frustrating theatrical experience.

While Shakespeare’s players certainly would have doubled up to play multiple roles during performance, and had actors often playing similar stock characters, Baz do not appear to be alluding to this. Possibly they are drawing attention to the fluidity of personal motivation, or any other number of intelligent assertions on the performative nature of character. However it is not clear to the audience, and the treatment of the text itself is not exhilarating enough for us to simply give the performers the benefit of the doubt.

Securing the crypt as the production’s venue is a real coup; but as promenade productions go, this one plods where it should canter. Having the actors break character in order to tell the audience to move into the next room made it seem as if we were being guided around a museum rather than living a visceral drama.

The lighting in the first half of the performance fails to provide an evocative environment for the play’s narrative and, somewhat incredibly, manages to endow a remarkable venue with the bare minimum of ambience. However, the harrowing events of the subsequent murders and Lady Macbeth’s madness are lit inventively using torch and candle; if only the production had used such imaginative touches from the off.

For all the possibilities of the space, Baz remain unsatisfied, employing a lengthy filmed section which only furthers the disjointed, episodic feel of the piece. Given the atmospheric novelty of the crypt, watching characters going up escalators and driving cars is a rather surreal addition.

The crypt is put to good use for haunting sound and music, with the performers taking advantage of the venue to surround the audience with eerie echoes. However, this is not enough to conjure the sinister tone required for this play.

Somewhat bizarrely, the actors occasionally ‘translate’ the text into language that perhaps they imagined was more easily understood. This is particularly puzzling, as hearing a character saying, “We’ll, like, cut him off at Birnam Wood, yeah?” reveals a patronizing lack of faith in either Shakespeare’s communication, the audience’s comprehension, or both.

Even if some audiences might not understand every couplet, it is surely better for them to be exposed to the curious-sounding language of the verse; that sort of ignorance would be far more blissful than the jarring alternatives offered here.

It’s not that there aren’t good performances – Geoffrey Lumb and Ffion Jolly stand out – and it’s not as if a great deal of thought hasn’t been put into this show. But if anything, an overabundance of ideas has muddled it. They have clearly considered the text deeply, but the resulting vision is, like Banquo’s ghost, something that only the perpetrators can see.

– Miranda Fay Thomas