Macbeth

[Dunda]

Thanks to A

From a German report via google translate

https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/ ... 80248.html


In Her Majesty's service again?

You don't even think about witches. They are on stage before the performance begins and cook so hard that the smell of tomatoes gets through your mask. It could be a flat share in New York or in Berlin-Mitte, one with a T-shirt and cardigan, the other in jeans and a hooded sweater with a ladybug pattern. When they start with Shakespeare's text and reveal themselves as the witches, you feel caught: So you've already been taken in by the disarming harmlessness with which director Sam Gold's production on Broadway in New York depicts the horror of Macbeth 's world first whitewashed, only to let it erupt all the more violently.

Anyway, what kind of world is it that is being shown here in the Longacre Theater (after a short break due to Covid infection by Daniel Craig, among others)? Settled in an industrial loft, in front of brick walls covered with steel pipes, we see a troupe that sometimes resembles a working community or a social project, sometimes a violent cult – at the beginning a person is slaughtered without further ado. Among them is a punk, a wheelchair user and a whole series of characters who themselves don't really know what they are actually portraying. The stage is lit in changing neon colors and despite all these signals of presence there is talk of battles and Scotland, of kings and someone coming home from the last carnage.

Evil is there long before that

Daniel Craig plays Macbeth first as a kind of clumsy social worker who, in this collection of somewhat lost characters with an all too buddy-like approach, draws ridicule but has more to say than most of the others. Who accepts the praise of the "King", a beer-bellied tweed jacket wearer with a falsetto voice and a plastic crown, for the battle he has won with almost gurgling submissiveness, only to shortly afterwards tell the audience about his fantasies of power. Flattering and humorous at first, even as he speaks to the others on stage; then ambitious and finally angry dogged.

The witches have already whispered to him what he should be when he grows up: king, and he can't bear not to be one yet. As a one-man mummery, Craig leads through the first half of the play, alternating in a matter of seconds between someone pretending to want to please and someone actually just wanting to see the others fall.

Evil is always there in this production. It doesn't take the witches to set fate in motion; instead, this announces itself with Macbeth's first movement on the stage. He spits on the floor to wipe something away, and it is at the point where two hours later Lady Macbeth, played ravishingly by Ruth Negga, tries in delirium to get rid of the blood of the regicide - "out, damned spot". And actually Lady Macbeth doesn't need it either: Macbeth is lying at her feet in the first scene together, she is on the armrests of the red velvet armchairs (which together with some tables make up the sparse stage setting), he is kneeling in front of it. But what she intends to convince him of isn't something she needs to whisper: the crime has long been on his mind.

So it's not as if Daniel Craig, who previously worked with Sam Gold on an Off-Broadway production of Othello in 2016, is straight back into Her Majesty's service after his role as James Bond; Rather, Lady Macbeth's playful, girlish unscrupulousness serves him as welcome confirmation of something his murderous restlessness is driving him to do anyway. Supervised murder is nothing for this Macbeth, he can do it on his own.

Sam Gold shows a world in which the worst is done casually: After the regicide, you open the beer can. It is a disturbing dystopia that erupts the horrible behind everyday phenomena while exhibiting it in all its futility. After all, what kind of “kingdom” is it that is being murdered for here? Is it the assembled troupe of rather inconsequential figures? Or does it not even exist in the end, the kingdom, and are two of them killing each other's salvation for something that is mere imagination?

That must actually be what the production is aiming at, because allowing Shakespeare's unedited language to come into its own in the way the ensemble does, and at the same time making the stage and costume design demonstratively contemporary is so obviously inconsistent here that more must be intended than a clumsy attempt at modernization. Rather, the production takes the shivering nihilistic in “Macbeth” one step further: everything was at stake – and there was nothing to gain. The crowns are at best a disguise for a carnival no one wants to see.


Everything seems pointless

Sam Gold undermines all the conventions of representation of the "Scottish Play" and underlines this all the more when he lets the familiar sound as a test: only briefly does one of the witches fall into that creaky, croaking tone - above all reminiscent of the great Kathryn Hunter in the most recent film adaptation of Joel Coen - who is known from more classic productions and who amuses the other actors as if more traditional portrayals should be laughed at. That's courageous, because the strangely unrelated punk rock gesture of the production is ultimately all too dependent on Craig's virtuoso acting performance.


In the second half, it shows Macbeth as someone who suddenly felt fear for himself down to the last pore. When the next murder isn't about to take place as another futile attempt at catharsis, he sits on the armchair, absent-minded and with a trembling that he has to suppress. Speaking quietly is difficult, screaming is easier, and if he listens for once, then it works in his hands. But they don't know anymore whether they should still grab it or whether it's all in vain anyway. Splatter scenes and fights with fantasy weapons follow; But that can no longer distract from the cold fear of a gambler who suddenly understands that there is nothing left that can be risked.

[Germangirl]

Its a bit hard to understand whether its a good review or not.
I think it is behind the many words.

Thanks Dunda

[Jana66]

@Dunda,
thank you.
I just read the German version (that was easier for me ) and I think, the review is a good one, esp. for Daniel himself. The play works, because Daniel is in.
I think, I do understand the message.
"You give it all and yourself
for to win
nothing."
(IMO)

[archangel007]

Can't wait for any reviews or interviews

[Dunda]

Reviews are coming....

Not good
https://variety.com/2022/legit/reviews/ ... 235254654/

https://www.theatermania.com/broadway/r ... 93717.html

[Dunda]

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/29/thea ... nks_recirc

[Dunda]

https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertai ... story.html


Actors (Daniel and Ruth and some others) getting praise, the whole production not so much.....

[Dunda]

A 4 star (out of 5) review, but I can't read it

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/macb ... -wj0tnxgm0


2 star (out of 5), but can't read it either


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/theatre/wha ... -provides/

[Dunda]

https://deadline.com/2022/04/macbeth-br ... 235011369/


https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/ ... ruth-negga

https://ew.com/theater/theater-reviews/ ... uth-negga/

https://www.vulture.com/2022/04/theater ... cbeth.html

[Dunda]

Very bad

https://nypost.com/2022/04/29/macbeth-b ... -disaster/

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lifes ... 235137293/

[Germangirl]

I am not surprised. It all looked and seemed too odd to make sny sense. It would think, Daniel had his fair share, because he is a sucker for experimenting. Sometimes its overdone. Sad for all the work, they surely put into it.
Must no be easy to continue now.

[Dunda]

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/R ... g-20220429

[Dunda]

Seems to be a good one, but I fortunately it's not for free

https://www.nj.com/entertainment/2022/0 ... ction.html

[Jana66]

IMO, because of the mixed reviews it could be how they decided what look they gived everything.
Modern adaptions are something 50/50 when classical stuff is the content.
Maybe I am just wrong.

[Dunda]

https://www.theatrely.com/post/toil-and ... eth-review