Macbeth

Bell Shakespeare’s new Macbeth borrows a familiar BSC footprint.  Towering green curtains outline what looks like a hotel foyer, circa World War I, with high back chairs, standard lamps and a tartan carpet.  We know this format from other productions, the ten actors rarely leaving the stage, but in slow motion sitting or walking around a lot. 

This over-cut Macbeth rushes through the (rather tame) witches’ prophesies to our hero, and actors weakly reporting on his war victories, and within minutes Macbeth joins his Lady in their castle/hotel. Already they’re planning the murder of King Duncan.

Redeeming this hasty mishmash, is the flaming ambition, paranoia and passion between the central couple.  The diminutive Hazem Shammas defies the usual hypermasculinity, for a Macbeth who is needy, courageous, smart and, in his madness, often comical. By the end he’s drawling his lines like an Arabic-Australian stand up.  It’s a compelling telling of the tyrant; Shammas and Jessica Tovey both pull at our empathy with their originality and assured articulation – unlike others in the cast.

Despite the unexplored period, with costumes circa 1920, and the dramatic limits of a hotel foyer (designer Anna Tregloan), director Peter Evans does conjure some remarkable moments, like the ghostly appearance of the murdered Banquo (Julia Billington). But many more are lost, except between our desperate couple as their guilt begins to bite.

James Lugton is, as expected, authoritative as Duncan but also delights as Macbeth’s busy bowler-hatted assassin. Damien Cooper’s lighting brings focus to the cluttered stage, and while Max Lyandvert’s sound raises the heights, even to choral angels, this production largely stays earth-bound.

Martin Portus

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Photographer: Brett Boardman