Macbeth may very well be the shortest of Shakespeare’s tragedy, but Bell Shakespeare’s production made it even shorter – cutting out some piquant scenes and insisting on racing through its prosody. A general lack of vocal heft across the production diminished both characterisation and poetry.
There seemed to be a constant need to race to the end of the line without lingering on sense and emotional intent. Macbeth (Hazem Shammas) was physically interesting, wiry, dark, sprung, but his sing-song vocal delivery, was sometimes like a musical saw: accurate and ultimately unengaging. The strange elongation of certain words did not seem anchored to any pursuit of meaning. As his part progressed, the elongation and angularity of his body proceeded apace, as though mirroring, and reflecting with greater intensity, the mental collapse of his wife. He was convincing as a soldier unhinged by the deeds he has done.
The opening scene with the witches (Rebecca Attanasio, Isabel Burton, Eleni Cassimatis) was distinctly underwhelming, with voices that did not carry. Posture and expertise seemed to flow from a girl’s boarding school production. These were no outcasts, no scavengers of war, but genteel ladies, well dressed and slumming on the pitch of their girlish cackles. One could not believe in their power and intent.
This set the tone of the performance: vocally undernourished, hurtling at a pace, determined not to highlight the poetry or startling imagery that Shakespeare embeds in his Scottish play.
The trajectories of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are dramatically constructed and full of the yin and yang of determined vacillation and unquenchable desire. Some of this was achieved by the players, but often through physical gesture as opposed to declamation. The struggle that Macbeth must bear (“my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical”), as his agency abuts the certainty of his wife, was over quickly, without a sense of any great struggle. Shammas did, however, navigate his great speech in Act 1 Scene Seven with some semblance of pain within his discourse of discovery - as he weighs the consequences of bloody action. Unfortunately, “She should had died hereafter” went by without merit in Act V.
Jessica Tovey as Lady Macbeth was slinky and lithe – a prowling animal, licking her way through her great speeches, miming both the lust for her husband’s body and the power he has glimpsed. Whether she truly grasped the monumental evil that she desires was doubtful.
Within Act 1, Scene 5, the endless pacing, and vocal projection in the direction of the wings dissipated her imagined triumph and connection with us. Nor could her voice instantiate the dark humour of “the raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan”. Nor was there any depth to the curdling cry to the spirits to unsex her and bring forth direst cruelty. Within these limiting parameters, the sleep-walking scene in Act 5 was affecting – though even here she did not feel fully drugged by her guilt.
The bitchiness the Macbeth’s displayed to each other and the slipshod way they executed the assassination was an interesting play on their overvaulting ambitions. There was a certain element of the cartoon in their expressiveness.
The Director, Peter Evans, talks eloquently about the language and poetry of the play in the program – highlighting many of the speeches that in this production go by at such a clip and without demonstrable weight, one wondered whether there had been a disjunct between idea and execution.
The second half of the performance fared best.
The use of gender interchange for Banquo (Julia Billington) and various other characters is now normative post-modern theatre. In Banquo’s scene with Macbeth and the witches, Banquo’s gender fluidity worked, but only in delivering us a very young and handsome lieutenant – while the gravitas of the grizzled warrior dissipated across the length of the assumption. The excessive hand movement of this Banquo distracted from his power and threat. Later, Billington’s assumption of the doctor could not find the gravitas of his scientific and dispassionate discourse.
The interwar costuming (Anna Tregloan) invoked slinky Hollywood gowns and fascist uniforms and overcoats - implying an ordered world of courtesy and honour on the brink of destruction. Whether the ornate dining chairs added to this worldview was debatable – and on the small stage of the playhouse there was a lot of moving the set around, against the voluminous green curtains that dramatically pinched the acting space.
The appearance of Banquo’s’ ghost was not particularly telling – maybe an eviscerated projection might have given more goosebumps. Shamma’s descent into hallucinatory reckoning was strictly choreographed – shooting across the stage like a Harry Potter dementor – consuming happiness and hope and truly evoking some of the terror that he feels.
But the evil that swirls across Macbeth was only fitfully summoned in this production. It was all too polite. Though the bloodied hands of Macbeth did engender a true frisson in the moments after Duncan’s death.
The power struggle that informs this work was also lessened by the lightweight intervention of Macduff (Jacob Warner) – who grew fitfully into the role – summoning some pathos as he hears of the murder of his wife and bairns. But too late to establish his counter presence as potentially a new Macbeth. Nor was Malcolm (Jeremy Campese) given his chance to play interrogator of Macduff in the extended scene of Act IV which plays more complexly with power and evil intent than this production could hope to summon.
The soundscape (Max Lyandvert) offered up prayers for the dead – as riffs of renaissance polyphony hanging over a debauched 20th century political landscape. Its reverberations felt as though a different play might be being anchored in the wings. For here were layers of meaning that were never fully signalled to the audience or stitched into a single fabric.
The apparitions were judiciously enacted, effective in their impulse to disorient, as shafts of sound and lighting and haze fused (Damien Cooper).
Macbeth’s severed head did not make an appearance – though Malcolm’s final speech – which hints and further revenge and reward – was fully chopped.
The audience enjoyed the performance.
Bell Shakespeare Company, Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, March 18, 2023
Gar Jones
There seemed to be a constant need to race to the end of the line without lingering on sense and emotional intent. Macbeth (Hazem Shammas) was physically interesting, wiry, dark, sprung, but his sing-song vocal delivery, was sometimes like a musical saw: accurate and ultimately unengaging. The strange elongation of certain words did not seem anchored to any pursuit of meaning. As his part progressed, the elongation and angularity of his body proceeded apace, as though mirroring, and reflecting with greater intensity, the mental collapse of his wife. He was convincing as a soldier unhinged by the deeds he has done.
The opening scene with the witches (Rebecca Attanasio, Isabel Burton, Eleni Cassimatis) was distinctly underwhelming, with voices that did not carry. Posture and expertise seemed to flow from a girl’s boarding school production. These were no outcasts, no scavengers of war, but genteel ladies, well dressed and slumming on the pitch of their girlish cackles. One could not believe in their power and intent.
This set the tone of the performance: vocally undernourished, hurtling at a pace, determined not to highlight the poetry or startling imagery that Shakespeare embeds in his Scottish play.
The trajectories of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are dramatically constructed and full of the yin and yang of determined vacillation and unquenchable desire. Some of this was achieved by the players, but often through physical gesture as opposed to declamation. The struggle that Macbeth must bear (“my thought, whose murder yet is but fantastical”), as his agency abuts the certainty of his wife, was over quickly, without a sense of any great struggle. Shammas did, however, navigate his great speech in Act 1 Scene Seven with some semblance of pain within his discourse of discovery - as he weighs the consequences of bloody action. Unfortunately, “She should had died hereafter” went by without merit in Act V.
Jessica Tovey as Lady Macbeth was slinky and lithe – a prowling animal, licking her way through her great speeches, miming both the lust for her husband’s body and the power he has glimpsed. Whether she truly grasped the monumental evil that she desires was doubtful.
Within Act 1, Scene 5, the endless pacing, and vocal projection in the direction of the wings dissipated her imagined triumph and connection with us. Nor could her voice instantiate the dark humour of “the raven himself is hoarse/That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan”. Nor was there any depth to the curdling cry to the spirits to unsex her and bring forth direst cruelty. Within these limiting parameters, the sleep-walking scene in Act 5 was affecting – though even here she did not feel fully drugged by her guilt.
The bitchiness the Macbeth’s displayed to each other and the slipshod way they executed the assassination was an interesting play on their overvaulting ambitions. There was a certain element of the cartoon in their expressiveness.
The Director, Peter Evans, talks eloquently about the language and poetry of the play in the program – highlighting many of the speeches that in this production go by at such a clip and without demonstrable weight, one wondered whether there had been a disjunct between idea and execution.
The second half of the performance fared best.
The use of gender interchange for Banquo (Julia Billington) and various other characters is now normative post-modern theatre. In Banquo’s scene with Macbeth and the witches, Banquo’s gender fluidity worked, but only in delivering us a very young and handsome lieutenant – while the gravitas of the grizzled warrior dissipated across the length of the assumption. The excessive hand movement of this Banquo distracted from his power and threat. Later, Billington’s assumption of the doctor could not find the gravitas of his scientific and dispassionate discourse.
The interwar costuming (Anna Tregloan) invoked slinky Hollywood gowns and fascist uniforms and overcoats - implying an ordered world of courtesy and honour on the brink of destruction. Whether the ornate dining chairs added to this worldview was debatable – and on the small stage of the playhouse there was a lot of moving the set around, against the voluminous green curtains that dramatically pinched the acting space.
The appearance of Banquo’s’ ghost was not particularly telling – maybe an eviscerated projection might have given more goosebumps. Shamma’s descent into hallucinatory reckoning was strictly choreographed – shooting across the stage like a Harry Potter dementor – consuming happiness and hope and truly evoking some of the terror that he feels.
But the evil that swirls across Macbeth was only fitfully summoned in this production. It was all too polite. Though the bloodied hands of Macbeth did engender a true frisson in the moments after Duncan’s death.
The power struggle that informs this work was also lessened by the lightweight intervention of Macduff (Jacob Warner) – who grew fitfully into the role – summoning some pathos as he hears of the murder of his wife and bairns. But too late to establish his counter presence as potentially a new Macbeth. Nor was Malcolm (Jeremy Campese) given his chance to play interrogator of Macduff in the extended scene of Act IV which plays more complexly with power and evil intent than this production could hope to summon.
The soundscape (Max Lyandvert) offered up prayers for the dead – as riffs of renaissance polyphony hanging over a debauched 20th century political landscape. Its reverberations felt as though a different play might be being anchored in the wings. For here were layers of meaning that were never fully signalled to the audience or stitched into a single fabric.
The apparitions were judiciously enacted, effective in their impulse to disorient, as shafts of sound and lighting and haze fused (Damien Cooper).
Macbeth’s severed head did not make an appearance – though Malcolm’s final speech – which hints and further revenge and reward – was fully chopped.
The audience enjoyed the performance.
Bell Shakespeare Company, Playhouse, Sydney Opera House, Sydney, March 18, 2023
Gar Jones