The Convert at the Young Vic: Help Me Baby Jesusby Randi / January 31, 2019
It’s Theatre Thursday! Today’s show is the musical Violet, playing at London’s Charing Cross Theatre until April 6.
Violet, the 1997 musical by Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley, is pretty different as far as stories go: there kind of isn’t one. It’s more of a character study of our titular gal and two supporting men. The score is completely mixed, with some incredible songs and some that should have been cut, or at least cut in half, so the show depends entirely on a superstrong production in order to succeed. When I first saw Violet, it was the 2014 Broadway production with Sutton Foster and Joshua Henry, and it was so shiny and bright and impressive that I barely noticed that a compelling story was missing. With smaller productions, like the current one at the Charing Cross theatre, it’s harder to hide the show’s flaws. Although it’s a pretty nice production with some great talent, it’s clear that Violet is a rather mediocre show – decent and sweet, but mediocre – and there’s nothing anyone can do to hide it without the distraction of Broadway excess.
Violet, the 1997 musical by Jeanine Tesori and Brian Crawley, is pretty different as far as stories go: there kind of isn’t one. It’s more of a character study of our titular gal and two supporting men. The score is completely mixed, with some incredible songs and some that should have been cut, or at least cut in half, so the show depends entirely on a superstrong production in order to succeed. When I first saw Violet, it was the 2014 Broadway production with Sutton Foster and Joshua Henry, and it was so shiny and bright and impressive that I barely noticed that a compelling story was missing. With smaller productions, like the current one at the Charing Cross theatre, it’s harder to hide the show’s flaws. Although it’s a pretty nice production with some great talent, it’s clear that Violet is a rather mediocre show – decent and sweet, but mediocre – and there’s nothing anyone can do to hide it without the distraction of Broadway excess.
Based on a short story called “The Ugliest Pilgrim” by Doris Betts, which is a terribly sad title for anything, especially when pilgrim was one of my nicknames growing up so like ahh don’t call me that and really don’t call anyone that, Violet tells the story of a woman named Violet who was horribly disfigured as a young girl in an ax accident. An ax-ident! Oh fun! I mean not fun that she or anyone was disfigured by an ax but I mean come on, ax-ident, wonderful. Violet has grown up with everyone staring and shuddering at her horrible face, and all she wants is to be beautiful or to at least get through a day without some stranger looking at her and convulsing in horror. The actress playing Violet never has any prosthetics or makeup or anything to show her injury; it’s just the actress unadorned, which I love. You have to use your imagination and also it’s probably saying something super deep about how all our problems are inside our minds although Violet’s really weren’t, she had like a cheek split in two. Violet decides to get help from the one man in America who can help her – the big television preacher man. Obviously he’s full of shit but Violet needs to believe that someone out there can help her, and just it’s a shame that she puts all her faith in a swindler megachurch pastor kind of guy.
So the plot is, Violet leaves her farm in North Carolina and gets on a long bus journey to Oklahoma to find the preacher at his next big television extravaganza where he will swindle more poor stupid people out of their hard-earned cash and give them false hope. She boards the bus with two army dudes, Flick and Monty, as well as a nosy old lady, lots of people who shudder at her face as per usual, and if they were going to Tulsa I’m guessing Chandler? As everyone boards the bus and begins their own journeys, they sing the first big ensemble number, “On My Way”, which is truly excellent in this production. All the voices swelled together and the movement was right on, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the better, catchier songs in the show. It’s the kind of big joyous full company song in a show that makes your heart swell. It’s right in the beginning, so I was like ‘oh wow this is going to be amazing’, but this was the best moment of the show. After they all board and eat their best snacks, I guess, they just like…sit on the bus and play cards and get to know each other and then they get to Oklahoma. We watch people suffer on a long bus journey where I bet they don’t get to pee very often and it was probably so stuffy and everyone smelled bad and you’re surviving on like gas station packaged snacks and all you want is a salad and for the love of god a bathroom. At certain points in the play the bus driver will be like ‘okay that’s five minutes for your rest stop!’ and SOME PEOPLE DON’T GO TO THE BATHROOM like I get that it wouldn’t be a great show to be realistic like that but thinking about long buses and NOT going to the bathroom when you need to made me super anxious.
So the plot is, Violet leaves her farm in North Carolina and gets on a long bus journey to Oklahoma to find the preacher at his next big television extravaganza where he will swindle more poor stupid people out of their hard-earned cash and give them false hope. She boards the bus with two army dudes, Flick and Monty, as well as a nosy old lady, lots of people who shudder at her face as per usual, and if they were going to Tulsa I’m guessing Chandler? As everyone boards the bus and begins their own journeys, they sing the first big ensemble number, “On My Way”, which is truly excellent in this production. All the voices swelled together and the movement was right on, and it doesn’t hurt that it’s one of the better, catchier songs in the show. It’s the kind of big joyous full company song in a show that makes your heart swell. It’s right in the beginning, so I was like ‘oh wow this is going to be amazing’, but this was the best moment of the show. After they all board and eat their best snacks, I guess, they just like…sit on the bus and play cards and get to know each other and then they get to Oklahoma. We watch people suffer on a long bus journey where I bet they don’t get to pee very often and it was probably so stuffy and everyone smelled bad and you’re surviving on like gas station packaged snacks and all you want is a salad and for the love of god a bathroom. At certain points in the play the bus driver will be like ‘okay that’s five minutes for your rest stop!’ and SOME PEOPLE DON’T GO TO THE BATHROOM like I get that it wouldn’t be a great show to be realistic like that but thinking about long buses and NOT going to the bathroom when you need to made me super anxious.
While Violet (Kaisa Hammarlund) rides the bus and writes in her mama’s old bible, she thinks about how she’s gonna be beautiful and remembers her 14-year-old self, which is when the ax-ident happened. Violet and Young Violet (a maybe 11-year-old looking girl who did not look 14 and whose attempt at an American accent, I’m sorry, was literally this) sing and swirl around the stage (in the round for kind of no reason) together as Violet remembers her younger self, the poor girl she’s trying to save from a lifetime of misery. Meanwhile, both Monty (Matthew Harvey) and Flick (Jay Marsh) for some reason fall for Violet, Flick in what we’re to assume is a deeper, real love kind of way and Monty, because he’s more of a playboy, in a less real way. And here’s the problem. This horribly disfigured girl has two eligible men fall in love with her like immediately? Um. Our Violet, Hammarlund, was remarkable in the Young Vic’s production of Fun Home last summer, and she’s very talented and always enjoyable, but here she didn’t feel like a good fit. Her Violet is kind of/super annoying. And maybe Violet just is annoying always, but then why are these two random guys falling for her? It sort of worked when Violet was Sutton Foster because she is so gosh darn charming and disarming and adorable but I just didn’t feel any reason for the romances here. It doesn’t help that Hammarlund is tortured with a horrendous wig that like someone should be fired for so you’re extra curious why these men are obsessed with her.
Another big issue in that regard is, the audience is clearly supposed to want her to choose Flick, a solid, steady man who gets the biggest bestest song in the show, “Let it Sing”, and our Flick did a fine job with it. Monty is supposed to be this womanizer who only wants to sleep with her, so we are supposed to root for Violet to turn him down. But…Monty shows no signs of not being serious about her. He seems fine. Since he’s fine, there’s no drama at all in her choice. Maybe that makes more sense because that’s how real life is, with decisions that could easily go in either direction – you’d rarely have trouble deciding between two options where one is clearly great and one is clearly bad. But then to make this supposed drama of her love triangle one of the driving forces of the show means it all falls flat. The show is all ‘Monty’s a cad he’s going to desert you he just wants a piece of ass’ but then everything Monty does contradicts that. Sure Flick is probably the better choice overall but still, there’s no obvious reason for it, at least not in this production. You’re supposed to feel that theirs is real love, I guess, but there’s no evidence of it. And with the focus of the show being on the relationships between these characters, to find it not fully fleshed out enough to suffice as the only real story is disappointing.
Aside from the barely-there plot and the score that seemed unedited (why does the preacher’s big show rehearsal need to be so g-d long? He’s not important!), it’s still a sweet, good-natured show and a nice time. The three main characters are likable and relatively interesting, and there are enough great songs to keep this moving. Two ladies in the supporting cast, who get to show off as night club singers and actors in the preacher’s show, are incredible vocalists and it’s a real treat to hear them sing, even though the night club was repeated over and over to be a jazz club and none of the music was jazz. It’s a solid production, but I don’t think there’s any way to cover up the flaws.
INFORMATION
Violet is playing at the Charing Cross Theatre (under the arches by Embankment) until April 6. They said it was 90 minutes, one act, but it was an hour 50 minutes!!! Were they trying to make us feel like we were on the bus and couldn’t stop for a bathroom?! It says now that it’s 100 minutes but like still that is inaccurate.
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Broadway’s “Fun Home”: Setting A Very High & Necessary Bar For The Future Of Musical Theatre
My Playbill signed by Alison Bechdel herself, who was in my audience. Or, I was in her audience.
“Fun Home” is the kind of musical theatre that makes you grateful for the art form. Rarely are we treated to any art or entertainment that doesn’t cater to the lowest common denominator in our society or at least dumb itself down to appeal to the ignint masses. “Fun Home”, in contrast, treats its audience like intelligent, thinking people, and we are gifted the most heart-aching, mature, and deep show in years.
People think “Broadway Musical” should mean something diverting, with fun and dancing and repetitive, catchy songs about trivial happy things. And some shows are and should be like that. But modern shows need to challenge the genre and the audience in new ways to keep it growing and improving. New scores should develop emotions in ways words can’t; that’s kind of the point of having music in a play or like in the world, to express what words can’t. “Next to Normal” did all this and was revolutionary and boundary-pushing, but that was 6 or so years ago; nothing since has been up to the challenge.
Until now. “Fun Home” picks up that gauntlet thrown by “Next to Normal” and runs farther than ever. I think “Fun Home” will catch on and become more popular, and will continue to break barriers in this kind of storytelling. It seems like a really unlikely musical, given its subject matter, but it geniusly uses music to deepen its storytelling rather than embellish. The result is far more important and remarkable than anyone would have predicted.
“Fun Home” is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alison Bechdel. If that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard of the Bechdel Test for movies: when two female characters are in a scene together and talk about something other than a man, it passes. (Movies rarely pass this test.) So Bechdel is professionally a very noteworthy modern voice. Her personal story, on the other hand, is the basis for the novel and the show; Tony winner Lisa Kron wrote the show’s book based tightly on its source material. It chronicles Alison’s upbringing in a small country town of Pennsylvania, from when she’s a little kid discovering herself and her sexuality; to when she’s a college student accepting who she is while learning more about her disciplined and particular father; to the modern-day adult looking back on her relationship with her father. Bruce Bechdel, a very rigid and exacting man, hid his own homosexuality his entire life. The story is told from grown-up Alison’s perspective as she looks back on her childhood and tries to come to grips with her father’s suicide (not a spoiler, real person, point of show). So, yeah, not the most expected story for a Broadway musical, but it works so well that you’ll be questioning your assumptions about everything, not just musical theatre.
Grown-up Alison (played by a superb Beth Malone (Tony nominee)) takes us on a tour through her memories of her younger years, as she tries to accurately recall the memories to draw, as her comics were what helped her deal with her complicated relationship with her father. As she revisits her childhood museum-like home, the funeral home her family ran (hence the title, what they referred to it as, the ‘fun home’), and different moments with her family, we watch with her as she witnesses her childhood memories being lived by the younger versions of herself (Sydney Lucas as Young Alison, an absolute legend in the making, and Emily Skeggs as Middle Alison (both Tony nominees)). She laughs along with us as she sees her little self and her little brothers stage a hilarious musical commercial for the fun home. Watching little kids pop out of caskets and dance on them is shocking and hilarious and the happiest time of the heavy show. She smiles along with us at the most poignant moments in her life, like when her younger self, always yearning for contact with her father, goes ‘flying’, balancing on Bruce’s feet as he lies down with his legs up, a happy memory of the best of their relationship that remains untarnished. Just thinking about that moment makes me cry.
Young Alison’s relationship with her father is the crux of this story, and it’s a wonder. You clearly see that they have a bond but one that is easily strained, especially when she pushes his rigid lines and rules. She doesn’t want to wear barrettes or dresses, but he can’t allow the blurring of gender boundaries, an obvious result of his hidden side and the shame he feels at not being what he feels he’s supposed to be. Their beautiful house is decorated perfectly with antiques and museum-worthy furniture that he dictates be positioned exactly as he says. He controls fastidiously anything he can because he can’t control himself or his urges as he believes he should. And you see all this so well in the subtle and poignant portrayal of Bruce by Michael Cerveris, the great. His Tony win was completely deserved; his portrayal is beautiful and crushing and I was rooting for him even though he’s a past winner (I am usually socialist in my awards decisions but not for him). His nuanced Bruce makes you feel terrible for his tragic persona even when his inability to control his urges leads him to make terrible decisions, like leaving his little kids alone in a NYC apartment so he can go cruising, or having flings with his underage high school students. It’s this loving but lacking relationship with his young daughter that makes it so hard to watch as it strains further, as she grows and becomes more self aware as a college student. Middle Alison accepts and embraces her personality and her sexuality as a young lesbian, and with this evolution her relationship with her father weakens, because he can never accept himself as his daughter has learned to do. Her coming out is barely acknowledged by her family, not out of disrespect or denial but because it would shatter the very fragile world her parents strived to keep balanced. And yes, her mother (Judy Kuhn) was aware and struggled her whole life to keep quiet and pretend that everything was fine.
Bruce and Alison’s final encounter is so perfectly and tragically portrayed as a silent car ride, with Alison, the grown-up who never got to spend time with her father, taking over the memory from Middle Alison. Beth Malone tearfully sings to her former self to say something to her father before the chance is gone, yelling to hurry up before the ride is over, as she knows in hindsight that it soon will be.
This story would work as a play, sure, but the music makes it so much more felt and heart-breaking. One of the best songs, “Ring of Keys”, is a startled realization that little Alison can dress however she wants, when she sees “an old-school butch”, as her older self remembers and explains (and as CBS/the FCC f-ing had them change on their Tony Awards performance because I guess some Americans aren’t okay with the word butch???!!!). Sydney’s performance of this song is so thoughtful and natural and incredible that it’s hard to believe she’s a child. No child actor has ever been this talented in history. It’s why she was considered the front-runner for the Tony Awards. Her fiercest competition was thought to be not from winner Ruthie Ann Miles (for “The King & I”) but from the actress who plays her mother, the great Judy Kuhn. Quiet, clearly long-suffering, she surprises us when she tells her college aged daughter about her father’s secret and that she’s known for, well, for “Days & Days & Days”, as her astounding, stunning big song goes. She freaking kills it, sharing how hard it has been to silently let her husband dictate and destroy their lives and how she sat by and watched for so long as nothing changed. In just one song, Kuhn defines and redefines her entire character’s story and adds new layers of wrenching emotion to the show as a whole. It must be such a pleasure to play a complex character for once (Kuhn originated the thankless role of Cosette in the original Broadway production of “Les Miserables”).
“Fun Home” is a flawless show that in only 100 minutes presents such depth and range of emotion and experience and it is all completely spell-binding. That it won the Tony Award shows that audiences and musical theatre as a genre are both ready to be treated with respect and given art that is worthy of being called art. (Of course, last night’s premature closure of “The Visit” argues in the opposite direction but we can’t win every battle.) I hope everyone sees it, learns from it, and remembers it as a benchmark for future shows. This is the direction Broadway needs to move in, and it’s a relief that people seem to accept that.
“Fun Home” is based on the graphic novel of the same name by Alison Bechdel. If that name sounds familiar, it’s probably because you’ve heard of the Bechdel Test for movies: when two female characters are in a scene together and talk about something other than a man, it passes. (Movies rarely pass this test.) So Bechdel is professionally a very noteworthy modern voice. Her personal story, on the other hand, is the basis for the novel and the show; Tony winner Lisa Kron wrote the show’s book based tightly on its source material. It chronicles Alison’s upbringing in a small country town of Pennsylvania, from when she’s a little kid discovering herself and her sexuality; to when she’s a college student accepting who she is while learning more about her disciplined and particular father; to the modern-day adult looking back on her relationship with her father. Bruce Bechdel, a very rigid and exacting man, hid his own homosexuality his entire life. The story is told from grown-up Alison’s perspective as she looks back on her childhood and tries to come to grips with her father’s suicide (not a spoiler, real person, point of show). So, yeah, not the most expected story for a Broadway musical, but it works so well that you’ll be questioning your assumptions about everything, not just musical theatre.
Grown-up Alison (played by a superb Beth Malone (Tony nominee)) takes us on a tour through her memories of her younger years, as she tries to accurately recall the memories to draw, as her comics were what helped her deal with her complicated relationship with her father. As she revisits her childhood museum-like home, the funeral home her family ran (hence the title, what they referred to it as, the ‘fun home’), and different moments with her family, we watch with her as she witnesses her childhood memories being lived by the younger versions of herself (Sydney Lucas as Young Alison, an absolute legend in the making, and Emily Skeggs as Middle Alison (both Tony nominees)). She laughs along with us as she sees her little self and her little brothers stage a hilarious musical commercial for the fun home. Watching little kids pop out of caskets and dance on them is shocking and hilarious and the happiest time of the heavy show. She smiles along with us at the most poignant moments in her life, like when her younger self, always yearning for contact with her father, goes ‘flying’, balancing on Bruce’s feet as he lies down with his legs up, a happy memory of the best of their relationship that remains untarnished. Just thinking about that moment makes me cry.
Young Alison’s relationship with her father is the crux of this story, and it’s a wonder. You clearly see that they have a bond but one that is easily strained, especially when she pushes his rigid lines and rules. She doesn’t want to wear barrettes or dresses, but he can’t allow the blurring of gender boundaries, an obvious result of his hidden side and the shame he feels at not being what he feels he’s supposed to be. Their beautiful house is decorated perfectly with antiques and museum-worthy furniture that he dictates be positioned exactly as he says. He controls fastidiously anything he can because he can’t control himself or his urges as he believes he should. And you see all this so well in the subtle and poignant portrayal of Bruce by Michael Cerveris, the great. His Tony win was completely deserved; his portrayal is beautiful and crushing and I was rooting for him even though he’s a past winner (I am usually socialist in my awards decisions but not for him). His nuanced Bruce makes you feel terrible for his tragic persona even when his inability to control his urges leads him to make terrible decisions, like leaving his little kids alone in a NYC apartment so he can go cruising, or having flings with his underage high school students. It’s this loving but lacking relationship with his young daughter that makes it so hard to watch as it strains further, as she grows and becomes more self aware as a college student. Middle Alison accepts and embraces her personality and her sexuality as a young lesbian, and with this evolution her relationship with her father weakens, because he can never accept himself as his daughter has learned to do. Her coming out is barely acknowledged by her family, not out of disrespect or denial but because it would shatter the very fragile world her parents strived to keep balanced. And yes, her mother (Judy Kuhn) was aware and struggled her whole life to keep quiet and pretend that everything was fine.
Bruce and Alison’s final encounter is so perfectly and tragically portrayed as a silent car ride, with Alison, the grown-up who never got to spend time with her father, taking over the memory from Middle Alison. Beth Malone tearfully sings to her former self to say something to her father before the chance is gone, yelling to hurry up before the ride is over, as she knows in hindsight that it soon will be.
This story would work as a play, sure, but the music makes it so much more felt and heart-breaking. One of the best songs, “Ring of Keys”, is a startled realization that little Alison can dress however she wants, when she sees “an old-school butch”, as her older self remembers and explains (and as CBS/the FCC f-ing had them change on their Tony Awards performance because I guess some Americans aren’t okay with the word butch???!!!). Sydney’s performance of this song is so thoughtful and natural and incredible that it’s hard to believe she’s a child. No child actor has ever been this talented in history. It’s why she was considered the front-runner for the Tony Awards. Her fiercest competition was thought to be not from winner Ruthie Ann Miles (for “The King & I”) but from the actress who plays her mother, the great Judy Kuhn. Quiet, clearly long-suffering, she surprises us when she tells her college aged daughter about her father’s secret and that she’s known for, well, for “Days & Days & Days”, as her astounding, stunning big song goes. She freaking kills it, sharing how hard it has been to silently let her husband dictate and destroy their lives and how she sat by and watched for so long as nothing changed. In just one song, Kuhn defines and redefines her entire character’s story and adds new layers of wrenching emotion to the show as a whole. It must be such a pleasure to play a complex character for once (Kuhn originated the thankless role of Cosette in the original Broadway production of “Les Miserables”).
“Fun Home” is a flawless show that in only 100 minutes presents such depth and range of emotion and experience and it is all completely spell-binding. That it won the Tony Award shows that audiences and musical theatre as a genre are both ready to be treated with respect and given art that is worthy of being called art. (Of course, last night’s premature closure of “The Visit” argues in the opposite direction but we can’t win every battle.) I hope everyone sees it, learns from it, and remembers it as a benchmark for future shows. This is the direction Broadway needs to move in, and it’s a relief that people seem to accept that.
“Macbeth” at the Royal Shakespeare Company: Stop Trying to Modernize Billy and Just Let the Genius Be
IT’S THEATRE THURSDAY! Today we are talking about ‘Macbeth’ at the Royal Shakespeare Company Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. I KNOW!
To celebrate Jesus’s zombification this past week, my family took a wee little trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of that other influential man, William Shakespeare, or as I call him endearingly, Billy Shakes. We visited the wee little house where he was born and grew up, and the not so wee cottage where his future wife, Anne Hathaway (not that one) grew up down the road, as well as the truly authentic Ye Olde Souvenir Shop of yore where my mom could buy magnets of Meghan Markle. But that’s all for a different post. Today is Theatre Thursday, and so we will talk about the most exciting thing to me about visiting Stratford – seeing a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Our dates coincided with their performance of Macbeth, which despite reading a lot and knowing in various inspired-by forms, I’ve never seen performed as written. Exciting! Guess what, Macbeth is forked up. Like reals forked up. It’s so gory and troubling and violent and creepy. That Billy tho.
To celebrate Jesus’s zombification this past week, my family took a wee little trip to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the birthplace of that other influential man, William Shakespeare, or as I call him endearingly, Billy Shakes. We visited the wee little house where he was born and grew up, and the not so wee cottage where his future wife, Anne Hathaway (not that one) grew up down the road, as well as the truly authentic Ye Olde Souvenir Shop of yore where my mom could buy magnets of Meghan Markle. But that’s all for a different post. Today is Theatre Thursday, and so we will talk about the most exciting thing to me about visiting Stratford – seeing a performance by the Royal Shakespeare Company. Our dates coincided with their performance of Macbeth, which despite reading a lot and knowing in various inspired-by forms, I’ve never seen performed as written. Exciting! Guess what, Macbeth is forked up. Like reals forked up. It’s so gory and troubling and violent and creepy. That Billy tho.
If you don’t know, Macbeth tells the story of this guy named Macbeth who is close to the king and calls everyone cousin and his wife is cray and he is visited by three prophetic witches who tell him that he will become king while reciting names of Olsen Twins direct-to-video movies. Macbeth is like okay I guess I’ll kill the king so I can become king, even though he’s not next in line of succession but bully for him, the king’s children flee, wisely assuming that whoever killed the king will likely go after them, the princes. Macbeth becomes all consumed by murderous ambition and keeps killing anyone who might figure out his evil deeds or get in his way and it’s prettayyy prettayyy scary. He kills or orders to be killed guards and waitstaff and his best friend and poor Macduff’s entire family, even the little baby (and, in this production, the wife was pregnant again). He’s a bad guy. And his wife is a bad lady. At first she talks shit about how they should totally kill whoever they need to in order to rule Scotland, no big deal what a good plan, but she also makes passing comments about how she would happily kill babies if they were suckling at her breast and you’re like wait what, the fuck did you just say? So a lot of Shakespeare scholars think that she’s probably killed babies that she had and didn’t want, which is a whole other thing we don’t need to talk about, but suffice it to say that she starts out at a pretty high level of evil and doesn’t have far to go in order to become completely crayballs bananapants real quick.
This production of Macbeth attempted to modernize it just a wee little bit, by performing the original text (I mean thank god; no one coming to the RSC wants to hear anything but the original text) but with the actors dressed in modern attire: gowns at the dinners, regular suits, and the kingsmen and army people wearing camo and bulletproof vests during battle scenes. It was unnecessary. I understand the desire to put your own stamp on a production of a play that has been performed innumerable times, but there’s no need to update Shakespeare. I mean it’s Shakespeare. It’s been performed a billion trillion times because it is pretty solid as is. And if you are going to try to modernize it, changing up the costumes is a half-assed attempt that really isn’t going to cut it. Go big or stick to what’s foolproof. But don’t go big if you are the Royal Shakespeare Company because people are coming to see og Shakespeare, you know? Just do it og. The few set pieces were also modern: desk chairs, dinner set, water cooler, &c. I don’t actually get the water cooler bit, because that and a few waiting-room style chairs made an area look like, well, a hospital waiting room, and at first I thought it was going to be directed to make it look like all the action was just inside a deranged person’s head, and I was all ‘hey I liked this better when it starred Alan Cumming on Broadway’ and while there are indeed two deranged persons onstage, there was never anything hinting at it being a mental patient’s hallucination or anything like that.
But forget everything I’ve said so far. Really, the only thing you need to know was that they had the witches portrayed by three little girls in pajamas and slippers carrying creepy baby dolls and it was the CREEPIEST FORKING THING YOU’VE EVER SEEN. Like, the witches are already scary. Little girls in horror movies are the scariest things. And baby dolls of the sort they were carrying are beyond terrifying. You put them all together and what do you get, the most bloodcurdling rendition of the witches in the history of time. NOT OKAY. NOT APPROVED. Their tiny little voices in unison will give me nightmares for years.
A big other directing decision that I understand but highly disapprove of was the use of a digital timer right in the middle of the stage, counting down two hours from when Macbeth kills the king until Macbeth himself dies (do we need spoiler warnings? you’ve had 400 years). It’s saying something lofty about how we have limited time and everything is a matter of time and time is of the essence or WHATEVER but all I could think was how on earth did that entire scene take only 4 minutes? what time do you think it stops at for intermission? is it going to keep running through intermission or do I really have an hour and 40 minutes left? wait what just happened I was too busy watching the seconds tick? So, yeah, it was incredibly distracting and everyone I was with and everyone we spoke to at intermission agreed that it was too distracting for what it was worth. It made the play seem longer than it is and it took me out of it. It’s hard enough to understand the Elizabethan language without having your attention spar with a distracting clock.
The first act did drag a big even aside from the timer situation. Maybe because there wasn’t enough of Lady Macbeth, as the actress playing her, Niamh Cusack, was the strongest in the cast. Maybe my wee little brain just needed the time to acclimate to the language; it’s been a while since my last Shakespearean outing. Also I was counting the minutes (well, tracking via the timer) until I could yell at my dad for whispering. Also the person behind us was super sick and coughing the entire time and I couldn’t wait until the lights came up and I could say ‘hey did you mean to go to the hospital because you went to the wrong place.’ The second act was much more captivating as all the shit went to shit and as you felt the comeuppance of our leading evildoers getting closer and closer. You really wanted them to get comeupped; they’re REALLY bad people. I thought the actor playing Macduff, Edward Bennett, did a fantastic job with his scene when he finds out about his family. What he did by simply repeating the word ‘all’ over and over with clearly changing emotions and realizations was quite moving. And our leading man, Christopher Eccleston, was no slouch either. He did seem to be ramped up the entire time, with a Macbeth that operated at or above a certain level of intensity and never dipped below it, so I was kind of like ahh chill dude the whole time, but I suppose that Macbeth never should dip below a high level of intensity anyway so it was a good performance. It’s just so hard to watch this show with anything other than a cringey feeling of ‘ahhh just someone anyone please kill these monsters already!’ Which they do, yayy.
The best part of this production was honestly the actor playing the porter. Michael Hodgson could have easily been a character in Beetlejuice, or maybe Addams Family Values, with his creepy but hilarious manner and his deadpan, matter-of-fact delivery. He was seated onstage (near the water cooler) pretty much the whole time, so he was almost an all-knowing character. I loved when he was eating a little snack pack of something while talking to some murderers, and one of them snatched it out of his hand, and he just pulled out another little pack from his pocket. I love when someone came out looking for Macbeth, who was cowering in a corner, and the porter pointed over to him. But the best was his subtle tracking of Macbeth’s victims, by drawing chalk tallies on the brick wall at the back. Well, it was subtle in Act I. In Act II, he spends most of his time tallying up all the deaths, I imagine to come, as the battles get under way. Hundreds and hundreds of chalk marks cover the walls in a pretty dramatically effective use of the porter’s time, though not as fun as when he was talking.
As I said, I haven’t seen a different straight production, so I’m not sure if our ending was special or regular, but it did seem special. Maybe it’s because I just saw a production of Pippin where they use what’s called the ‘Theo ending’, where the little boy playing the little boy actor playing Theo comes back onstage after the regular ending and hints to the audience that maybe one day he would be ready to take Pippin’s place. It’s really disturbing and it works really well. Here, they did a similar thing that made me think of the Theo ending, something I’ll call the Fleance ending because oh my god, that name. So one of the witches’ prophesies was that Banquo’s heirs would inherit the throne after Macbeth is king, yet after Macbeth’s death, og King Duncan’s eldest son, Malcolm, is rightfully crowned. So when does Banquo’s son Fleance get in on that to fulfill the prophesy? Usually audiences just assume that at some point, the crown falls to him and his line. Here, however, Fleance comes onstage while Malcolm is being crowned, and stares at him, and then draws his sword menacingly. Hella spine-chilling, especially from someone named Fleance.
All in all, it was a very solid production, acting-wise. All the stuff that’s supposed to be in there – the text, the acting, the ability to be creative with stage directions like that ending – was good. It was the unnecessary bits – the modern costumes, the modern ‘setting’ that was half-assed, the gd m*f*ing timer that should have been cut from day 1 of rehearsals – that was extraneous and hurt the production, I feel. Yet there’s only so much damage you can do to a show like this, so overall I still enjoyed it verily.
AUDIENCE
Ugh that person coughing behind us was really annoying. It was like nonstop. Also I still can’t believe my dad was the one talking. Otherwise it was fine I think! I guess people who go to Shakespeare don’t need to check their phones every ten minutes.
THEATRE
The toilets for the mezzanine/dress circle NEVER had a line! It was epic! So well designed. I can’t say for the stalls.
It’s about 2 hours and 20 minutes with intermission, so it’s a pretty short show, actually. One of the ushers told me, when I asked about the length, ‘Oh we love Macbeth! It’s so short!’
