Every time I see Macbeth all I can think is “wow these people love murder more than I remember.” I’m not new to the play or anything; in fact, I debated seeing this production at all because I’ve seen the Scottish play a few times too many in recent years so I’m sort of sick of it (sorry Billy). But that debate died off quickly (like everyone in this show!) because I had to see our generation’s cinema queen as Lady Macbeth. Yep, this production stars SAOIRSE RONAN. Her first name is VERY hard to type correctly in all caps but she is such a good lil actress. While I prefer her cavorting around colonial New England breaking Little Timmy Cham Cham’s heart than being full-out Arizona Murder Horny as she is here, she does a fine job proving to the UK that she can handle our stages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And wow, does she love murder. Her Lady Macbeth struck me more than the character ever has before as eagerly jumping RIGHT QUICK in for murder. She goes from zero to murder real fast. That god really did replace her milk with gall, as she says, although it’s more pure evil than gall. She hears her husband say two words and then is hundo p ‘OK so we’re doing this!’ Her first monologue is sexual and violent. She is a scary scary sexy lady — they have Sershersh literally writhe around on a bed thinking of how much she loves the idea of murder and power and using murder to gain power and probably vice versa too, that’s how much she writhes. It’s a good thing she doesn’t have a durder because she would definitely murder that durder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a wonderful showing of accessibility, the Almeida had a long weekend of livestream-only performances of this production, which is a) amazing and b) what I saw. I thought the livestream would be of a regular performance, like with an in-person audience too, but it was only livestream. I was sad to not hear a live audience coughing so I could revel in my being home, but without them the creative team got to make a more cinematic version. They took advantage of the opportunity with cameras like right up in everyone’s business, getting all the filmic angles right on stage and lots of close-ups. It made it noticeably different from the in-theatre experience, which a stream should be if possible, as it’s a different medium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Okay so you all know the story of Macbeth, right, like how this Scottish dude is like ‘I wanna be the rulerrrr’ and he asks his wife if she’s up for killing their way to the top because you should never begin a murderous spree for power without your wife’s consent and she breaks out the gold sequins and disco ball and dances around singing ‘livin’ it up on top-ah!’ or something like that (now that would be an interesting version). What really struck me this go-round is how stupid Macbeth is. Like, the witches tell him the prophecy right, that he will be in power? But then he goes and does stuff himself to make that true…which is NOT the point of prophecies. That’s called a self-fulfilling prophecy and that’s a logical FALLACY. If you went to a fortune teller and they were like ‘oh xyz is going to happen’, what kind of jackass then goes and MAKES xyz happen? Who would take it upon themselves to prove a podunk fortune teller to be right? Wouldn’t you test<\/em> their predictions by just sitting back and being like well let’s see how good you are, make that shit happen universe! If you make it happen yourself you are cheating! It does not prove anything! YOU BLEW IT. I want to see the play where this jamoke has three witches tell him what’s going to happen in the future and he goes “oh yeah? PROVE IT” AND THEN DOES NOTHING.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It struck me this go-round that Lady Macbeth is a real Karen who hates reaping the consequences of what she sowed with her shirty behavior. Not since Atonement has Saoirse played a character so purely evil who only realizes her mistaken ways and feels regret when it’s too late. Luckily though her bastard character here dies, whereas in Atonement she got to be old after ruining lives. I’m still mad about that movie and that I don’t have that green dress. Anyway, Macbeth as always teaches us that you really shouldn’t kill your friends, even if you will get to be king. Who wants to be king? Not me. Hashtag abolish the M. (Am I allowed to say that? I’ll delete ‘-onarchy’.) Saoirse when everything goes to shit was very compelling, although I always want to shout “what did you think would happen, Karen?” Really shouldn’t have killed all your friends there! Speaking of, no matter how jaded I am with this play, the scene where Macduff finds out about his family always wrecks me for a good few days. No, a WEEK! A whole week. It’s just so f-ing sad, debilitating. This one was no exception. (Wish I could shout out to the actor but the Alm’s website doesn’t list the cast by character wtf.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for the rest of the cast, they’re all doing a fine job. James McArdle in the title role is solid. Everyone is solid. But for me it’s just another decent production of Macbeth. It’s hard to really set yourself apart from the endless number of strong productions that keep on coming day in day out for the past 400 years, to find something that makes it special. It seemed like another straightforward production, albeit with more modern attire. But according to the Almeida website, there was an attempt at revolutionizing the piece: the action is occurred “a little bit later than now” and “in the ruins of an old theatre”. What do you mean a little later than now, and why? And the ruins of an old theatre? That did not come across at all, nor could I determine the reason for that. And like, why? And like, don’t? The three witches were dressed in suits too, another little piece of the inevitable modernization and distinction process that I wish everyone realized was largely unnecessary and virtually always a downgrade. Also the witches should ALWAYS be played by little girls for maximum creepiness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n INFORMATION<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Macbeth is at the Almeida until November 27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The theatre said it would be 3 hours and 5 minutes but the livestream was 2 hours 50 minutes so that’s fun. Still, a few years ago at the official Billy theatre in Stratford upon Avon it was 2 hours 20 minutes and the ushers were like ‘we love this one because it’s the shortest!’ so where did that extra halfsies come from? Is this Billy’s unrated version?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It’s sold out now, but the livestream options are now over too so if you can’t get in off the waitlist at least you are saving yourself from the unmasked coughers. Go watch Lil Wims on your TV and a different production of Macbeth on a computer at the same time and just like see what happens.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Every time I see Macbeth all I can think is “wow these people love murder more than I remember.” I’m not new to the play or […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,146],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n