Shakespeare in the Squares deliver their first winter season with a pantomime-influenced take on Macbeth, seen here at the Actors’ Church
“Double double, toil and trouble”
Trouble indeed – of all the plays to reinvent as a chirpy, audience participation-filled number, Macbeth probably wouldn’t have been your first choice. Which in itself is a pleasingly bold statement of intent from director Sioned Jones. Her production for Shakespeare in the Squares heralds their inaugural winter season, thankfully playing indoor venues as opposed to the garden spaces they occupy in the summer months (this year’s All’s Well That Ends Well was a real treat). But what works in the relaxed and more forgiving atmosphere of the summery open air doesn’t necessarily translate into chilly church aisles and the play really is the thing.
An unconventional approach to Shakespeare is one of the key ways in which to appeal through an ever-crowded marketplace, particularly where the Scottish play is concerned, but the flipside to that is that it is that much easier to thoroughly disconcert your audience rather than dazzling them with a different take. With its multi-roling ensemble (eg Lady Macbeth also plays Banquo, Macduff Junior and Siward), quick changes aplenty and the fourth wall shattered with audience members pressed into supporting roles, call and response lines, high-fives and more, this certainly is something different, but quite what it is I’m not altogether sure is something good.
A crucial point was the entirely unforgiving acoustics of the Actors’ Church which, combined with the frenetic pace of this production at 90 minutes straight through, rendered far too much of the play basically unintelligible. This lack of clarity would be fatal to anyone not familiar with the text, even as brusquely as it is treated here. Another key aspect is the jarring lurches of tone from the humourous schtick that Jones emphasises with comedy murderers and dragged-up fortune teller witches to the trauma and tragedy that the plot essentially encompasses – as Lady Macduff mugs to the audience just before she’s offed, you’re really not sure what to think.
Perhaps appropriately for the coming season, the overall feel is one of pantomime-like conviviality and whilst there is undoubtedly a place for that (I’m not entirely Scrooge…honest), I just don’t believe Macbeth is the right vehicle for it. The much-missed Propeller boys were experts in folding in anarchic elements and music into their productions but they were always so tonally sure. Here, there’s too much conflict between what the production is trying to do and what the play is telling us and it is a fatal mismatch. What next? King Lear with a kickline? All that said, the ensemble of Gavin Malloy, Cathy Walker, Sam D’Leon, Mohab Kaddah and Molly Walker work enthusiastically and tirelessly to entertain, it’s the directorial choices that don’t work for me.
