MACBETH
Shakespeare's Globe
28.04.10


In the early days of the Globe, though production styles varied, the staging was almost always one that Burbage – the first ever Macbeth – would recognize were he to return.
Not any more. And for this Macbeth, the stage is extended out into the yard, and further by a black membrane through which the groundlings can poke their heads. The idea is to emphasise the idea of the underworld. Overhead, two huge concentric rings support black gauzes and chains; crowns, censers and braziers circling above the stage. More hollow crown than wooden O.
This is a dark and bloody production, directed by Lucy Bailey. Soldiers drip with gore, the ghost at the feast appears at the table like a showgirl from some grisly cake. And the porter [Frank Scantori] is the grossest imaginable, relishing every mucky moment.
The witches are powerfully grotesque, with unearthly sounds to underline their influence; they also provide the Apparitions; I liked the music, especially Fleance's gentle song in Act One. The boy has some of the best moments – playfully wearing the crown, escaping up the long ladder to the Heavens above the stage.
In amongst the bleak blackness, the gory pantomime, is a fairly traditional production, with Elliott Cowan a watchable Macbeth, and Laura Rogers slender, sexy but steely as his wife.
But it's the macabre and menace we take away from this infernal world, “smoked with bloody execution”.
Photo by Ellie Kurttz