The blessing – and the curse – of the Globe is that it is contractually obliged to present a lot of Shakespeare plays. This is, of course, the raison d’etre of Sam Wanamaker’s replica “wooden O” beside the Thames, a venue that delights the tourists and the academics and sometimes struggles to entice a regular theatre-going crowd.
The endless churn of shows from within a self-selectingly narrow strand of the Shakespeare canon (there won’t be many appearances from the likes of Henry VI Part Two) means that the productions can have a somewhat undercooked quality – and this is precisely the issue that prevails here. This Macbeth needed to be left in the oven a little longer to rise successfully.
The headline news is that the three witches are men. Does this add a new level of textual depth and insight – or is it merely a gimmick, a shortcut to attempt to distinguish this Macbeth from myriad others? It’s the latter, unfortunately; director Abigail Graham has a number of intriguing ideas that remain stubbornly centrifugal rather than coalescing into a convincing whole.
In her modern-dress production, the witches at least make for a striking spectacle: they wear white PPE suits and sinister bird masks, forming a sharp contrast to the beige chinos and trouser suits aesthetic of Queen – yep – Duncan’s court. When they incant the “double double, toil and trouble” speech, they make vigorous use of a food blender.
The great blessing is that Max Bennett is a charismatic Macbeth, conveying a magnetic sense of presence the moment he and Banquo (Fode Simbo) arrive wearing combat fatigues and toting machine guns. Bennett makes this good-soldier-turned-bad-king kinetic and pumped; no wonder he brushes aside Matti Houghton’s Lady Macbeth as soon as she becomes an encumbrance to Project Preserve Perpetual Power.
Graham fascinatingly foregrounds children here: when Duncan (Tamzin Griffin) arrives at the castle of the childless Macbeths, three young nippers (the sons of Banquo, Siward and Macduff, the last sporting a Spiderman costume) are onstage to greet her. This underscores the fact that the line of succession matters: even if the Macbeths’ reign had been a blessed one, they have no heir to follow. Regicide uproots the natural order and this upending is symbolised by a sinister sprayed silver tree that hovers over the stage.
The witches make innovatively gruesome use of catering trolleys; this is especially effective when the trolleys are paraded around bearing body bags during the escalating slaughter of Act Five. There is a strikingly ritualistic air to these short scenes: Macbeth will fight fearsomely to the end but his destiny is pre-determined. Order, both natural and civic, will reassert itself eventually.
In rep until 28 Oct (020 7401 9919, shakespearesglobe.com)
