Friday, December 7, 2012

Macbeth Production

I went to see Macbeth last night in McKenna Theater, and overall I think it was a great show.  The set was amazing, especially the stairs.  It might be my fear of heights talking, but I must say when the characters were running up the stairs and when Lady Macbeth had her sleepwalking sequence walking up&down the stairs at the top, I was so afraid that the stairs would break or that the actors might fall.  The fact that they owned the stage without any fears was impressive to me.  Another thing that impressed me was the fact that the "dead" characters were carried off the stage, and weren't put down until they were completely out of sight.  I'm used to the lights dimming and everyone walks off stage.  This was an interesting detail because it felt more realistic.  The actors did an amazing job with every scene.

I do have a few criticisms, however.  I think the idea of "Macbeth in the Middle-East" was extremely interesting and when Professor Kassel was talking about it during our "Page to Stage" day, I really wanted to see how that was going to work.  I must say I was disappointed, though.  The costumes and the stage were great and set the scene, and there were guns instead of swords, but I think for the most part it was only the setting that felt Middle-Eastern to me.  It didn't really feel "war-like,"  except for the scene in the beginning in which the three innocent people were killed.  That was a scary scene, but I feel like they could have used the setting more and made it more true to reality because it was a brilliant idea. It felt like "Macbeth with a Middle-Eastern backdrop" more than "Present-day Macbeth." I was a little disappointed. 

Also they used the same noise they used for the possession scenes for when the scene was changing.  This threw me off a little because when I heard the noise (why does this sound like conditioning. haha) I thought "Oh no the witches are back"...but it was just the scene switching.

The ending was spectacular though.  I loved the bit where the witches were the only ones left on the stage and they were all possessed.  That was great.  I also liked the fact that Lady Macbeth had her hair down when she was going crazy, which we discussed was a symbol for madness.

The only other issue I had was that I only understood maybe 20% of what they were saying the entire play...that's my own inability to understand Shakespeare's English but it did hinder my enjoyment of the play quite a bit.

All things aside, I thought it was a pretty great show! They should all be very proud.

1 comment:

Jess said...

I completely agree with your criticisms about them using the same noise for the possession scenes and the scene changing. That kind of confused me as well.
I also really liked the ending too. And as far as understanding what they were saying goes, I definitely had to really concentrate on it to get it; and sometimes i felt that the actors could have spoken a little bit clearer but for the most part it was okay.