Great Scott!(ish) play – that was certainly something to see

Theatre
Macbeth
Palace Courtyard, Valletta

Every year, hundreds of Maltese students complain about the difficulty and uselessness of studying Shakespeare – a playwright whose work they are introduced to, often against much protestation, during those dreaded O Level years.

The set play on the syllabus is Macbeth and every year, countless frazzled teachers try hard to convince them that the play is worth the read and the analysis. Therein lies the problem. The beauty of Shakespeare’s work – that which has firmly placed him in the canon of English literature, lies in the power of the language used. Not as a script, but as an interpretation of the script on stage. Shakespeare was a businessman as well as an artist – he knew what quality was required for his product to sell; and so does TNT Theatre Britain, whose production of Macbeth last Saturday proved to be a near-perfect performance.

Directed by Paul Stebbings, with an appropriately atmospheric original score by Paul Flush, this particular production is part of the 2011/2012 Castle Tour – where the company travels the breath of Europe, touring and performing the play in the perfect setting – palaces and castles in different countries.

Mr Stebbings’ excellent direction was marred only by the slightly too-long introductory scene where the three witches rhythmically create a rise in the foreboding and anticipation of evil deeds to come – otherwise the effective use of wood tapping and drumming and finely choreographed danza de le muerte styled movements worked so well that Eric Tresser-Lavigne, Hannah McPake and Louise Lee, as the witches, were frightening in an eerily mesmeric way.

What was so technically refined and a sight to marvel at in itself, was the use of character doubling in the performance, where Mr Tresser-Lavigne, Ms McPake and Ms Lee also played the Porter, Lady Macbeth and Malcolm respectively, while Ms Lee played a third character – Lady MacDuff too.

The lightening-quick changes which all three actors had to make were enough to keep the audience guessing as to whether there were actually just three actors or several – because their ability to adapt to the different characters they played was flawless.

Ms Lee had a particularly long list of minor characters to play – which she did incredibly well, while Mr Tressier-Lavigne’s Porter bagged plenty of laughs in a scene which, although interpreted literally did not detract from the play’s overall weight and served its original purpose of levity to the full. As witches, they were a cohesive and formidable team, fillingGareth Fordred’s Macbeth with awe, wrath and fear. Mr Fordred’s Macbeth grappled with the rollercoaster of emotions which plague him – presenting the audience with a genuine dilemma of a good man in whose soul the seeds of evil have taken root.

His dynamic with Ms McPake’s manipulative and forceful Lady Macbeth spiralled into the self-destructive relationship which ultimately consumes their humanity and supplants it with greed, tyranny and guilt. David Chittenden’s Banquo was noble and poised, contrasting well with Mr Fordred’s increasingly volatile Macbeth, while Roger Clark’s MacDuff had a solemnity which befitted the character but led me to find his other, lesser roles, like the captain and several courtiers/soldiers more engaging because of his versatility.

Versatility was indeed key to this performance because the cast of six managed, while struggling against the unbearable heat of that still evening, to create a slick and tightly presented spectacle – of an uncut Shakespeare play. The excellent clarity of diction was a real gem – the audience could hear and understand every word – and the interpretation chosen was so wisely directed and carefully crafted that one could see exactly why Shakespeare had chosen to use the words that he did. It was a performance that exalted the language and gave it its proper place in the order of theatrical merit on a stage stripped bare of fussy Elizabethan costume and complicated scenery, with simple rotating columns designed by Arno Scholz, which could be adapted to every scene and Juliane Kasprzik’s cleverly designed costumes which facilitated the rapid changes which maintaining the essence of the period.

It is a credit to Mr Stebbings’ direction and the entire cast’s professionalism that TNT’s Macbeth may well have been the best classic, canonical drama to be presented to Maltese audiences in the 2010/2011 season – closing it on a very high note.