MACBETH (The Show Must Go Online)*****

 

By Louise

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAAI_c65nZY

Available until: Indefinitely

Trigger warnings: Blood, death, violence, murder, self-harm, child loss, violence against children and infants. I also noticed intimate noises, animal cannibalism and simulated vomiting.

Megan was supposed to be reviewing this, but we looked at the trigger warnings and we decided she wouldn’t be comfortable with it. I’m reviewing it instead because as it’s a female and non-binary production, it seemed right to have a female or non-binary reviewer. I am also half-Scottish and I support the Scotland football team and I’m happy there’s a very famous play set in Scotland.

If you are worried about anything in the play, you can keep an eye on the chat replay for the warnings. What they didn’t warn us about are the vomit noises from the Porter, even though this is the sixth most common phobia, but it happens at the end of the Porter scene if you wanted to mute that part.

The female/non-binary cast is a really good way of celebrating women and non-binary people because it means women and non-binary people get really good roles, but men aren’t completely excluded or sidelined because they will have other opportunities to act for TSMGO and there are lots of productions of Macbeth which they can be in. I am female, but I don’t really like the idea of being binary because that sounds like there are only two genders and that isn’t true. I would like to say I’m polynary, but only if it doesn’t offend non-binary people.

It’s a brilliant idea to have a female and non-binary cast, but I actually wasn’t really aware of it when I was watching the play. I have seen lots of Shakespeare productions where male roles are played by women and it seems completely normal to me. The point about acting is that people can become someone else. There’s no rule that says the actor who plays Macbeth needs to have experience of murder and I don’t think they need to have experience of being a man either. The only thing that really stood out to me was that Macbeth was played by an incredibly talented actor. And I got to see her!

One thing I really love about this production is the focus on the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. It does cross Macbeth’s mind that he might become King if anything happened to Duncan, but I think he probably wouldn’t have killed anyone without Lady Macbeth. So Lady Macbeth can seem really pushy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean there’s anything wrong with the marriage and this production shows how much they care about each other. Katrina Allen’s Lady Macbeth isn’t pushy at all. It felt like it would really mean so much to her if Macbeth could be King and Maryam Grace’s Macbeth loves her enough to do whatever she asks. Ms Allen and Ms Grace talked in the post-show chat about agreeing that the Macbeths had lost a child recently (Macbeth has no children, but Lady Macbeth has had a baby) and that the characters need something good to happen.

It is amazing to see that kind of depth in their relationship. They both seem vulnerable and desperate. I found myself really wanting them to get through this and find some sort of happiness together… even though I knew they wouldn’t. Both Macbeths seem so scared by what they’ve done after Duncan is killed. Ms Allen makes Lady Macbeth emotional and on the edge all the way through the play. She doesn’t suddenly realise what she’s done and go mad – I think she was suffering all the time and it was more gradual.

I felt similarly about Ms Grace as Macbeth. It felt like his main ambition was to make Lady Macbeth happy again. It can seem like Macbeth goes mad and starts killing everyone who might be in his way, but it wasn’t like that in this production. I think when he hears the warning about Macduff, it might not really be about wanting to keep his place as King, he just wants to get out of this nightmare and stop things from getting worse.

I’ve also always thought, if Macbeth and Lady Macbeth hadn’t killed Duncan, Macbeth might still have been chosen ahead of Malcolm and Donalbain as Duncan’s successor (like in King John when John is chosen as the next King, even though he’s not the next in line by the methods we use now) and he and Lady Macbeth might have had a daughter who lived and grew up to marry Fleance, and Macbeth decided Fleance and his daughter would rule together after he died. That wouldn’t have been nearly such a good story, but it the Witches’ prophecy could have come true without any murders and that makes the story even sadder. Usually at the end, I feel saddest for Macduff, Malcolm and Fleance, but I felt saddest for the Macbeths this time.

The Witches are all really amazing. Dana Demsko, Rebecca Brincat and Jenny Lu have very spooky make-up and costumes and sometimes there was a sort of echo in their voices. They look great on Zoom because you can really see the make-up details. Doireann May White is really good as Malcolm, he doesn’t say much at all to start with but Ms White shows Malcolm’s reactions really well and makes him a really big part of every scene he’s in. Macduff is another character who is quiet at first but becomes really important later and I always felt like Mairin Lee’s Macduff was thinking very carefully about everything and taking it all in. So we know from the start that Macbeth has to beware the Thane of Fife.

TSMGO are so brilliant and it’s sad there aren’t many plays left. I actually feel quite jealous of Megan (not in an Othello way) because she has Macbeth and King Lear and several others to look forward to, but the rest of us are nearly at the end.