Many years ago as a young foreign correspondent I was reporting what seemed to me a dramatic debate in the Dutch parliament, when one of its members took me aside and gave me a bit of advice. 'You may think you've seen lots of blood on the carpet, but if you look more closely you'll find it's only tomato ketchup.' These words of wisdom sprang to mind not long after the start of Lucy Bailey's Macbeth gorefest at the Globe. Whole factories, perhaps even whole industrial estates, are working overtime to supply fake blood in supersized containers for this production. Up and down the land, worried stage managers are scouring the internet for fresh supplies, after rumours that Ms Bailey has cornered the lot.
As I commented in my review of her Globe production of Timon of Athens two years ago, I like directors who begin with the text and work outwards. Ms Bailey does the opposite, latching on to an artistic concept and then shoehorning the play to fit. In Timon, it was an aviary, so the audience was surrounded by bird-like creatures hopping around on a huge net. This time, she's decided the play is all about Hell, so once again the production is over-designed to fit a schematic interpretation which has very little to do with Shakespeare. There's a black net stretched over half the standing area, so that groundlings can stick their heads through, allowing them the sensation of their bodies being in some kind of underworld. Corpses are despatched downwards and occasionally rise up, waving their bloody arms as if in a low-budget horror movie about the undead.
Hell, of course, is being surrounded by other people, especially teenagers, and there were lots of them at the Globe for this matinee on a sunny June afternoon. A bell tolls and bagpipes play as the unwashed, semi-clothed porter (Frank Scantori) emerges to banter with the audience. It's hard to hear what he is saying, but he is probably asking for soap, which is apparently in very short supply in Lucy Bailey's version of early medieval Scotland. When the play gets going it's difficult to see much, with black costumes that don't stand out against a background of black drapes on a stage wreathed in smoke. For this particular matinee the combination of bright sunlight and smoke made the acting area almost invisible for part of the afternoon. I thought for a moment the teenagers all around me might start shrieking or creating a din, as happened the last time I went to a Macbeth matinee. That was in an execrable production a few years ago by (I think) Edward Hall, starring Sean Bean. But there were no teenage shrieks of fear or horror, and the only disruption I could detect was caused by a succession of elderly folk keeling over from too much sun.
As with Lucy Bailey's Titus Andronicus at the Globe in 2006, the audience cottons on very quickly that there is absolutely nothing to be frightened of. When we acted Shakespeare at school, getting to use fake blood was always the dramatic highlight of the show, with the meaning of the text coming a long way behind. Lucy Bailey follows this tried and tested principle. The slaughter and torture begins with the Thane of Cawdor having his tongue cut out as a prelude to his execution, and ends with the bloodstained body of Lady Macbeth being carried on stage not once but twice for our delectation. In the intervening two and three quarter hours there are countless stabbings and disembowellings, but none of this Grand Guignol contains anything that would upset anyone of a nervous disposition. PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS IS A GRUESOME PRODUCTION OF A BRUTAL PLAY say the signs pinned to the doors of the theatre. Oh yes? What Ms Bailey seems not to understand is the law of diminishing returns. As readers of this blog will know, I am fond of quoting the great Peter Hall's maxim LESS IS MORE (something which his son Edward also has difficulty grasping). That's why the blinding of Gloucester in King Lear is so horrifying. It's a scene I always find it hard to watch, because it's unique in the play. Here, by contrast, the blood flows in industrial quantities, producing only yawns. We all know it's ketchup.
However, I have an objection to this production which goes rather deeper than the over-use of fake blood. What I love in Shakespeare is his ambiguity, and the way his words can stimulate the imagination. This is precisely what Declan Donnellan (a really great director) demonstrated in his production of Macbeth for Cheek by Jowl earlier this year. In his production, all the weapons were imaginary. But in Lucy Bailey's version, when Macbeth says he sees a dagger before him, the dagger is there. Ditto Banquo's ghost, dripping blood all over the Macbeths' dinner party. There is no danger here of the audience being asked to employ their imagination, because we can be certain Ms Bailey will have done it all for us. There is only one permissible interpretation of the play, and woe betide any audience member who has the temerity to imagine it differently. Realism is an odd thing in the theatre; the most effective illusions are created by shows like War Horse which avoid it or use a kind of visual shorthand. After a minute or two, the brain clicks into gear. We feel that the horse is real and we don't see the puppetmasters moving its legs and head. This doesn't work when a director drenches the stage in fake blood in a fruitless quest for realism so that the audience's imagination can't get to work.
Not surprisingly, the cast have little opportunity in this production to show what they can do. Elliot Cowan is pretty unmemorable as Macbeth, and Laura Rogers as Lady Macbeth seems to be struggling against the excesses of the production. She has her moments, but after her unforgettable performance as Celia in last year's As You Like It I have to say my high hopes were a little dashed. Julius D'Silva carries real authority as Ross, and Frank Scantori's porter shows how to make a silk purse out of a cameo part. The rest of the cast mostly struggle to create something meaningful in a production where the director is clearly more interested in developing her own ideas than in exploring Shakespeare's words. I should add for the sake of fairness that the audience seemed to love it.
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