Word: macbeths
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...excellent production of Macbeth is marred slightly by a very understandable trait: invention. Since next to Hamlet, Macbeth contains the largest number of familiar episodes and speeches, any company that approaches it is challenged constantly, and most feel the need to perform each moment better than ever before. Or, at least, differently. Although the Old Vic creation is always interesting, it is occasionally a bit obvious, and calls unwanted attention to details by superfluous inventiveness...
...worst innovation, is probably the new dimension of sex, which was evidently thought fitting for Lady Macbeth. She oils her way up and down Macbeth too physically. The porter's frightening over-eagerness to be a buffoon is also distressing, despite his amusing gestures. And white robes, worn by Macbeth and his consort, the morning after Duncan's murder, are a bit obvious. However, the production should not be criticized for its frequent innovation in punctuation of famous speeches--"There would have been time for such a word tomorrow. And tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in..." or "If it were done...
...meaning . . . it is blasphemy against the human spirit. . . . Furthermore, the language simply does not communicate to the listener." Several members of the audience rightly objected; for hope is one thing that is never extinguished in the play. One Harvard senior compared Pozzo's last speech with a speech in Macbeth for communicative power. Mr. Myerberg then had Rex Ingram deliver the speech again. It was obvious afterwards that Mr. Durgin was the only one present to whom the words communicated nothing...
...such harder tasks as countering the terrific fourth-act drop in pressure, or achieving truly tragic stature for Macbeth, the production failed. Paul Rogers' Macbeth was a heroic enough figure of evil, and at moments a man of intense, Hamlet-like imagination. But the difference between the two men that Saintsbury noted-that Macbeth can never leave off whereas Hamlet can never begin, so that Macbeth is increasingly ruthless and consistently unremorseful-is what makes Macbeth not easily tragic. Rogers could not convey what might make him so: an awful sense of alienation, of that
Coral Browne's Lady Macbeth also lacked depth, and failed in the sleepwalking scene. Yet, if theatrical, she was often commandingly so. And the two together went far beyond mere partnership in crime. Theirs was a fierce connubial bond that helped humanize a woman who all but lacks humanity and a man who all but loses...