I was in two minds whether to pay out £22.50 to see a recorded performance of the Donmar's Macbeth. Instead of the obligatory headphones for the audience in the tiny but wonderful 251 seat theatre, the sound has been rescoped for cinemas. So instead of Macbeth whispering into your ears, here David Tennant is as close as he can be berating you in ultra close up. Just as if he was speaking directly to you personally. Scary. Something you would have missed in the theatre. There are other sound effects that are sometimes fine and sometimes a distraction. The stage is a bare raised white platform (no space or even a proper stage at the Donmar) so not unexpected. But at the back is a glazed screen with a raised platform behind. This is visually stunning, and I guess would have been amazing in the theatre. Sometimes a mirror, sometimes crucial action takes place in varied lighting. On occasions a boy appears behind the glass, perhaps the couple's dead son? Unforgettable.
Back to the reworked sound. At the start I wondered if I would hear anything (despite my hearing loss, I get nearly every word in the cinema). However, after fifteen minutes I gradually became accustomed to the speech and from then on it was fine. David Tennant is a wiry, angry and sulky Macbeth. With is native Scottish accent, we get the full works. The London Standard liked his "most emotionally committed" performance. This is not a nice man. I was glad he was getting his comeuppance at the end. Cush Jumbo is a surprising good Lady Macbeth, urging on her husband to notoriety. However, the best performance of all, for me, was from Cal MacAninch as Macbeth's friend Banquo. Unfortunately he gets murdered early on. I also liked Moyo Akande (they are both Scottish) as Ross.
But lets get on to the faults which were why I hesitated in seeing the play. Don't get me started on The Porter. I have nothing against Jatinder Singh Randhawa and many people loved his performance. But we get a few minutes of stand-up which is not my cup of tea. The words of the bard are jettisoned for his made up banter with the front row. Totally unfunny, and I didn't see many smiles from the audience. The Porter is meant to be drunk and funny. This was not. Whose ever idea it was to scrap the funniest lines in the whole of Shakespeare should be banned from his plays for life. The ad-lib was an embarrassment and the worst ever piece of staging in my history of watching every Shakespeare play. They even cut the scene that follows in the porter's conversation with Macduff.
And where were the witches (or weird sisters). We get some atmospherics instead. Now that was quite spooky. Perhaps "double, double, toil and trouble" was somewhere in the smoke and soundscope, but I didn't hear it. These directors just want to do something different for the sake of it. As I said before, the sound was up and down. There is a dance early on, but then nothing. Strange. Only one of the murders that Macbeth commits or arranges happens on stage, that of the boy. There was no cutting here as his neck is broken with a snap. I heard that alright. The performance comes in under two hours, some of the cuts are disappointing. We never see Banquo's ghost, one of the crucial parts in the play. However, I'm glad I did go. The other three people in the cinema were behind me, so in the fourth row I felt it was all done for me. Now that is something.
I just love the Donmar Warehouse. I thought I had been there maybe two or three times but in fact it was seven. Including when being an arms length away from Gillian Anderson in 2009. Everyone should go once.
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