Macbeth at The Donmar

The first striking thing about this production is that it is almost completely monochrome,  A large white stage with a dark glass backdrop, all of the cast in black or grey, except Lady Macbeth (Cush Jumbo) in glowing white.  This means that you can't miss the blood.

The play opens with a bloodied Macbeth (David Tennant) washing himself clean, bloodying the bowl of water, bringing red into that monochrome colour scheme,  and then we are into the play proper with the disembodied witches swirling around in our ears.   

We were in the cheap seats as usual, but as ever in this intimate theatre it doesn’t make too much difference. Apart from a few times when sight lines didn't work for those of us in the circle, we were so close to the action that we didn't miss much.  This is a tight ensemble cast, all excellent, and I loved the broad Scottishness of it all, from the accents to the music.  This was a fairly short version of the play at 1 hour 55 minutes without an interval and with a relentless pushing forward through bad decisions on top of bad decisions.  I'm always in favour of brevity, although I always enjoy an interval, but I understand the decision to keep the momentum going, and in fact it felt much shorter than the almost two hours.  This version has the Macbeths cool and calculating, logic and reason, ruthless in scheming how to manage events, holding it all together right up to the point where they each crack. The glass backdrop worked beautifully all the way through, largely black against the white stage, but through which we could see scenes happening sometimes, but most effectively where it was used to show the supernatural or maybe just the voices inside of Macbeth’s head hammering against the glass, and sometimes bursting through into the 'real world' of the stage.

One of the notable things about this production is of course the sound, which is all through headphones despite our proximity to the actors and stage.  I will avoid headphones whenever I can so I got a bit grumpy when getting set up.  Was this just going to be a gimmick, all ‘sound and fury .. signifying nothing’, or would it really bring something different. For the first 15 minutes or so I found the headphones quite distancing and so kept taking one ear off just to ground myself back in the room, but after a while I relaxed into it and it did bring a very different experience.  

Could they have done the play without the headphones? Yes. And it would still have been good. But then we wouldn’t have had the proper whispered conversations that could only be heard through the headphones, (I did try removing the headphones to see if I could hear and I couldn’t).   And it also meant that the music could be threaded through really effectively.  One of the most moving bits for me was hearing the murders of the Macduff children deep in my ears, listening to the horror without being able to see.   The headphones did add some distance from what was happening on the stage in some ways, but in others it brought us closer, and more importantly it added an additional dimension through the 3D sound from a bird flying overhead to the witches whispering all around including behind each of us - creepy. 

One thing that did bring us back into the room was the Porter's comic intervention, engaging with the audience, cracking jokes about Suella and getting a pantomime style response to 'Knock knock'.  Placed where another production might have put an interval, it was clever, giving us a moment to breathe, the cast a second to regroup ready for the next scenes, but also made sure we were all properly engaged for the final steep decent through the horror to the end of the play.

Reading the programme afterwards, this production grounds itself in the concept of PTSD suffered as a result of war and the loss of a child, and whilst I have come across that idea before in respect of Macbeth, it was a bit of a lightbulb for me in understanding Lady Macbeth better.   

It’s never been my favourite play, but this was a great and moving production, visually arresting and with an interesting sound experience too.