All Female Cast Gives Macbeth a First Run at the Chiswick Playhouse
Susan Stanley-Carroll finds production underwhelming
Macbeth runs at Chiswick Playhouse until 6 November
The Chiswick Playhouse, is hosting for the first time, William Shakespeare’s ‘Macbeth’ with an all-female cast. The drama explores the traditional feisty, male tragedy ’s range of themes including ambition and lust for power; it presents a good opportunity for those studying the play to watch a live performance in West London but, at the moment, it lacks dynamism.
‘Macbeth’ can be rather like marmite: some love it and others detest it. Although I am fascinated by it, the opening night, of this production, was underwhelming.
The nine actors performed well together and created, on the whole, a convincing theatrical ensemble. However, ‘first night’ nerves, probably, reduced many of the performances to shadowy characterisations. Competent but lacking conviction and fire.
Macbeth (Beckis Cooper) and Lady Macbeth (Emma Clifford) need to pulsate with ambition and nuance their performances, with reflective moments, enabling the audience to be stirred by their evil desires to kill all others, who they cannot control, for they are controlled by witchcraft.
Emma Clifford as Lady Macbeth
Several cameo roles bounced into action particularly Caroline O’ Mahoney who played the Porter with sparkling wit and her interaction with the audience was delightful. She developed a range of other roles including the Sergeant, Fleance and Macduff’s son sustaining her innate glow as she morphed from character to character.
The imaginative choreography for the witches’ scenes added an experimental dimension to this, on the whole, stolid production. The white robed beguiling witches - reminiscent of patients in an Edwardian lunatic asylum - were creepy and disturbing.
The witches' scene was imaginatively choreographed
Celia Learmouth played not only the role of a malevolent witch but also a charismatic Macduff. She created a robust, furious character ignited by revenge and the auditorium was lit up with Macduff’s anger and hate.
Several all-female ‘Macbeth’ casts have been produced globally with strong reviews. However, this production, is, at the moment, lacking the vigour and electricity that one should feel with such a masterpiece of a play. Here’s hoping such a diligent team of actors will have turned on the power and passion that the play demands by the time this review is published.
Tickets are available from Chiswick Playhouse’s website.
Susan Stanley-Carroll
Like Reading Articles Like This? Help Us Produce More This site remains committed to providing local community news and public interest journalism. Articles such as the one above are integral to what we do. We aim to feature as much as possible on local societies, charities based in the area, fundraising efforts by residents, community-based initiatives and even helping people find missing pets. We’ve always done that and won’t be changing, in fact we’d like to do more. However, the readership that these stories generates is often below that needed to cover the cost of producing them. Our financial resources are limited and the local media environment is intensely competitive so there is a constraint on what we can do. We are therefore asking our readers to consider offering financial support to these efforts. Any money given will help support community and public interest news and the expansion of our coverage in this area. A suggested monthly payment is £8 but we would be grateful for any amount for instance if you think this site offers the equivalent value of a subscription to a daily printed newspaper you may wish to consider £20 per month. If neither of these amounts is suitable for you then contact info@neighbournet.com and we can set up an alternative. All payments are made through a secure web site. One-off donations are also appreciated. Choose The Amount You Wish To Contribute. If you do support us in this way we’d be interested to hear what kind of articles you would like to see more of on the site – send your suggestions to the editor. For businesses we offer the chance to be a corporate sponsor of community content on the site. For £30 plus VAT per month you will be the designated sponsor of at least one article a month with your logo appearing if supplied. If there is a specific community group or initiative you’d like to support we can make sure your sponsorship is featured on related content for a one off payment of £50 plus VAT. All payments are made through a secure web site. |
October 23, 2021
