The National Theatre Live's Macbeth: 'double, double toil and trouble'

Ok, ok so I saw this ages and ages ago and I'm only just finding time to write about it. Forgive me! Now, I went to see Macbeth at one of my local cinema's 'National Theatre Live' showings. The Regal (said cinema) is an absolutely stunning art-deco style cinema. I remember going to it as a child (to see Madeline of all things) when it was in a shocking state: completely dilapidated, possibly haunted, and purely terrifying to my 8 year-old self. After a 10+ year closure, and several failed attempts to reopen, The Regal has spectacularly risen like a Phoenix from the ashes of its former self (excuse the cheesy metaphor). It is simply Evesham's best asset. Although I suppose that's not much of a contest, as close contender's include it's two subways (yes two) and Home Bargains.

The Regal, Evesham.

Take a look at their website if you're in the area!: http://theregal.ac

Anyway, I love the regal, with its plush chairs and old-style atmosphere, and was interested to see what it would be like to watch theatre from a cinema. Despite my praise of the venue, the experience left little to be desired.

Firstly, we went on perhaps the hottest day of the summer. For a cinema without air-conditioning, this was a fatal slip up. People were hot, tensions were high, and further exacerbated by the seemingly endless adverts for National Theatre that cinema staff informed us they 'could not skip'. Also, they apparently could not skip the most ridiculous introduction I have ever sat through in my entire life - an interview with the director (Rob Ashford). This is why I found it so ridiculous:

1. I do not care what Kenneth Branagh was like to work with.
2. I do not want to know about the staging space (it was set in a church) before I have seen the play.  Completely annihilates any sort of surprise and intrigue. 
3. Everyone knows the plot of Macbeth, and everyone expects the same thing. The only thing a director can seriously alter is the staging and costuming of his performance. Therefore WHYon earth would you reveal your variables before viewing, making the whole thing an episode in predictability, sameness - shattering any smidgen of originality and creative play. 
4. I do not want my views to be infected by anyone else's. Apparently the church is meant to symbolise the 'good' inside everyone, and the good inside Macbeth and Lady Macbeth before they begin plotting (director obviously hasn't read the play, Lady. M is never ostensibly 'good'). NO, the 'church' or anything else, is whatever I interpret it as. I hate hate hate anyone trying to impose their own views on top of mine (as I think most people would agree), especially when it comes to art, the most SUB-jective facet of life.  
5. If you expect me to be 'sucked into' the world of the play, do not present me with a feature highlighting and probing its artificiality and status as a mediated piece of art directly before it begins. 
6. None of it even made fully comprehensible sense, as we hadn't seen the bloody performance that they were twittering on about yet.

I found this 'helpful', 'informative' interview completely obstrusive and unnecessary, and almost felt like walking out of the cinema (I pretty much knew what was going to happen now, what's the point in watching!). Anyway, I didnt, but I'm not positive that that was the right decision.

So, the play is set in a church (what a surprise, didn't see that one coming [grr] ). I actually quite like the setting, its different and blends eeriness with drama, offering shadowy spaces and hidden alcoves, high ceilings and tight pews. I believe that Ashford and Branagh manage to do some creative things with the space - using it as a hallway, a battlefield, a forrest and a dining room - (my mum however, found the long, small place restrictive - so there you go, two divergent opinions!). The initial fight scene, with spraying mud and rain, seemed excessive (I'm not a massive fan on fight scenes, see my Hamlet review), but the intrigue heightened with the appearance of the witches. They were appropriately comic and menacing, yet with the fatal flaw that Shakespeare's words were entirely lost in their screeches and cackles, and their portent only elucidated by Branagh's repetition. As you all probably know, Macbeth - buoyed by the witches' prophecy - returns home as the Thane of Cawdor, and with ambitions of seizing Duncan's crown. It is here that we meet Lady Macbeth, played by Alex Kingston. I am undecided about Kingston's performance - yet err on the side of disproval - for a few reasons:

• Firstly, I'm glad they chose an older actress to play this role. Lady Macbeth is a frighteningly forceful character, and far too often directors place young waifs in the roles of battle-axes. Kingston has a strong on-stage present, and effectively exerts her will over Macbeth. 
• For all her ostensible strength, however, I feel that Kingston did not execute the role to the best of her ability. Lady Macbeth's most famous speeches willing Macbeth to action were just not right. The passion was there, but the emphasis in the wrong places, and I felt the memorable line about dashing infant's brains was not nearly emotive or emphatic enough. This may seem like nitpicking, but in Shakespeare's play Lady Macbeth steals the show - here, Branagh and Kingston are equally unmoving.
• Indeed, when expressive, Kingston was irritatingly so, enunciating every word to the extreme - obliterating the lyrical beauty of Shakespeare's verse. 
• The sleepwalking scene. Come on. Really? If you want a showcase of shoddy acting this is it. Kingston played up the comic aspect of the scene (an aspect barely there in Shakespeare's direction), and her dumb show totally failed to show a character's unconscious conscience troubled by irrepressible guilt. It looked more as if she was trying to flap a fly away than wipe her hands of Duncan's blood. Crude, rudimental, amateur.    

That said for Kingston, on to Branagh. Now, I suppose there wasn't anything wrong with his performance, per say, but it just, just... 'meh'. Macbeth was supposed to be Branagh's spectacular return to National Theatre after a ten year hiatus. We expected fireworks - or failing that, at least a sparkler - but instead got a damp, fizzling flame. His soliloquies were fine, but on par with say Laurence Olivier, and just nothing you'd really find memorable.

So then, what did I like about the performance?

1. I really liked the staging of the kings' procession. I felt that the fact that it really played up to the cameras, and the aerial view - with writhing bodies and swooshing sashes, picturing the kings' genesis - was truly enrapturing.
2. In fact, the filming of the whole thing was great, offering close-ups and multiple angles that you would not get to experience from a fixed theatre seat. (The only drawback was the live theatre audience. They were constantly moving around, fanning themselves, and at two different points I actually saw old men sleeping. I suppose this can't be helped, but it was extremely distracting!!).  
3. Ray Fearson's Macduff, if occasionally erring on the shouty side, was the saviour of the latter half of the play. His distress at discovering his wife and children had been murdered - unfortunate collateral damage in the sordid affair - was truly tangible, his harrowing cries reverberating about the church, and vicariously, the movie theatre. (Rosalie Craig as Lady Macduff was also impressive, an antidote to Kingston's showy, mismatched performance, Craig was on point, clear and decisive in her efforts to protect her family). 
4. The silent, menacing ghost of Banquo (Jimmy Yuill) was truly terrifying, visibly sending Macbeth from celebration to madness in the banqueting scene. Indeed in this scene, I was able to tolerate Kingston as Lady Macbeth, whose pleas to her husband to act normally, and efforts to convince her diners of his sanity highlighted the desperation of the situation, and the concurrent void in their relationship (we are not surprised, after this testing scene, to learn that she has killed herself).  

All in all, this was a lack-lustre performance, set in a nice found space and filmed well. As the play concluded, I gleaned no real sense that this was an unfortunate couple lead astray by ambition (it might be worth noting that Branagh and Kingston were far from electric together, despite the crotch-grabbing). In fact, none of the main themes of shakespeare's work - power, death, guilt, marriage etc. - were really played upon, or shone through. Couple this lack of direction with weak major actors, and insufficiently good minor ones, and you're left with a damp squibb of a show. Not worth the money we paid, or enduring a stiflingly hot cinema. The National Theatre's Macbeth failed to ignite.