Oddly enough, the only production Des McAnuff had directed at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival before becoming its artistic director in 2008 was a not-well-received Macbeth in 1983. Of the five productions I've seen at Stratford and some nine or more elsewhere, not one Macbeth has been wholly satisfying, so there's good reason for this play's menacing reputation and theaterfolks' superstitious habit of avoiding its name and calling it "the Scottish Play." But no one can say that McAnuff shrinks from controversy, so he opened his second Stratford season (and first one planned by McAnuff as sole artistic director) with an elaborate new production of Macbeth on the famed thrust stage of the large Festival Theatre.
McAnuff's rationale for setting the production in a "mythic mid-20th-Century Africa" includes references to contemporary African conflicts and our own turbulent political history, and it probably makes sense on paper; but certainly not onstage. One problem is that the complete mishmash of designs, technical special effects, and particularly props gives no clue to this being a view of Africa or anywhere else outside a sci-fi film. Since Shakespeare was surprisingly ignorant (or unconcerned) about history and geography, I don't mind the trend to set his plays in more contemporary places and times, and I've learned to ignore the jarring disconnect between his language and what we see his characters wearing and doing. Even all the talk about Scotland in the dialogue can be mentally switched, as can the talk of swords and duels from soldiers in modern dress riding in on what looks like a 20th century troop carrier. But the fights get downright silly. One soldier valiantly attacking his enemy with a short sword that seemed to be made of wood got a big laugh from the audience when he looked so shocked at his opponent's suddenly pulling out a small pistol and shooting the startled duelist to death. When Macbeth's pistol repeatedly clicked and refused to fire, the audience was sympathetically quiet about it.
The "Can I Have some of those?" syndrome extends to enormous video screens overhead, which show Macbeth a surrounding vista of anyone approaching his fortress; but despite all the talk about Birnam Wood coming to Dunsinane, we never see a soldier carrying so much as a twig onstage or on the security screen. In fact, I was seldom sure about just where those variously garbed fighting men were. Macduff chops off Macbeth's head rather laboriously with a long-handled shovel presumably from the castle's garden and brings it in later in a big bucket. The overall effect is one of no overall concept at all. Rather, this seems like a "What If?" approach to interpreting a play. What if we put a video screen inside the Weird Sisters' cauldron and show them stirring it up while actors pop up and disappear on it? What if we make those weird women not "shriveled" at all but something like butch young camp-followers? What if the swordplay gets interrupted by huge explosions that knock everyone into the dirt? How about a radio broadcast? Flashlights? Fireworks?
I heard an old man grumble that all those deafening blasts of shots and explosions were waking him up. And I must admit that I was never bored. Seldom involved, but never bored.
Colm Feore seems too intelligent and subtle a character actor to embody the titanic passion of Macbeth, though he gives some passionate readings to the great speeches. But I've seldom seen a Macbeth so rueful and filled with distaste for the situation that he finds himself in. Geraint Wyn Davies is an almost too noble and likable King Duncan. Yanna McIntosh seems resigned, though loving, as Lady Macbeth, but though queenly and beautiful, she is somehow not potent enough to be memorable. Tom Rooney provides the usual comic relief as the porter.
In general, the very large and forgettably garbed multi-racial cast conducts themselves like a talented, well-trained ensemble trying to give order to a train wreck.
