Total Rating: 
**1/2
Ended: 
October 30, 2004
Country: 
Canada
State: 
Ontario
City: 
Stratford
Company/Producers: 
Stratford Festival
Theater Type: 
International; Festival
Theater: 
Stratford Festival
Genre: 
Drama
Author: 
William Shakespeare
Director: 
John Woods
Review: 

 There's nothing wrong with John Woods' revival of Macbeth; it just lives up to the reputation of Shakespeare's "Scottish Play" (theater folk superstitiously don't like to even say its title) as impossible to play successfully. I've seen at least a dozen Macbeths. Some were great productions, some had a great Macbeth, some had a great Lady Macbeth -- and none with even two of the above.

Woods' direction is workmanlike and unremarkable, except for Lady Macbeth's sleepwalking scene in which I felt sorry for Lucy Peacock. She had to try to make sense of such peculiarly stylized business as constant dithering of her hands and slowly wrapping herself in a floor cloth.

John Ferguson's designs are appropriately dark and drab, though it would seem to make more sense to highlight Ms. Peacock's beauty as Lady Macbeth than Graham Abbey's nice chest as Macbeth. John Stead's fights are unusually excitingly staged. Otherwise, this solid production is entirely well handled but without the artists' covering themselves with glory, except for Stead and Gil Wechsler, whose lighting is the play's strongest element.

Parental: 
adult themes
Cast: 
Lucy Peacock (Lady Macbeth), Graham Abbey
Technical: 
Set: John Ferguson
Critic: 
Herbert Simpson
Date Reviewed: 
August 2004