Director - Margaret-Mary Hollins
Pamdemonium Theatre, The SiLO - August 9 - September 6
Review - Frances Edmond

MacBeth is a dark play, dark, brutal and atmospheric, looking deep into the human soul at the sources of desire and corruption, and raising disturbing questions of how much influence the arbitrary hands of fate, or unnatural powers that exist on the margins of human perception, affect and control personal volition. Margaret-Mary Hollins dramatically intelligent and dynamic production with Bruce Hopkins as MacBeth, a magnificently damaged man, gives you all this and more.

The SiLO theatre has been imaginatively refurbished and the play is staged in transverse giving the production a flexible and graceful vitality and mobility, so it has the quality of a grimly weird dance towards destruction. Add to the mix in the theatrical cauldron excellent lighting [T.O Robertson] and evocative sound/music design [Marc Chesterman] and you have a raw, fiery concoction. As well Hollins has edited Shakespeare to remove much of the purely political dimension, and in choosing to concentrate on action with pared down dialogue the effect is to refine and intensify both the relationship between MacBeth and Lady MacBeth and the central drama of MacBeth's decline and fall.

The acting from the company of sixteen energetic and skilful players is uniformly good. Hopkins' MacBeth is a complex suggestible man, spoiled by lust, wracked by doubt, who, having stepped too far into the river of blood, turns his back on the shore and dives fatalistically into the depths. The 'Tomorrow and tomorrow' speech he delivers as a hoarsely despairing wail against fate, himself, his losses, and in the banquet scene his agonised terror in the face of Banquo's ghost is a compelling and forceful piece of acting. Kate Parker's Lady MacBeth while a well constructed and intelligent performance, on opening night anyway, had a curious detachment and thus lacked an organic emotional immediacy. The witches [Beth Kayes, Penny Ashton, Ben Crowder] are not played as otherworldly spirits, but with creative mayhem as outcasts, those who, because they lack the skin of social normality, because they are seen as 'mad' in some way, actually see clearly. It's inspired and as they double as stage hands there is an implication that destiny is in their hands.

The murder of Banquo and of Lady MacDuff and her children are both chillingly well staged as is the final fight between MacBeth and MacDuff where the sparks literally fly. MacDuff receiving the news of the murder of his family is another finely rendered moment and Kevin J Wilson delivers a delightful comic turn as the Porter.