Review: Macbeth at Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold

May 13 2008 by Michael Green, Chester Chronicle

MACBETH/Anthony Hopkins Theatre, Clwyd Theatr Cymru, Mold, until May 24

REVIEW/by Michael Green

IF SHAKESPEARE was alive today and writing screenplays for epic Hollywood movies, I suspect the end result would resemble this scintillating production of The Scottish Play.

Director Terry Hands has brought back Owen Teale and Vivien Parry to repeat their roles of Macbeth and his manipulative Lady and transferred the action from the smaller Emlyn Williams Theatre where it was staged back in 1999.

And he has achieved the considerable feat of retaining the intensity and intimacy of a more confined environment while opening out the action to take every advantage of the larger space to quite stunning effect.

Hands also took the inspired decision to dispense with an interval and keep the audience gripped for a breathless 110 minutes but paced it so expertly that it never felt rushed, with the power of the Bard’s words resonating in every scene.

The brilliance of the writing and the relative brevity of the work has helped Macbeth keep its place as one of the most frequently staged and most popular of Shakespeare’s plays.

But I personally have always had a problem with the central character who has often been portrayed in the past as an all too easily influenced individual who is little more than a pawn in the hands of his superior if deadly wife and the cunning trickery of the witches.

This weakness at the heart of Macbeth has always been a difficult flaw to overcome and has made his final encounter with Macduff seem a foregone conclusion.

My God, what a different character he becomes in the hands of Owen Teale! This actor looms large over every scene, dominating the vast expanse of the Anthony Hopkins Theatre stage with a ferocious, animalistic presence that screams ‘don’t mess with me’!

That final battlefield showdown begins with poor unsuspecting Young Siward coming up behind Macbeth and asking who he is. When Macbeth replies “Thou’lt be afraid to hear it”, Teale chills the spine even more than when he ends up coldly snapping the inexperienced soldier’s neck.

Unlike any previous production I have seen, when Macduff faces up to the slayer of his entire family and calls Macbeth “hell-hound”, you can see what he means.

As for Parry, she brings a sensuality to Lady Macbeth that makes the character both deadly and desirable, sending sexual sparks flying when she plays alongside Teale with whom she shares an extraordinary chemistry.

But Parry also provides us with a glimpse of the schemer’s vulnerability which again makes her descent into guilt-ridden madness more convincing than it has been in lesser hands.

I apologise for concentrating so heavily on the two central players when the rest of the superb cast raise their game so magnificently to match them.

But there is simply no denying that the work of Teale and Parry, under the ingenious guidance of Hands, make this a landmark rendering of Macbeth. I certainly never expect to see a production of the play that will surpass it.