Play Review - Macbeth

For my play review I went to see William Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Although I have seen this particular play before, this performance in particular stood out to me. The director, Robin Reese decided to take more artistic liberties with this performance than the director of the other performance I had seen. They choose a very simple but intense stage set up for their production. The play was performed on proscenium stage with a lipstick red backdrop with black birds flying painted on it. In addition to the bold background the center of the stage was built as a giant platform with a fountain at the front of it. The director also choose to use black water to symbolize blood instead of the normal red. In addition to the simple set, the production also offered onstage seating which I had never seen before. For the costumes the director also choose to use modern day pieces instead of clothing worn back in Shakespeare’s days. For the most part the play itself bored me, but there were some parts that I liked the way it was directed. First off I liked how the director seated the majority of the character on the stage so they could just move to the center of the stage whenever they were scripted to enter the scene. They were seated right in front of the onstage seating that was available to the audience members. Also I liked how the director scripted the scenes that contained all the witches. It would always be where the witches would surround the character they were talking to and they would do some sort of choreography whether it would be skipping, throwing an object around similar to the game of monkey in the middle, or even dancing while listening to their iPods. I mostly just liked how the director would use choreography to strengthen the visual impact of the three witches together.

The main character’s seemed to have a greater idea of what was going on whenever compared to the other cast members. In particular the actress who played Lady Macbeth, Megan Helbig really stood out to me. She was the boldest member of the cast and over exaggerated her character’s unstable state of mind. For this play in particular, I thought there was not real protagonist. The main characters were the antagonists so all the other characters were seen as the protagonists.

The makeup for the play was effective, but I do not think it did its job of tying the actors to their characters thoroughly. The makeup of the antagonist and protagonists was too similar in my opinion and was overall just too dark and plain.
Although the makeup should not be the center of attention for a character it should still add depth and interest to a performer in my opinion. The only make up in the play that I thought was effective at describing the character was the witches’ make up. They wore very heavy eye makeup, but also wore very heavy blush as well. The balance of the two helped show the audience that although they seem innocent they really are not as innocent as they seem.

The light did not impress my much either. The lighting stayed virtually the same for the entire play. Even during scenes of action or dramatic importance the lighting did not change much. The sound quality was very good though. Although there were not very many sound effects used during the play they were used effectively. Most of the sound effects were used in dramatic scenes like a death or fight sequence.

Overall I liked this performance a lot better than the other one I saw, but I still think it could be improved by added thought to visual detail, lighting, and making sure all the actors were familiar with their characters and why exactly they are important to the performance.