Polly Findlay's Macbeth: A Hit-And-Miss Homage To Horror At Barbican
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Last Updated 08 November 2018
Double, double, toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.
The lines are so familiar, they've almost become cliche. But the youthful, sing-song manner in which they are delivered is new. Instead of the trio of grotesque hags, three little girls — dressed in identical scarlet frocks and snow white tights, a macabre mutation of Kubrick's The Shining twins — encircle our antihero on stage. Don't come play with them, Macbeth! Turn your tricycle around and pedal back down that creepily carpeted hallway get off that cursed heath!
But of course, he doesn't. This is a Shakespearean tragedy, after all. And like the newly-christened Thane of Cawdor, these weird sisters have us hooked.
The programme for Polly Findlay's Macbeth boldly claims that The Scottish Play is, in fact, the original horror film, and this production goes some way towards justifying that. Christopher Eccleston, in his RSC debut, gives convincing psychological depth to the brash soldier whose trauma and paranoia prove as much his undoing as the atrocities he commits. His murder-minded missus is played with an intensity that flirts with hamminess by Niamh Cusack, who greets her unwitting guests red carpet ready; an angel of death that's dressed to kill.
That said, there's just a bit too much going on for the play to ever feel truly chilling; its brisk pace leaves little room for the lines to breathe and dread to curdle — MacDuff's stunned, silent reaction to news of his family's grisly demise is one notable exception. Lighter touches, like the admittedly amusing porter don't quite hit the mark, either, because there's never quite enough tension to justify the comic relief.
In a more taut thriller, the play's last ten minutes — jump scares, strobe flashes and all — would have been genuinely terrifying. The production would do well to remember what could be described as the ultimate goal of horror — to give shape to our deepest fears, so much of which arises from what is unseen, unsaid, what lurks in the shadows.
Macbeth at the Barbican. Tickets £10-£59.50, until 18 January 2019.
