MACBETH Reviews

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 7:06pm

Talkin' Broadway is Mixed:

Never... have I encountered a more completely considered Lady Macbeth less influential than Fleetwood's. She's a steely marvel when finishing the scene-setting of her husband's first killing he's too terrified to manage, but otherwise a non-entity who only vaguely magnifies his latent inclinations rather than inspiring them to flight. Gorgeous, crisply intelligent, and looking a half to a third of Macbeth's age, she fits flawlessly into the overriding concept of unlikely dreams coming true. (Hers, seemingly her birthright, being to become queen.) But Fleetwood earns neither pride of place nor the classic, hand-scrubbing mad scene that should typify the deepest dangers of unchecked aspirations.

Stewart makes that journey alone, and it's one that alternately rivets and terrifies as his Macbeth becomes more corrupting and corruptible. The glee he displays ordering a slaughter while fixing a sandwich, his ruthlessness carrying on a life-or-death sotto voce discussion during his dinner party, and his triumph in slaying a warrior he knows cannot be his own downfall identify a man who's yet come to terms with the new influence he wields.

When it's time for him to answer for his crimes, Macbeth faces it the way he faces everything: like a man. But though Stewart renders this supposedly indestructible figure a slave to immortality, this metamorphosis does not come as a surprise. His Macbeth is never more or less than a man; a tyrant, yes, but a pitiable one who's only ever longed to be more than he is. At portraying this, Stewart unquestionably succeeds, while the rest of this Macbeth more visibly boils in the toil and trouble of finding itself.

http://www.talkinbroadway.com/world/Macbeth2008.html

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 7:34pm

LA TIMES is Mixed for the Production - GREAT for Stewart

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-et-macbeth9apr09,0,4510896.story


Patrick Stewart's suave performance in the Chichester Festival Theatre production of "Macbeth," which opened Tuesday at the Lyceum Theatre on Broadway, can be scored a triumph, but it comes with a few provisos.

Hardly anyone ever gets this most tempting of Shakespearean roles right. By comparison, Hamlet, Othello and King Lear -- tough as they are to pull off -- are more amenable to partial successes. When actors fail in these parts, they tend to fail upward.

The Scottish play, on the other hand, can really be hellish for its leading man. Don't believe me? Ask Kelsey Grammer, Alec Baldwin, Christopher Plummer or any of the other big name Macbeths of the last couple of decades and you'll find out why theater people say the tragedy is cursed.

The play requires a kind of cinematic facility of its director, who must agilely negotiate between close-ups and special effects. Rupert Goold's staging may ride roughshod over the text's subtler psychology, yet it spectacularly captures the moral inversion of a society in which a celebrated military hero can rapidly transform into a fiendish butcher.
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Obviously our feelings aren't shut out entirely. But the most haunting aspects of the work -- the vast discrepancy in age between Stewart's Macbeth and Fleetwood's much younger Lady Macbeth or the image of a neighborly Lady Macduff (Rachel Ticotin) and her doomed brood of children -- are more embodied than played.

Still, Stewart's skillfulness is mesmerizing even if it isn't devastating. But there's no denying the nuclear glow he bestows on the figure's faltering humanity. And even more impressive, he possesses the quality that is indispensable to any portrayal of Macbeth -- the glamorous aura of the chosen one. After all, it's proximity to greatness that urges the character to overleap what is permissibly civilized.

Stewart comes close to achieving something extraordinary, and for a play with so many perplexities in performance, that is an exceptional credit in an already exceptional career.

[LaCageAuxFollesFan2]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 10:40pm

USA TODAY *** Stars
Again, MIXED on the production - RAVE for Stewart
http://www.usatoday.com/life/theater/reviews/2008-04-08-stewart-macbeth_N.htm

HOLLYWOOD REPORTER is the same - Mixed on show, Rave for Stewart
http://www.reuters.com/article/reviewsNews/idUSN0835152920080409

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 10:42pm

Brantley was lazy. He didn't write a new review.

http://theater2.nytimes.com/2008/04/09/theater/reviews/09macb.html

[scaryclowns223]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 10:44pm

Well it's technically the same production, no?

Still, it would have been interesting to hear Brantley the second time around, or possibly even Isherwood's take...

Interesting that the production is getting such mixed reviews.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 10:46pm

It is the same production, but it's not like Brantley couldn't have updated his review a bit and thrown in a few new nice things here and there, mention how it fits into the Lyceum, etc.

[BustopherPhantom]

Posted: 4/8/08 at 10:51pm

Well, if Brantley couldn't write a new review for DOUBT...

[LimelightMike]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 1:43am

I'm kinda disappointed...

I was expecting raves for this show...

The lack of reviews doesn't help either.

[Wanna Be A Foster]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 8:50am

NY Post is a Rave:

THE nasty, brutish production that opened on Broadway last night is not only a "Macbeth" to remember - it's a "Macbeth" you'll never be able to forget.

It leaves you full of horrors, yet those horrors, lifted by Shakespeare's poetry, have acquired a special moral force.

Rupert Goold's stark staging with a magnificent Patrick Stewart as the hellbent Scots king started at England's Chichester Festival, journeyed to London's West End, then to BAM and now to the Lyceum Theatre, where its run is scheduled to end May 24.
Clive Barnes - NY Post

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 11:12am

Some roles were recast, so that is pretty lazy of Brantley to not even so much as alter his previous review.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 11:15am

I have a feeling that if this were an open ended run, the NYT might have been more energetic.

[insertclevernamehere]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 7:55pm

The Broadway.com Word of Mouth feature is up.

[keen on kean]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 9:48pm

Ellen on Word of Mouth is so dumb - does she like anything? She seems almost proud of her short attention span and her inability to apply herself to anything she watches.

[jaystarr]

Posted: 4/9/08 at 9:50pm

I am actually interested in seeing the show. It seems like its very VISUAL.. I might need to brush up on my Shakespeare though!

J*