This intrepid reporter managed to catch an outstanding, if somewhat abbreviated Macbeth, which dropped rather clandestinely last week in Chatswood and in the lower colon of Darling Harbour’s delicious Darling Theatre.
Bottled up into a six-handed drive-by of the Scottish play’s usual themes – ambition, guilt, loss, power and corruption – this Aussie-led Shakespearean bootcamp differs from the expected in more ways than just the hyperactive enormity of its performers.
Produced by local touring company Come You Spirits, some traditionalists, for example, may struggle with the cost of condensing so much of Shakespeare’s story and language into a handful of actors and a mere 80 minutes.
Nevertheless, ‘Spirits’ have been taking their five-play Shakespearean repertoire across the country for the last three years. After runs of Antony & Cleopatra and Romeo & Juliet earlier this year, the troupe continues to impress with their unconventional approach.
Welcome to Shakespeare
For example, there’s the troupe’s fascinating habit of greeting each audience member individually before the bell. And an even more interventionist quasi-Welcome to Shakespeare, which has the performers quietly offering the audience some context, method and even some personal reflections on the play, just ahead of the play.
But this generous hand-holding is quite an endearing way to experience Shakespeare, and the troupe’s evident love for the material shines through from first to last. This is the ideal way for the young, hesitant or the uninitiated to discover a secret passage into Shakespeare on stage.
The troupe also tour a variety of performances at schools and venues around the country, and I would unhesitatingly encourage drama departments to pick up the phone.
The full cast, Jo Bloom, Charles Mayer, Ciarán O’Riordan, David Halgren, Ella Havelka and Willa King, are a delight to watch. All deliver their own moments of electricity.
At the same time, the tiny team face a Herculean task in putting the Scottish play into the mouths of just five or six performers. The plot moves so quickly that Macbeth spends less time being Macbeth and more time speaking other characters’ dialogue as exposition. So there is some telling and not showing.
We do not see Macbeth seduce and compel Banquo’s murderers, nor the atrocity itself. The crimes committed by Macbeth’s raiders at Fyfe are left for the brilliant Macduff (Ciarán O’Riordan) to show us in grief alone. Which he does, and most impressively. Certainly, this is one of the Macduff’s you’re unlikely to forget.
Everyone gets an arc…
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, Banquo and Macduff have a multi-functional presence, being both characters and storytellers. The latter two hoover up themes, exposition, other characters and dialogue, making the play into a fundamentally different beast. This is something we get a sense of with the first thunder strike and glimpse of Macbeth and Banquo.
You might expect an Ex-British Army Infantry Commander to deliver a tough-as-nails warrior-king. But while Charles Mayer still brings the darkness, his bumbling Macbeth is both murderous and deeply apologetic. He simultaneously bathes in blood and quakes in his shoes from the get-go. It’s largely delightful.
Most importantly, Mayer gives us a man petrified and tormented by his own rampant imagination. Although in this Macbeth, the line between dreams, reality and the supernatural is eventually impossible to trace.
More magic than most
The witches upend business as usual, but their witchcraft is more like magic. The presence of First Nations dancer Ella Havelka provides a grace which adds to this warmth. These are nice witches, possibly fairies. Not very malevolent. And apparently, just trying to help this bloke become king.
Alas, with a long-legged comics’ gift for (seeming) unintentional hilarity, this is mission impossible for our murdering Scotsman, whose moments of genuine agony are part Red Dwarf.
This unlikely Macbeth is rather vain, kind of hopeless, utterly self-absorbed and an inveterate coward with a pathological case of victim complex. Instead of the fatalistic determination that makes us root for the villain until the last, Mayer’s goofy pushover makes us worry all the way.
Jo Bloom’s brushed-aside Lady Macbeth is equally terrific. She hits the ‘hand scene’ out of the park, showing true contrition, and without the benefit of the usual lead-up to get her eye in.
All hail Macduff and Banquo
Banquo, played by David Halgren, has almost as much stage time as his murderer. And he’s very hard not to like, despite spending most of it either drunk or dead.
Once he’s been stabbed 20 times (Safe in a ditch he bides, with twenty trenchèd gashes on his head, the least a death to nature) and promptly ruined dinner, Banquo returns post-haste as something of an erudite. He’s a blood-soaked, eye-rolling force-ghost who drops winks at the audience, key exposition and occasionally lapses into conversation with the nearest character.
So for once, there is a heap of flesh on the bones of Macbeth’s frenemy. The accomplished Halgren takes full advantage of this extra airtime to add Big Maccian layers of personality. A Banquo with The Lot. Resolute, fearless and yet not unreminiscent of US comedian Jack Black, at his best.
With an effective musical score by Brandon Read and excellent lighting design by Adam Applebaum, this is a troupe of players wielding some banging Bard. And well worth watching for.
Come You Spirits’ Macbeth runs until 15 August at The Darling Quarter, 1-25 Harbour Street Sydney NSW 2000.
Contact the company for last minute tickets to tonight’s closing show.
Website: https://www.comeyouspirits.com/
Socials: https://www.instagram.com/come_you_spirits/
Photo credits: Syl Marie Photography
