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Macbeth Month: 1976 & 2010 -The Thespian Ones


"She should have died hereafter;
There would have been time for such a word.
To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow..."
                                                                    -Act V, scene v, lines 17-19

Televised theatre is great! It allows a wider audience to see plays and performances they otherwise would have no access to, and Shakespearean ones can be particularly great. Who wouldn’t want to see some of the most acclaimed actors around take on these classic characters. The best Prospero I’ve ever seen was Christopher Plummer’s version in a Stratford Festival staging of The Tempest filmed in 2010. And widely regarded as one of the best of these, often shown in schools in fact, is a 1976 production of Macbeth put on by the Royal Shakespeare Company, directed by renowned Shakespearean Trevor Nunn and starring legends Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, still relatively early into their professional careers.
It’s a very neatly done play, you kinda wish you were there for it, with its’ ominous music and effects, it’s clever staging, and of course those remarkable performances. Performing the text unabridged it takes longer to get to his entrance, but once McKellen makes it, it is unbelievable. The 37 year old Gandalf inhabits the part so naturally, his command of the language is flawless, his sense of power so immediate and infectious. His Macbeth is not so dissimilar to Jon Finch’s in that the spark of high ambition and megalomania is there pretty early on, but as a more mature actor there’s added gravitas to this and tangible method -this Macbeth is clearly a cunning man, more calculating and less rash. In fact of all the Macbeths I’ve seen, he perhaps most resembles the one characterized by the script, and yet McKellen still plays him with unique personality.
Just as riveting of course is Dench’s Lady Macbeth, likewise fairly loyal to the text but with an energy and spontaneity absent in any of these other adaptations. Her Lady Macbeth is as scheming as necessary but also perhaps conscious of the weight of what they are doing. Dench’s specific look too, her height differential to McKellen and the cloth around her head sets her apart. And yet she is the only cast member who can go toe to toe with him, asserting that power Lady Macbeth must possess -certainly the best version of the character I’ve seen.
The rest of the cast is strong too, boasting a few more curious figures who’d go on to greater fame. Most notably is Ian McDiarmid, the Emperor from Star Wars, who plays several parts including Ross and the drunken porter, and is quite fun to watch. Also there’s Bob Peck of Jurassic Park as a grim Macduff and a youthful Roger Rees as Malcolm. Nunn’s direction of both the show and the recording is good too -it’s very minimalist, but the use of lighting effects, intercutting, costumes, props, and fake blood is enough to fill out the environment being bolstered by the actors, whose performances really are the selling point of this exceptional TV film.

Another version of Macbeth starring a renowned thespian translated for television came over thirty years later with the 2010 production starring Patrick Stewart, which to my surprise was not a filmed stage show, though was directly adapted from one. It's one of those updated Shakespeare plays, with the setting of Macbeth being moved to a twentieth century  Eastern Bloc environment, the costumes and atmosphere evoking a Soviet military thriller. Though not performed on stage, it retains the confined feeling of theatre by being largely shot entirely in one bleak industrial building. It’s directed by seasoned theatre director Rupert Goold, who also handled the original production and who's since made mediocre forays into film. He directs this one fine for the most part, though where he attempts artistic choices (such as the incorporation of stock footage or disorienting editing techniques) it largely feels awkward and unbefitting the material. However I did appreciate some of the ways he and the actors used the updated time period creatively, even if the setting occasionally proved a hindrance.
Mostly though the existence of this film, and the show its’ based on, is to give Patrick Stewart the chance to play Macbeth, a part he’d been wanting to perform for a while. And indeed Stewart’s is the oldest Macbeth I have seen -though the character does fit for an older actor as well as a younger one. Who would deny Stewart the chance to do it, even at seventy? Stewart’s Macbeth is as compelling as you’d imagine, he subtly incorporates aspects like his age into the way he approaches the character. It very much feels like a last ditch attempt to grab power for this guy, a figure who in the early going, can’t quite be read. After Duncans’ murder though, he becomes more notably villainous, the performance becomes more assured and Stewart delivers exactly as you’d want all the great scenes. He takes his time with the big final soliloquy (in fact a number of lines are performed with slower pacing, which does unfortunately make the film drag), and plays the lead-in to Macbeths’ defeat specifically with a manic hysteria I’ve never seen before -it might be the best set-piece.
Sadly, not much around Stewart’s performance is all that interesting. Kate Fleetwood plays his Lady Macbeth and is fairly overzealous in the role in a way that I don’t think is earned. Her energy rarely matches his and she doesn’t convey much beyond the power-hungry mad woman. Of the supporting cast, I think only Michael Feast as Macduff really manages to hold his own against Stewart -although he looks pretty goofy at the end carrying that fake Patrick Stewart head. It’s not all that engaging, the film, and strangely feels cheaper than a more minimalist version simply done on stage would.
The Trevor Nunn-McKellen-Dench version I think is the better of these two theatrical reinterpretations, though Stewart’s performance is certainly worth something. It’s always interesting to see great actors take on this character and this text, to see how they make it their own. Both McKellen and Stewart do that. And they weren’t the last X-Men stars to take on the challenge of the Scottish play.

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