Macbeth @ Selly Manor

27th Nov 2009

Hir­ing period cos­tumes and war equip­ment was never going to be enough for 3Bugs Fringe The­atre. In this bril­liant pro­duc­tion of Shakespeare’s super­nat­ural tragedy, they took things one step fur­ther and hired a house.

They could not have found a more atmos­pheric, appro­pri­ate and down­right inge­nious loca­tion. Guided by an usher, groups of 25 fol­lowed the action round the rooms and grounds of a gen­uine Tudor manor, through bed­rooms, kitchens and din­ing rooms com­plete with the museum’s fur­ni­ture and props such as real bread and chicken. The result­ing audi­ence expe­ri­ence was of being a fly on the wall in the lives of some of lit­er­ary history’s great­est char­ac­ters. Any­thing but sta­tic, the pro­duc­tion brought the audi­ence to the story rather than the story to the audience.

At around an hour and a quar­ter, it might have been titled ‘Mac­beth: The Best Bits.’ How­ever, this deci­sion from direc­tors Elmina Fer­gu­son and Daniel Pitt was a wise one and not at all to the detri­ment of the pro­duc­tion. All the best scenes were included with­out com­pro­mis­ing the audience’s atten­tion span and sore feet.

Not that the audi­ence would have had dif­fi­culty con­cen­trat­ing with the cap­ti­vat­ing cast. Macbeth’s ter­ri­fied rages and moments of pas­sive weak­ness were well played by David Gray, while the Three Witches (Kelsey Barr, Natalya Paul and Jess Smith) spooked arriv­ing audi­ence mem­bers in char­ac­ter before the play had even started. Wan­der­ing the grounds dressed bare­foot in bil­low­ing night­dresses, their curi­ous body lan­guage made for a unique por­trayal. Of notable men­tion also the blood­cur­dling mur­der scene of Lady Mac­duff (Johanna Clarke) and Han­nah Parker, who shuf­fled along con­vinc­ingly in the back­ground in the minor role of the Gen­tle­woman. The most illu­mi­nat­ing per­for­mance, how­ever, came from the beau­ti­ful Flora Dixon, whose Lady Mac­beth was at once trag­i­cally human and intim­i­dat­ingly evil. Expertly flick­ing between sob­bing and laugh­ter, Lady Mac­beth became a schem­ing, female Jekyll and Hyde. Her inter­pre­ta­tion of the ‘Out Damn Spot’ solil­o­quy demanded a tan­gi­ble atten­tion from an emo­tional and affected audience.

An awe­some out­door bat­tle scene ensured mouths were def­i­nitely hang­ing open by the end. Swords and crew from the Bat­tle Re-enactment Soci­ety, spec­tac­u­lar chore­og­ra­phy and the eerily-lit out­door set­ting pro­vided a thrilling and mem­o­rable end point to the drama.

All hail 3Bugs…