El País, Spain
by Marcos Ordoñez (translated by Cybele Peña), 17 October 2009

Looking great Mr. Macbeth!

What is new about this Shakespeare? What makes it so unique? In Declan Donnellan's production there are no daggers or blood. It is austere and concise, pure wonderwork.

Until now I had never seen a complete personification of Macbeth, and believe me, I have encountered a few. Declan Donnellan has opened my eyes and ears. This, ladies and gentlemen, hardly ever happens. Every now and then someone puts on a Shakespeare play and suddenly enlightens you with a passage, a character, or - with much luck- the entire play. Once something like this takes place, your heart expands, you breathe more freely, and feel extremely hungry. I will quote only three cases in recent years: John Caird's Hamlet (Olivier, 2000) starring Simon Russell Beale; Michael Grandage's Othello (Donmar, 2007), where Ewan McGregor played a Iago you could have bought ten used cars from; and Simon McBurney's Measure for Measure (once again at the Olivier, 2003) an almost Elizabethan foretaste of Fritz Lang's The Big Heat. Last week in Salt I topped up the list with Cheek by Jowl's Macbeth, one of the top performances of Temporada Alta: an absolute premiere in Spain, straight out of the oven.

I could be critical of certain aspects of the mise-en-scène, so I will start by getting these observations out of my way and then focus on the best of it. I did not quite get, for example, Macduff's (David Caves) portrayal. He acted impassive when discovering the bodies of Duncan and family but went berserk when finding out about his own relatives' murder. True, one's own flesh and blood hurts, but Caves goes from total sobriety to excess in a spectacle that is otherwise characterised by absolute restraint. There is also one idea, which has a certain charm as a colourful window in this dark universe, I will not deny it, but it also grates a little: to turn the porter into a kind of bed and breakfast Scottish janitress, with a mini kilt and an Amy Winehouse air. Well, that is said. The rest (and the rest is a lot) is pure wonderwork.

Donnellan and Ormerod (design and costume, as almost always) have put on one of their most austere and concise spectacles: an empty space flanked by black wooden columns that filter an agonizing light; rough garments (dark frockcoats and silver buttons), and cloudscapes of artificial fog. A violin that sounds like Sweeney Todd's siren, a drum that resonates like a mace, and a lyric lute. There are no daggers or blood. The cast is extraordinary (a house brand) and the main characters are totally exceptional. Macbeth is portrayed by Will Keen. He is also remembered as the villain De Flores in The Changeling, resembling a short John Malkovich. Lady Macbeth is Anastasia Hille, an actress who has had a profound impact on me since I first saw her in the mid nineties when I had gone on a pilgrimage to Bury St. Edmonds to see the premiere of The Duchess of Malfi, her first work for Donnellan. She later performed an unforgettable Isabella in Measure for Measure.

What is new about this Macbeth, what makes it so unique? Until now, every interpretation I had seen of the play accentuated the atmosphere and the prosopopeia. 'Guele d'atmosphere', as Arletty proclaimed. It made you want to say: 'I am aware that this is a bloody tragedy, but opening your eyes wide and making strange voices is redundant'. There is none of that situation here. From the start, Keen and Hille's voices (and also Ryan Kiggell's, a remarkable Banquo I mustn't forget) are natural, well projected, and clear, without a hint of declamation. That is, the voices of normal people, overtaken by an extraordinary circumstance. Frances Orella also approached this kind of performance in Carlos Alfaro's staging of the play. Macbeth/Keen's voice is that of a man who questions himself, as if he cannot completely believe what has just happened, and, above all, what is happening. He is almost saying: 'Now wait a minute. Have I really killed the royal family? Have I not dreamed this?' And, even worse: 'So, this is who I am? Where does all this obscurity come from?' In this sense, Donnellan´s Macbeth is a character that is both delirious and reflective. When seeing and hearing him, one also sees Richard III, and Hamlet at the end, when he realizes everything is lost. One can even identify an irate and nihilist Prospero. In the first part he is a boy: his wife drives him to kill, like a mother sends her son to bed. In the end, I saw something I had never perceived in a Macbeth: greatness. The greatness of a scoundrel who gains immense lucidity in his downfall ('I have supp'd full with horrors; direness … cannot once start me') and chooses to fight until the end, 'fight till from my bones my flesh be hack'd'.

Anastasia Hille plays Lady Macbeth like a dreadful mother, but not a matron. She is stunning in the scene of the proclamation dance, with an unexpected touch of high comedy (with her grand dame laughter to conceal Macbeth's raving response to Banquo's ghost) and a performance of madness I had never seen before. I am lying. I had seen it but in another place and another character: Jean Seberg in Lilith. Donnellan sets a sublime scene for her: the somnambulant queen washes her hands (with no exaggerated theatricality: just pure delicacy) to erase the invisible blood, as the members of the court watch her silently, in a circle, like the doctors of a Victorian madhouse. Another image, as simple and precious, emerges later on: Will Keen performs his last monologue and embraces her. When he is told 'The queen, my lord, is dead', she is still there, embracing him and looking into his eyes until the end. Then comes (overcomes to be honest) the colossal passage: 'Life's but a walking shadow… a tale told by an idiot', which Keen pronounces and makes us listen to it as if the first time, the original night of evil. He then emerges like Montenegro's great-grandfather ('Throw physic to the dogs; I'll none of it. Come, put mine armour on; give me my staff') in order to face Macduff –who makes us forget his impassive expression and his frenzy- in a ferocious duel choreographed down to the last detail. The new king of Scotland raises his arm and the emblematic silence of the great night of theatre flows in; then the shower of applause; and the hunger. After all this, we could eat a wild boar.