So few modern productions of Shakespeare’s four big central tragedies – Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, King Lear – actually quite work, even among those done by high-prestige professional companies. Building and sustaining appropriate emotional intensities, leading up to the major crises, is hard (and accident-prone). What works in one venue may not work in another. You need someone in the male lead role who is not merely adequate but quite strong, and right for the part.

Locally, I think of Alison Quigan’s Macbeth at Centrepoint a few years ago, and in Wellington [from Auckland] Christian Penny’s King Lear (with Ian Mune), both of them quirky, and lifted by high-quality acting power. Just about the only other entirely successful Macbeth I’ve seen was done in England by the Cheek-by-Jowl Company, back in 1987: again, quirky.

Mounting Macbeth with a mainly student cast, in an outside venue (risky in itself, around here), and more-or-less in modern dress, is a huge challenge for a director; and all credit to Paul McLaughlin for making it happen. Quite interesting stuff occurs along the way. As tragedy, this production doesn’t really work; yet in this it is in surprisingly distinguished company.

Curiously, given that the director’s programme note draws attention to the dimensions of “war and political intrigue” and hence to his being, with his team, “keen to explore the politico-military aspect of the show,” it could be seen as working better as a history play, in which the stresses of warfare open up a domain in which, at the upper levels of jostling for power, and power-wielding, no-one’s loyalty can be relied upon, beyond the bounds of their own immediate self-interest, “There is no art to see the mind’s construction in the face,” and whoever gets to be king is obliged to be both paranoid and ruthless.

One of this production’s most effective moments comes when Mark Kilsby (its one veteran actor), as King Duncan, ponders silently the news of the defeat of the armed rebellion of the Thane of Cawdor (“a gentleman in whom I had an absolute trust”); defeated it has been, but the sombre implications of this violation of loyalty and trust remain to haunt him. He goes on to brusquely order Cawdor’s beheading.  

Brendon Kinch as Macbeth has a lot to do, and does it; but although he starts well, there is not yet a developed acting of the role. He looks right for it, and has a good speaking voice, yet has some distance to go with internalising and projecting either the dynamics and emotions of the lines or some sense of the character’s experiencings, and of the movement of his mind. The episode prior to the murder of Duncan, in which he tries to insist to Lady Macbeth that “We will go no further in this business,” is one of his best, yet lacks sufficient tension. In the face of her sexual blackmail, his resolution collapses rather too easily.

For Jayne Ramage, as Lady Macbeth, this was likewise her best bit of real acting, as far as it went. With her sleep-walking scene, she got some distance towards it; there was unfortunately the distracting presence of an attendant lighting her way with a kind of torch. And once again, one sensed the need for more coaching in verse-speaking, to get beyond the issues that presented.

Samuel Gordon as Malcolm, Tom Ryder as Banquo, and Leigh McLennon as Lady Macduff, in the middle order, do well enough. The other cast-members do their work.

One problem clearly arising from adopting a modern-dress idiom is that of how to convey adequately the potency of the three witches; they were a bit light-weight, and their cauldron was a white plastic bucket. Still, perhaps this didn’t matter, since this is all so familiar. A more tricky problem concerns how much potency can be given to Lady Macbeth’s invocation to the spirits of evil to enter into her.

The venue in a corner of the Esplanade Gardens was congenial enough, and some marvellous special effects were achieved by shining coloured lights upon the striations of the nikau palm trunks. Still, the action was rather too diffused over the available space.

With some performances still to go, this production may well grow further.
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