Macbeth (review)

The BBC iPlayer description for the RSC's 2018 production of Macbethintroduces the play as "Shakespeare's darkest psychological thriller" (BBC iPlayer). Whilst this production, which was released alongside eight other Shakespeare productions as part of the BBC's "Culture in Quarantine" series, was short on psychological thrill, it took the play's reputation for darkness very literally. Lizzie Powell's precise lighting design edged the Royal Shakespeare Theatre's thrust stage with a thin strip of concealed light, defining a sparse set that receded into a black abyss, creating the sense of a perpetual night that variously framed, concealed, and enveloped the play's characters. Whilst visually very effective on screen, Fly Davies's design invited an immersion that I found difficult to replicate whilst watching online. As there was no set premiere and the production was available to watch for four months, I was free to watch whenever I wanted, and chose to do so on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Surrounded by so much light, my viewing conditions pulled against the darkness of the production; Christopher Shutt's tense sound design was overlaid by birdsong and the sound of bells from our local church, and the darkness of my laptop screen was framed by a garden unfurling into spring.

Whilst external distractions made it difficult to take the production's darkness seriously, some elements on screen also made immersion difficult. The choice to cast three children, clad in pink onesies, as the witches was not quite unsettling enough to prove convincingly scary. Whilst drawing on the play's obsession with children and succession, as well as the horror movie trope of the creepy child, these witches lacked a sense of the supernatural, making it difficult to believe that they had come from another world. Robin Lough's careful camerawork highlighted some of the more successful elements of Polly Findlay's direction. Michael Hodgson's Porter remained on set throughout the play, watching on as the grim events unfolded and chalking up the deaths on a brick wall as they occurred. Lough's shots were often framed to show the Porter in the background, looking on silently as Macbeth clutched at his invisible daggers, or as the Porter stood up, helpless to act but visibly shocked, as the Macduff family were dragged to their violent deaths. Both witness and a kind of archivist, the Porter's presence was an unnerving and effective device for underscoring both the magnitude and the horrible banality of Macbeth's crimes.

I suspect I was particularly drawn to the Porter as a result of my first experience of watching this production on screen two years ago, alongside a group of Year 10 (aged 14-15) students at a London secondary school as part of research into the RSC's Schools' Broadcast program. It was impossible to watch this re-release without remembering the reactions of the group, as well as those of other students on Twitter. The Porter was a particular point of interest for students on Twitter, who sent multiple tweets about his trainers, or as they termed them, "fresh creps." I initially assumed that the Porter's bland Janitor's uniform had unwittingly resonated with a "normcore" trend for wearing seemingly unfashionable, and unremarkable, clothes and trainers. Watching again, I questioned whether this was actually such an accident. As well as ankle-grazing trousers and sports shoes, I noticed that he also donned a brightly-colored buttondown shirt under his overalls, as well as a red...