Macbeth(Sam Wanamaker)

[Fleance]

I saw a really wonderful Pericles at the Wanamaker a few years ago -- Dromgoole's last production. Also (apart from that bed destruction at the end) quite liked Ellen McDougall's Othello last year -- so much better than Rylance at the Globe this summer.

But I do require a Lower Gallery back row seat.

[partytentdown]

It would take a lot to tempt me back into this wooden hell hole. Future health researchers will blame it for destroying the spines of a whole generation of London's theatre going population.

I remember when they tempted me back by putting "now with cushioned benches!" in their brochure, which is actually about half a centimetre of hard fabric covering what feels like a handful of straw.

I'm all for authenticity but sometimes things are improved over time for a reason.

[Deleted]

Authenticity my backside. They've got fire exits and flushing toilets for a start. There's no need to make the place so especially uncomfortable.

And the place still stinks like an outpost of World of Pine.

[Deleted]

They also have women on the stage and the option for electric lights should a touring production come through; "authenticity" is a very wrong and stupid word to be using around the Globe+Swanamaker, it encourages people to be rude about things they don't like when the truth is that authenticity can never be achieved because even if everything on stage is exactly as it was, *we're* not the same, and the helicopters flying overhead sure as hell aren't either.

[Steve]

Nov 13, 2018 8:33:24 GMT @ryan said:

Authenticity my backside. They've got fire exits and flushing toilets for a start. There's no need to make the place so especially uncomfortable.

And the place still stinks like an outpost of World of Pine.

You were lucky. In the old days, we didn't have the smell of pine or cushioned benches, we had a vat of yellow candle wax emptied on our heads, and dripped all over us for the entire performance, and some helpful advice to use an iron to get the wax off our clothes.

of course, in those days, the electric iron hadn't been invented, so we just had to run our whole bodies through a giant mangle.

And if we got standing seats to avoid the wax, they would lower the candles to block off the entire view, so we just had to make do with sounds. Of course, in those days, we didn't have ears.

[alexandra]

You lot, honestly. I'm middle-aged and not especially blessed in the musculoskeletal fitness department, yet I have no problem sitting in the Pit for 2 or 3 hours, even in the sideways seats which in fact I like.

[NeilVHughes]

Never really had an issue with the seating at the Swanamaker, being a keen cyclist once having cycled 150 miles in a day, a small padded wooden bench is comparatively high luxury.

The only time I become concerned is if I see someone having maybe had one lunch too many shuffling in my general direction.

[NeilVHughes]

A few thoughts

Michelle Terry is a strong Lady Macbeth as expected, do not dare to argue as you have no chance.

As for Macbeth, there was a lightness at his core which couldn’t really support the transition to the tyrant he became.

The lighting, or lack of, the flickering minimised candlelight really gave the feel of being in a dark oppressive and sometimes claustrophobic Scottish castle, an experience in itself, there is a magic at the Wanamaker that is unique when the candlelight is at the core of a production as in this case.

[peggs]

I have experienced a new for Shakespeare, I actually enjoyed watching a production of Macbeth!
As a blood fainter this play holds some problems for me and frankly I think studying it at school though I can remember nothing of that put me off it as a play. I've seen a Macbeth before that I thought excellent (Chichester Patrick Steward Kate Fleetwood one) but I was terrified throughout it (not necessarily a criticism) and only stayed because I was trapped in the middle of a row.
This play could have been written for this space, in candle light and often a single candle at that it was suitably uncomfortable, disquieting and thrillingly intimate. The red stuff did feature but for reasons that I couldn't explain wasn't an issue and the witches drawn by lots from the existing cast gave me the impression that they might in fact not have been there, rather thoughts, ideas already in other's minds, rather than the stuff to send me walking back to the train jumping at shadows.
I haven't been to this venue sufficiently yet that they lighting and tiny size fail to beguile me and it played very much as if the audience were the sort of wider court, I always a kick out of making eye contact and having lines said to you as it were in the outdoor space and it's no less spine tingling here. The reverberating sounds and the way in which the cast pop out of the doors through the seating made it all feel very immediate and involving.

I enjoyed Paul Ready's Macbeth, no obvious warrior, turned in one great speech from his firm decision not to kill to kill. As a couple the Macbeths convinced which made all the more sense of why post murder when Macbeth isolates himself that they both start falling apart. Michelle Terry's Lady Macbeth moved from almost gleeful delight in the prospect before them through to such rejected haunted vulnerability.

Couldn't really be more different direction wise from the Almedia Richard II I saw the same day but both featuring actors who seem able to make the language seem at once beautiful and a wonder and yet accessible, normal.