I don’t mind admitting I was put off going to see this production during its run at the Donmar Warehouse – the audiences there had to put on headphones for the duration of the interval-less performance, a set of which was placed on every seat. Not so in the cinema (the production was recorded for this very purpose in mind) – thank goodness – and with more comfortable seating in the cinema, I didn’t mind the 114-minute running time. I am not, evidently, in a position to say which is better. But the camera angles and editing of the filmed version means audiences are able to see, for the most part, exactly where a sound is coming from. And we did not suffer the distancing and isolating effect of hearing everything through headphones and therefore not really enjoying (or indeed enduring) the performance as a collective audience.
Perhaps the headphone thing would have been bliss for those who really can’t stand even the occasional cough or watch chiming on the hour. This production of the Scottish play (another thing about being in a cinema was that I could freely say I was there to see Macbeth without the superstition that comes with saying that word in the theatre) is the subtlest I’ve come across. The cast does not need to project to the back row of the circle – their headphones work as well as the ones in the front row of the stalls.
It’s not the shortest version of the play – Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre has an hour-long version as part of its ‘Family Storytelling’ series – and the staging is so plain and monochrome that if I didn’t know any better, I might have wondered if it was produced by the Jamie Lloyd Company. The emotions are cranked up, even if the volume isn’t, with some convincing cries of horror and terror when the killings, multiple as they are, take place. Jatinder Singh Randhawa’s Porter, interestingly, indulges in some metatheatre, which a fellow cinemagoer told me afterwards felt like a waste of time at best and an unnecessary breaking of the play’s tension at worst. I thought it was a harmless moment of comic relief, though I take the point it could have been taken out with zero effect on the narrative. He’s right, however (I think): in the theatre with next to no set and those pesky headphones, it would have felt like listening to a radio play.
David Tennant’s Macbeth has a rough and rugged voice, embodying the kind of unfettered and determined personality that will stop at nothing to get what he wants. As a cinematic experience, it works well overall and held my attention throughout.
Review by Chris Omaweng
A spellbinding story of love and murder, the renewing power of nature, and of the internal struggles of a damaged man as he tries to control his destiny. This bracingly fresh screening of this production of the Scottish play uses immersive 5.1 cinema surround sound to place the audience inside the minds of the Macbeths, asking if we are ever really responsible for our actions.
Cast: Moyo Akandé, Annie Grace, Brian James O’Sullivan, Cush Jumbo, Casper Knopf, Cal MacAninch, Kathleen MacInnes, Alasdair Macrae, Rona Morison, Noof Ousellam, Raffi Phillips, Jatinder Singh Randhawa, David Tennant, Ros Watt and Benny Young
Max Webster – Director
Rosanna Vize – Designer
Bruno Poet – Lighting Designer
Gareth Fry – Sound Designer
Shelley Maxwell – Movement Director
Anna Cooper CDG – Casting Director
Rachel Bown-Williams and Ruth Cooper-Brown of Rc-Annie Ltd – Fight Directors
MACBETH
By William Shakespeare
In cinemas across the UK, US, Australia and selected international territories from 5 February 2025
https://www.macbethdonmarcinema.com/
