As the old curse has it, “may you live in interesting times.” Macbeth lives in interesting times. Especially now with the new Michael Fassbender movie and at the Young Vic in London, which has a take like no other on Shakespeare’s cursed Scottish play from 1611.Normally the curtain falls only after the body count has piled up in typically tragic fashion. Here, the play starts with a mugging. That’s how it means to carry on: the first visual suggestion of blood on the dance floor. (As Lady Macbeth later puts it, “Out, damned spot”).The body sacks rapidly multiply, amid sinister music and flickering strobes. Victims usually get plastic bags taped to their heads as part of the dispatch process. It all looks frighteningly efficient.The pulsating beat returns as the three sexy witches, wearing flesh-colored leotards, start a twitching, syncopated dance that endures for much of the evening.The three-hour epic is trimmed to two, with no interval and dialogue chopped as ruthlessly as the violence onstage. Disco is threatening to break out any minute. At least most of the great quotes remain intact: “when the battle’s done,” “sound and fury,” “is this a dagger I see before me.”The former king is shown as a nasty bit of work. This old-school dictator is endlessly killing, torturing, lying, and beheading. As Duncan speaks, the adoring crowd sways along with the music still lingering beneath his words. His antics make Macbeth’s actions look a little justified.The cuts make for a simpler plot – aided and abetted by his wife, Macbeth murders his way to the top, then has regrets, goes nuts, and loses it all. But this “Shakespeare for Dummies” account also loses a lot of the subtleties – Duncan, Malcolm and Macduff become cardboard cutouts rather than the characters the Bard offers, with contrasting hints of meekness and machismo.This approach does allow for a central focus on the Macbeths. Anna Maxwell Martin captures the cooly ambitious woman who is first disappointed as her husband crumbles before her eyes. Then she sleepwalks to her own disaster. John Heffernan’s Macbeth starts off as the quiet hero. He is later bashing his banqueting table and then collapses in a corner, needing a microphone to deliver his final despairing lines as the dancers take over the stage and pump up the volume of the Chris Clark electronic soundtrack.Lizzie Clachan’s set is the stuff of nightmares. Less Scottish castle as a concrete corridor to hell, it is set off by Neil Austin’s lighting which frequently projects spooky shadows onto both walls.This is not a Macbeth for the purists therefore. That has had multiple runs of the London stage – not notably recently with the exceptional Jamie Lloyd production starring James McAvoy. To liken that with the Young Vic’s take is like comparing apples with oranges.Director Carrie Cracknell has a stream of endlessly inventive ideas - not the same thing as overproduction - such as church bells sounding like ringtones and a speech turning into a 21-st century news conference with distorted camera noises. She allows choreographer Lucy Guerin full reign to weigh in with lengthy sequences.The result is a cross between Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” video with ghouls, goths and zombies; “A Clockwork Orange”; Sadler’s Wells; 1970s “Top of the Pops” shows; and Furious Five-style rap breakdancing. This showtime veers towards “sound and fury, signifying nothing” and doesn’t always gel with the psychodrama. Nonetheless, it remains a most memorable Macbeth for our times, be they “interesting” – or just plain troubled. The Young Vic run of Macbeth has been extended to January 23, 2016. It will then play at Birmingham Repertory Theatre from January 26 to 30, 2016, and HOME in Manchester from February 2 to 6, 2016.
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