DD140834

DD140834 is a newspaper clipping of a review by Peter Lewis of the Greenwich Macbeth, from the Daily Mail of 18th February 1971.

Transcript

        Enter
        Corporal
        Macbeth

      By PETER LEWIS

   Macbeth by Shakespeare
     Greenwich Theatre
         Rating *

A GREAT NIGHT for the
noises off.
  A night of whistling and
whinnying and the calls of
whippoorwhills, of electronic
music for the witches' chants,
of echo chambers and metallic
vibrations from the back-
projected ghosts.
  The black pit of the Green-
wich stage, billowing with
smoke, probed by spotlights, is
choked with atmosphere.
  But what about the noises
on? Never have I heard
the lines rattled, gabbled,
scrambled and swallowed with
less ceremony. Double, double
and hurry up at the back
there. They ricochet into the
darkness like bullets.
  Ewan Hooper's production
deliberately treats the play as
a contemporary story of
political butchery performed by
very ordinary men. There is
nothing kingly about Alan
Dobie's Macbeth--no crown,
no wig, just a short back and
sides.

        Agonised

  Not so much a general as a
petty tyrant of a corporal and
his ranting hysteria soon
suggests which corporal--
Corporal Hitler.
  One can see the point, but
Macbeth's language deserves
more than Hitler's monotonous
style.
  There are some good things
nevertheless. An agonised
sleepwalking scene by Hilde-
gard Neil, an eerie, motionless
battle piece and good witchery.
  A night of dark doings,
many of then inaudible, full of
sound and fury and not always
signifying very much.