Cawdor calling

Tonight I went and saw a production of MacBeth at the Cottier Theatre, a place which I am familiar as that's where I performed in the Another Road play I was part of back in May there.  The drama group Incorporated media put on their production and it was overall quite an entertaining adaptation of the play.

The plot of the play is very much in the public eye with the army general MacBeth under the rule of King Duncan who seizes the chance for power to become king by committing the bloody murder of the king, after his wife Lady MacBeth plots to kill Duncan.  However of course after MacBeth commits the murder and takes power, as well as being the spearhead behind the murders of some of his fellow soldiers, he starts to see images of his friend Banqo, and soon begins to succumb to madness as does Lady MacBeth.  And its all downhill from there.

Overall Incorporated Media's production was quite impressive, as they made good use of the excellent Cottier theatre, which in itself almost resembles inner halls of a castle, and their use of lighting as well as dark atmospheric music definitely added to the menacing tone of the play.  The performances while maybe perhaps lacking a little in passion and uneven in quality, certainly offered more in restraint, as the play could easily have been overdone with over the top theatrics, instead we are treated to quite an intense low key piece, and its very much about the mood of the piece.  The central performance from Derek Crawford Munn was particularly good as he subtly grasped the moral dilemma that MacBeth faces in seizing power for himself, and John Scougall was also excellent as MacDuff, the thane of Fife.  The actress who played Lady MacBeth, while she displayed her authoritive qualities well, I felt she was a bit uneven overall, but her perforamnce of Lady MacBeth's famous soliloquy was pretty good.  And my good acting bud Martin Haddow also did very well in his smaller roles, as he is a fine actor, and whatever he does, you can see the thought he puts into his performance. 

Having not seen a production of MacBeth before myself it was also good to see an intepretation of the play, although I briefly did cover one or two scenes in past acting classes.  But as with all things Shakespeare, you have to see it for yourself as if you read it from a book you won't understand a word of it, as I had tried to read it for the classes back then and couldn't take it in! 

But overall it was a fine production from Incorporated media and if you haven't seen the play yet, its definitely worth getting along to Cottier theatre before its finishes its run on Saturday 24 September.  

So on that note, that's eeet.