Macbeth Reviews

Macbeth strikes a chord

Scores of theatre-lovers braved heavy rains on Saturday night to attend the gala opening of Glen Walford's adaptation of Shakespeare's famous play Macbeth at the Frank Collymore Hall. Produced by the Gale Theatre of London and Barbados, the play is directed by Walford, a respected British director, with Barbadian-born Canadian actress Alison Sealy-Smith as Lady Macbeth and British actor Peter Temple as Macbeth.
It was a riveting performance by Sealy-Smith, including her delivery of the often-memerised quote "Out, damned spot!" so familiar to fans of the play.

Something wicked this way comes

The Barbados Advocate - 11th April 2008
Stories by Khalil Goodman

One of the most fascinating aspects of the Glen Walford-directed production of 'Macbeth' is her setting the play in an unknown forest and placing the witches more prominently in the centre of the action.
Filled with violent plots, supernatural intrigue, a fascinating look at the corruption of a man debatably by his own imagination or ambition, the play certainly has something for everyone.
Glen Walford chooses to place the witches more prominently in her production. Bedecked in unitards covered in animal print, the witches move throughout the play in fluid and appropriately bizarre ways. Walford's witches are young and otherworldly creatures, suggesting animal spirits of some Aboriginal nation more so than old hags.
The weird Sisters (played by Varia Williams, Ayesha Gibson and newcomer Ramona Grandison) are almost always present in the scenes of the play. When Lady Macbeth cries "Come you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here" the witches are behind, seemingly filling her with murderous cause and ruthless intent. The witches whisper into the ears of the characters, or just whisper at the edges of the action, overseeing and - it would seem - driving the plot to it's violent end.
While this certainly throws an interesting take on the production it does take some of the ambiguous nature out of the play.
Peter Temple playing the title role gives it his all, presenting Macbeth as both close kin to the fatally introspective Hamlet, as well as the power-wielding men of ill will like Richard III.
Temple's rendering of the line "...am in blood stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more, Returning were as tedious as go o'er" is said in a voice so strangled and tired you can see he is just about to be overwhelmed, yet he clings to false bravado.
Alison Sealy-Smith plays her Lady Macbeth as a ruthless harridan rebuking her husband to commit murder rather than coaxing him, she smiles at him sexually one minute then rebukes him when he fails to do as he is told.
But slowly the two exchange roles with Temple becoming more vicious and Sealy-Smith slowly crumbling in preparation for the famous nightwalking scene.
All of the choking horror of the play is set in 'forest' stage production created by Martina Pile with Charles O'dell on drums and Ben Goddard (who also doubles as Ross) providing a haunting flute to accent some of the action.