Macbeth starring Ralph Fiennes & Indira Varma – Reviews

"Ralph Fiennes brings the tragedy pulsing into the present day"

"The thoughts this play provokes about the human cost of political violence will linger long in the mind"

"Director Simon Godwin’s production deftly blends raw and personal human emotions with broader themes of political machination and violent conflict."

"Indeed, much in this production, which will move on to Edinburgh, London and Washington after its Liverpool run, is close to the contemporary knuckle; the mark of a good adaptation and powerful performances."

"... it is after the interval that this production finds its full power. Fiennes keeps it understated for the first half – maybe a little too so – but becomes increasingly compelling as he flits between rage, panic and humour on his way to a final showdown with Macduff."

"Varma... is consistently enthralling as Lady Macbeth"

"Wary, thoughtful, skittish... Ralph Fiennes even has comic touches in this new production of Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy"

"Some Macbeths come out swinging, like big-hitting Alpha males. Not Oscar-nominated Ralph Fiennes in this fascinating new production of Shakespeare's Scottish tragedy."

"Wary, thoughtful and skittish, Fiennes keeps you wondering what he and his 'heat oppressed brain' will do next, in a nervy, tense performance that sees him for ever glancing over his shoulder."

"Elsewhere, Simon Godwin's production of the text, abridged by Emily Burns, is more solid and lucid than inventive or startling."

"Vladimir Putin would surely dismiss the mean little banqueting table around which the Macbeths convene for the ghoulish central scene, haunted by Banquo's ghost. But as a megalomaniac gangster tyrant, Fiennes's troubled misfit is much more interesting than his hellbound Russian counterpart."

"Ralph Fiennes is pure poetry in this trad rather than rad staging"

"This touring production radiates old-school classiness, with Fiennes powerfully leading from the front"

"There’s a school of thought that Macbeth works best in confinement. All the same, an aura of containment is obtainable even in a venue as vast as “the Depot”, which houses a three-sided auditorium of some 900 seats in a hangar-like environment, the letter M enticingly projected on the outside like the Batman insignia."

"At 60, Fiennes’s customary controlled stillness, even stiffness, suits well enough a care-worn, long-serving soldier suddenly tantalised with the prospect of power. Fiennes supplies physical restraint and deliberative, cerebral energy."

"It’s Fiennes’s night. He’s perturbed and furrowed, decisive then vacillating, kneeling by Indira Varma’s poised, cool, goading Lady M, creepily to caress her belly"

"Is it a full-voltage, visceral Macbeth, though, fit to send you reeling home with nightmares? On balance, not really. Overall, it’s more “trad” than “rad”"

"Ralph Fiennes is a savage, serpentine Macbeth"

"Liverpool’s Depot is turned into a theatre of war for a bloody production of Shakespeare’s tragedy"

"The audience first shuffles through the detritus of a battle’s aftermath where dazed soldiers survey the wreckage. But it’s more than an atmospheric concept; more than any production I’ve seen, it contextualises the bloody logic and martial conditioning that drives Macbeth to his downfall."

"The brilliance of his [Fiennes] performance is in becoming the dagger he hallucinates. His movements are jabs, his wrists flicking, hands swatting. He often angles his face down to use his forehead as a mallet, planting it against a servant to rebuff their news of invasion."

"With frequent blood spurts and a moment when Fiennes gnaws savagely on Macduff’s neck, it’s a Macbeth that quickens the pulse, then goes for the jugular."

"Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma are magnetic murderers in Simon Godwin’s bleakly immersive warehouse production"

"This is not site-specific in the way that Kenneth Branagh’s production was 10 years ago... Yet it envelops its audience in the play’s disruptive discomforts. No plush. A chill in the air: spectators kept their coats on. Sounds uncushioned in a metallic space."

"Among the far-off crash and boom of explosions, the thin tinkle of a musical box. This would simply be desolate decoration were it not that Fiennes and Varma are strong at projecting the equivocal quality that fuels the play."

"The couple are terrific together: suggesting complicit silences even when speaking. They urge each other towards regicide with little intimate shoves of dialogue. Strong apart, too."

"Varma is a marvellous Lady Macbeth. Free of histrionics, she regards the killing as an inevitable career move, yet unravels with tears at the loss of her love. In V-neck sweater and trousers, she is elegant, managerial: like a French movie star of the 60s."

"Blood splatters galore as Ralph Fiennes becomes a brutal Scottish king"

"Leading Shakespeare director Simon Godwin turns Liverpool’s cavernous warehouse The Depot into an unsettling backdrop for this visceral gut-punch of a production"

"Macbeth, with its witchy interludes and base notes of the uncanny, certainly benefits from being plucked out of the relative cosiness of a traditional theatre."

"Custom-built for the production, it feels both lofty and intimate, though you might bemoan the lack of legroom. The audience is packed in close quarters and placed in the thick of the action."

"Fiennes and Varma’s Macbeths are a well-matched couple; the power balance between the two is not exaggerated too much in favour of the latter. This only makes Varma’s Lady Macbeth a more agile and intriguing presence, as she switches from charming hostess to murderer by proxy with just a subtle modulation of pitch and tone."

"Godwin’s use of space is striking throughout, but it steps up a gear in the final act, when the auditorium doors spring open to reveal the antechamber again, this time lit up with flames and crackling fireworks."

"Ralph Fiennes’ monstrous monarch wages war in a warehouse"

"Staged in a hangar-like venue strewn with the charred remnants of battle, Simon Godwin’s intelligent production puts violent conflict to the fore"

"Shakespeare’s 11th-century battleground is turned into a modern-day war zone and Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth emerges in army fatigues."

"Adapted by Emily Burns, it is a smart, spare, modern dramatisation, in which Frankie Bradshaw’s enveloping set design is the star of the show, although there is less innovation to the production than its site-specific nature suggests."

"Fiennes gives a controlled performance, gradually becoming manic and monstrous, and is compelling as a king who has turned erratic, obscene, impish in his lack of repentance."

"Indira Varma’s Lady Macbeth is excitable in her ambition for her husband, always human, and has command within their relationship but also remains soft-edged and vulnerable."

"The atmosphere does not always feel furtive or feverish enough, the play’s supernatural scares all but replaced by the horror and corruption of war."

"The pace picks up and the production as a whole is a polished piece of work, perhaps not feverish enough but an engrossing experience."

"Ralph Fiennes’ Macbeth needs to sharpen his teeth"

"The acclaimed actor and Indira Varma’s Lady Macbeth are so normal — but this is a play that needs bite"

"Is this a decent rather than devastating attempt to bring Macbeth to the masses I see before me?"

"What’s going to matter here is whether Fiennes’s Macbeth and Indira Varma’s Lady Macbeth conquer this gig-sized space like their characters conquer Scotland. What’s soon clear is that they are out to do so by stealth rather than force."

"There’s not a false note to Varma or Fiennes. Their low-key humanity isn’t enough, though."

"Ralph Fiennes is more bemused than bewitched"

"... Ralph Fiennes gives us a king who often resembles a middle manager who has his eyes on becoming president-for-life of the local tennis club."

"Bradshaw gives us a functional set resembling the kind of concrete summer chalet Albert Speer might have designed for his master. Does it feel all that different from a common or garden theatre? Not particularly."

"This is a run-of-the-mill production in which there’s surprisingly little electricity between Fiennes and Indira Varma’s clipped, demure Lady Macbeth."

"Fiennes doesn’t disappoint with the verse speaking — everything is clear and considered. But he gives us a Macbeth, dressed in modern combat fatigues, who seems more bemused than bewitched. F"

"The marketing of this Ralph Fiennes vehicle is the masterpiece here"

"Fiennes and Indira Varma have an easy chemistry but apart from the design and locations, this is a standard Scottish play"

"This is a calculated piece of event theatre. A solid, lucid production of Shakespeare’s play is transformed into a happening by the heavyweight presence and onstage chemistry of stars Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, and by the misleading implication we’re taking part in something far cooler than a boring old play."

"... the audience is ushered into the cavernous auditorium via a wasteland where a burning car is guarded by dead-eyed soldiers... What actually takes place on the stage is straightforward, bordering on the pedestrian."

"Fiennes is a physically mannered, careworn, middle-aged Macbeth, seizing a late chance of advancement. There’s an easy affection and attraction between the lead couple, and Varma subtly shows how Lady Macbeth’s sharp-elbowed ambition for her husband decays into dismay, distrust and eventually madness."

"Godwin’s production has a propulsive, coldly relentless quality and some nice touches"

"Stolid and largely thrill-free"

"It has witches, it has gore, it has a narrative of power-crazed violence, war and oppression that never fails to hold a dark mirror up to our own perpetually turbulent and divided world. Yet if there’s one respect in which this keenly anticipated production of Shakespeare’s supernatural tragedy shocks, it is its lack of creative risk or innovation."

"Even the lead casting of Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma – two of our finest and most intelligent actors – can’t elevate it above the ordinary."

"Godwin’s version – with textual tweaks from Emily Burns, notably the excision of the Porter scene – is modern and non-specific, with battlefield khaki, statesmen in suits and witches in tattered, filthy anoraks with matted hair."

"Fiennes’ shining eyes dart penetratingly among the audience during his soliloquies, as if he’s scanning the crowd for opponents or a rogue assassin. And Varma rapidly disintegrates when it’s clear that her husband doesn’t have the necessary sophistication or slippery duplicity for politics. But what surrounds them – including some woefully wooden supporting performances – is so unremarkable that what should be a vortex of atrocity becomes rather dull."