THIS WEBSITE/BUSINESS/DOMAIN NAME IS FOR SALE. We will sell it with its sibling sites. Instant traffic and business model. See About Us Page to make Contact.

Macbeth
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Brenda White
New Farm Nash Theatre
New Farm
Brisbane

THINGS don’t change much do they?
Picture the plot: The boss is knifed, his successors protest innocence and behind the scenes do deals, put a spin on all the actions, and try to grab support from anyone to claim to be the legitimate government and eventually are cut down.
That’s Macbeth oh – and Australian federal politics at this place in time of course.
I am very fond of Macbeth, it has great characters and language which is why I took a risk on an amateur production.
Usually I try to avoid amateur productions of Shakespeare’s plays. I have seen too many where the actors recite the lines without having any idea of what they mean and do lots of posturing and pompous shouting; a far cry from the more natural interpretations we get these days.
But I have to hand it to Nash and the director Brenda White for coming up with a production that held my interest all the way through the two hour plus version with some good acting, excellent diction and Sue Watson’s atmospheric set that set that really conveyed the blasted heath.
here were also very authentic looking medieval swords that made lovely clanking noises during a pretty good sword fight between Macduff and Macbeth, and the mood music was set with an unusual mix of percussion, violin and recorder noises off done my Nigel Monro-Wallis and June A Balfour.
To make this play succeed you need to have a strong lead an equally strong Lady Macbeth - and good witches.
No problems there. I just loved the Nash witches; they were as great a troop of nasty, evil, vampiric, snake hissing villains as I’ve ever seen. You certainly would not like to meet them on a dark night on any heath, blasted or not. They cackled and hissed and gave poor Macbeth hell whenever he met them - and the cauldron scene at the beginning of the second act was powerful and scary. 
It really was great work from Gilly Graham, Imbi Ling and Gabrielle Burke. Gabrielle Burke like most others in the cast doubled up on roles and I thought she was one of the best in changing character for Lady Macduff and Banquo’s son.
Dan Lane is an experienced actor and it showed this with his interpretation of Macbeth. He played him with strength, confusion and vacillation. He showed a sound understanding of Shakespeare’s text and his diction so good you could hear every word he said – even when he was shouting. It was an impressive performance in the complicated role.
Lady Macbeth was played by Rebecca Roebuck-Malone, another actor with a lot of experience. She also got into the skin of her character and did a very impressive “Out damn spot” scene as well as a convincing bullying of her husband to turn him into a murderer.
James Hudson was an affable Banquo and the rest were a mix of text quoters and youngsters.
here was an unusual element in the show. Brenda White cast June A Balfour as the Porter, the gruff and crude drunken gate keeper. It did not work for me, the character is much too masculine to be played by a woman, the lines need a male delivery and all the sexual innuendo is purely male.
he female vocal delivery sat uncomfortably with me too.T
I wasn’t too fond of Eamonn Clohesy’s Malcolm either; he did too much mugging and over-acted in all his scenes, sometimes he was even unintentionally funny. However he is young, he only left school last year, and he did know all his lines, which is something when you have a long Shakespearean soliloquy to do.
David Law played Malcolm’s brother Macduff and he was guilty too of some over-acting, in scenes with Malcolm, but he was a lot better when he faced off with Macbeth at the end.
There was a posse of year 12 students there when I saw the show and they sat pretty well engrossed, which is a good omen. I think it’s a good production for schools, no frills and good diction. It runs at the Brunswick Room, Merthyr Uniting Church, 52 Merthyr Road, New Farm until September 11. Bookings: Phone 3379 4775 or E-Mail nashtheatre4@bigpond.com
www.absolutetheatre.com.au
www.absolutetheatre.com.au