Mr & Mrs Macbeth

Summary

by Eve Speisser and Camille Huppert

At the beginning of the play, there were 2 of King Duncan’s generals (Duncan is the king of Scotland): Macbeth and Banquo. Suddenly, they saw  three witches, who told them a prophecy. They told them that Macbeth would become the  king and thane of Cawdorbut. They also told Banquo that his son would become king too

 Lady Macbeth convinces her husband to kill Duncan. When they hear about that murder, Duncan’s sons, Malcom and Donalbain, flee to England and Ireland.

Macbeth meets the witches again and they tell him a new prophecy, this time they tell him three things:

-          Macduff (who’s a noble man) is opposed to Macbeth’s accession to the throne

-          Macbeth will be  safe until the forest comes to his castle

-          He is safe as long as babies are born of women

The only problem for Macbeth,  is Macduff, so Macbeth kills Macduff’s wife and children while Macduff flees to England. He wants to take revenge on  the murder of his family ,so he raises an army with Malcolm.

As she feels guilty, Lady Macbeth kills herself

The three prophecies of the witches appear to be true:

-          Macduff isn’t born naturally (he wasn’t born out of the womb but by caesarean)

-          The army hides itself with wood, so the forest comes to the castle.

Finally, Macduff and Macbeth fight and Macbeth is beheaded.

Malcolm becomes king of Scotland.

Critique :

by Renan garcia

Mr and Mrs Macbeth :

            The performance was called « Mr and Mrs Macbeth », a play inspired by « Macbeth » written by Shakespeare. The performance took place on Tuesday, February 18th at the « Espace Rohan ». The play was performed by actors of the company « le théâtre en Anglais ». The performance was adapted from Shakespeare’s play by Sam Pinnel and Lucile O’Flannagan.The latter was also the stage director. The performance is a tragedy. The actors portrayed the characters very well but it was kind of « old school », although they were hard to portray because they were realistic and very complex. The characters portrayed « the human nature » in an awesome way, showing aspects of human vanity, selfishness and thirst of power. What happens to them proves that the wheels of the action turn full circle and the villains will get punishment for their deeds. Having read the text before, I think the actors didn’t drift away from the original text but if they did ,I didn’t notice it, so it was greatly done. I was particularly surprised when I saw the 3D glasses and screen.In my opinion, the use of the 3D really matched the acting. However, as far as I am concerned, I don’t really like 3D. I think the acting with a real set and real scenery would have emphasized the actors. The actors should have been better synchronized with the 3D screen and interact a bit more with the audience. On the whole, I would say that the set was a bit bare and plain, the main setting was the 3D screen. However, the 3D screen reflected the creepy atmosphere of the play in a great way, and the lighting was effective. The stage lights added a cinematic touch to the play, it was dark, then illuminated, and it helped the sequence of the scenes.

The costumes varied; from my point of view, it revealed the role of the character and the kind of personality. I did not notice any props apart from the 3D screen, and this screen helped the performance to run smoothly. From my point of view, once again, the only thing that was really complementing the play was the 3D screen, the rest was rather shallow.

On the whole, I would say that the performance was quite interesting but I prefer “classical” plays with no screen, it’s more original, and the acting did not really match the screen (film). During the performance, depending on the action, one could either be interested or bored, because the action was kind of slow; the actors lacked charisma and particularly the ones on the screen. It is very hard to tell how the entire audience responded to the performance, but according to the people that were around me I can say that they reacted in different ways, some were captivated and liked it a lot whereas some just took a nap, and then people like me that had mixed feelings. I would recommend the story (script) “Mr and Mrs Macbeth”, but not particularly this play, if you are someone interested in new ways of acting a play just go watch it but if you like plays with people of “flesh and bones” do not go. As the play was based on “Macbeth” by Shakespeare and having read the text before, the ending was predictable for me, but I think the actors were not good at acting the end, I was kind of disappointed by the end.