Mr & Mrs Macbeth of Dodson Valley Rd transforms Shakespeare’s heart of darkness tale into a dissection of marriage and comes up with scathing wit and humour amongst the all-too-honest barbs. All the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
Mr MacBeth (Mark Hadlow) and Mrs MacBeth (Lara Macgregor) have a theatre repertory company which they are attempting to keep on the road, in the current challenging time for the performing arts competing with streaming and social media’s voyeuristic whims.
Hadlow is familiar from his work in television and theatre, and may be best-known as a Peter Jackson regular, appearing in all three Hobbit movies, King Kong and the hilarious Meet the Feebles.
He is also a board member of the newly formed Professional Theatre Company based in Nelson, which has staged this production.
Macgregor is an experienced actor, director and producer and has been seen most recently on Clickbait (Netflix).
The minimal setting is a backstage dressing room. Framed by neon edges it is both confining and a haven from where the protagonists can off-load their frustrations.
Mister is a fading actor, who has been relegated from principle MacBeth, to understudy. He stalks into the room first, stubs his toe, curses and grumbles throughout the first act. Whilst getting inebriated on whiskey. He has been replaced by a younger male hunk with a huge social media following. This is what is keeping the play on the road.
Mrs is significantly younger, still vital to the production, and needs to wrestle with and placate the large ego. Macgregor has played Lady MacBeth as recently as 2016.
He is irascible and grumpy. She slowly gains the dominant role. Especially when she recites the chilling unsex me here/ turn my milk to gall monologue.
There is some of the dynamic of Edward Albee’s celebrated Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? They wrestle with their demons and egos and setting it around Shakespeare’s darkest journey of the psyche to come up with a comedy is a master stroke. The writer and director is Gregory Cooper.
There have been many productions of MacBeth with innovative variations. None I can recall which have taken such an overt comedic approach.
Of course, when Mister is well sozzled, he finds he must step up at the last minute and it’s Mrs who pulls him through.
The tale of murder and corruption is now a chance for both to perform heroics on stage.
The second act is a pure delight of perfectly timed comedy performances from two superb actors.
Those intrusive cell phones become a perfect prop. Shakespeare’s dialogue gets a hilarious cut-up as Mister stumbles, mistakenly recites and gets fed the lines from Mrs. There is slapstick, and a well-choreographed sword fight preceding a protracted bumbling denouement.
The set remains the same. Billowing fog and dimmed lights represent the MacBeth stage. The dressing room remains in play.
All the world’s a stage/ And all the men and women merely players. As you like it, audience.
It lifts the play from the bitterness of Virginia Woolf into a sort of redemption for the couple at the end.
Mr & Mrs Macbeth of Dodson Valley Rd is skilful and triumphant, and both players appear to revel in it.
Rev Orange Peel
Tickets are on sale at iTICKET for Friday 28th and Saturday 29th of July