STAGE AND SCREEN
THE THEATRE
Macbeth." By William Shakespeare. At the Arts Theatre, Cambridge.
BY long-standing tradition a Marlowe Society production is anonymous ; but sometimes the name of the producer leaks out and high expectations are aroused among those who know.
Former experiences have taught them that, in his hands, what- ever the performers may lack in technical accomplishment will be more than made up for in faithful adherence to the text, in intelligent and sensitive rendering of Shakespeare's poetry, and in responsiveness at every point to the dramatist's intention. The play will be the thing. This week, at the Arts Theatre, none of these hopes was disappointed.
Macbeth is not an easy play to stage. Shakespeare has lavished attention on his central theme—the development of the character of Macbeth : when he and his lady are on the stage the tension is high-pitched and the poetry rich and subtle. It is when they are off the stage that the producer's skill is most severely tested ; the play may easily be wrecked
by a dull Malcolm or a priggish Macduff, an insensitive Ross or unintelligent nobles. The twofold problem for the pro- ducer must be : first to choose and train his two central characters for their tremendous task, and, secondly, to inspire the smaller parts with a full sense of their responsibility, for on them rests the structure of the play.
The success of the Marlowe production this week rested upon the brilliant accomplishment of these two ends. Mac- beth and Lady Macbeth were superb. They felt and under- stood all that they said, with the result that the well-known words revealed, to one spectator at any rate, an unsuspected wealth of meaning. Their youthful charm and the sense they gave of potential nobleness added a new poignancy to the horror of their downfall. Lady Macbeth was at first harsh and insensitive, then bewildered, and at last crushed by what she had brought about. Macbeth rushed headlong, driven by his imaginative fears, down the slope on which she had set his feet. Perhaps the final emotion with which they left the audience was pity rather than terror ; but, if these two were more sympathetic than Shakespeare meant, his play lost nothing by it. The horror of the tyranny under which Scot- land suffered was never lost sight of. Those difficult short scenes in the second half were played with a force and intelli- gence that underscored it. Perhaps, too, the history of our own times adds something to the poignancy of Macduff's exultant cry of The time is free, and makes of Malcolm's
What's more to do Which would be planted newly with the time As calling home our exiled friends abroad That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,
something more than the winding-up of an old play.
The indelible effect of all this was increased by the dignified simplicity of the set ; the colourful beauty of the Scottish eighteenth-century dress ; the eerie horror of the witches' cauldron, and the effective masks of the apparitions.
The music off stage, skirling of witchcraft and unknown evil abroad, or drumming and trumpeting its martial tunes, added much to the tense atmosphere. And many small parts, intelligently played, must go unrecorded. But these anony- mous young actors look for no personal glory. They have had their reward in discovering the play. For perhaps, when all is said, the peculiar delight c,f such a production, distin- guishing it from anything the professional stage can offer, lies precisely in that. The audience feel that Shakespeare's play is being, in a double sense, freshly discovered. As scene follows scene, the full measure of the tragedy seems to be borne in upon the actors as well as uncovered for the on- looker. There were, of course, imperfections. The small stage made sleep-walking difficult; Lady Macbeth paced to and fro more irritated than subdued ; Siward was too obviously the "Old Man " of an earlier scene ; Macbeth had clearly not
" fallen into the sere and yellow leaf." All this is soon for- gotten. What is unforgettable is the sharp presentation of the gulf between good and evil ; the horror of two souls destroyed and the certainty that men will not for ever endure bloody
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