Paul T Davies reviews Imitating The Dog's production of Macbeth at the Mercury Theatre Colchester.
Photo: Ed Waring Macbeth. Mercury Theatre, Colchester.
3 Stars
20 April 2023
Imitating the Dog bring their fusion of live action and installation/videography to Shakespeare’s classic, radically reworking the text to bring relevance to modern audiences. This means that the play is “based on” Shakespeare, and becomes Peaky Macbeth, the titular character becoming the head of a drugs gang, fighting for control and succession amongst the grimy car parks and clubs of a city called Estuary. The witches inventively also act as chorus, made up to look like Heath Ledger’s the Joker, they are wonderfully irreverent, revelling in cheeky asides to the audience, setting the scenes and multi-rolling with ease. It’s not for the purists, and, whilst much of the production is involving and the pace invigorating, the staging doesn’t allow the play to breath, it crashes onto the next gimmick, all through a sweary Peaky Blinders filter that is already becoming a bit tedious on both stage and television.
Photo: Ed Waring
There are many positives to this production, not least the projections and the cast, the five actors make an impressive ensemble. Lady Macbeth, via a wonderous Manga inspired sequence, is given a back story of child abuse to explain some of her later actions. Impressive as it may be, we’ve never had it until now and Maia Tamraker’s excellent performance gives us everything we need to know about Lady M. The problem for Benjamin Westerby in this production is that Macbeth starts off as murderous gangster and ends the same, there is no character development or clan loyalty, everyone is on the make, solid as his performance is.
Photo: Ed Waring
The interpretation of the witches gives them gleeful authority to play with text and performance, but the meta-theatricality becomes a little unnecessary, we don’t have to be told everything when we can see the action unfolding. There is also little justification for Lady Macbeth surviving and escaping after finding out she is pregnant; it takes away all the impact and tragic circumstances of that role.
Photo: Ed Waring
Whilst Pete Brooks, Andrew Quick and Simon Wainwright’s production is visually film noir entertaining, the irony is that the production is at its best when the original text is spoken, and the company speak it impressively. The old maxim that less is more would certainly be of benefit at many points in this pierce. That said, it was a thrill to see an almost full house, and pupils studying the play will have much to discuss and disassemble.
Paul is a playwright, director, actor, academic, (he has a PhD from the University of East Anglia), teacher and theatre reviewer! His plays include Living with Luke, (UK tour 2016), Play Something, (Edinburgh Festival Fringe/Drayton Arms Theatre, London 2018), , (2019), and now The Miner’s Crow, which won the inaugural Artist’s Pick of the Fringe Award at the first ever Colchester Fringe Festival 2021. In lockdown 2020 he created the audio series Isolation Alan, available on Youtube, and performed online in the Voice Box Festival. He is the founder member of Stage Write, a Colchester based theatre company, and his acting roles include Rupert in How We Love by Annette Brook, first performed at the Vaults Festival 2020 and revived at the Arcola and at Theatre Peckham in 2021. Follow: @stagewrite_
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