Intuition and expertise day conference

A blog about reflections on intuition and expertise as approached by healthcare workers, psychoanalysts, performers and artists. The focus is around a day conference being run at University College London, UK on 8th November 2005

Friday, August 19, 2005

She should have died hereafter

Back from Macbeth in the rain. What you hope for, under these circumstances, is that the sublime of the poetry makes you forget that you are sitting in a raincoat and hat in the rain. It did. The supporting actors were rather weak but Macbeth himself was played very strongly, with energy and passion. He was especially good near the beginning when he was distracted by his dark ambition rather than completely lost to evil, madness and blood, with a beautifully played uneasy gaze and indecision. His relationship with lady Macbeth was electric in parts. He had an age and presence that the others lacked which was used to good effect. Malcolm and even MacDuff were callow in comparison to his macho confidence. As often in Shakespeare, the villains are more attractive, more alive. I wonder why this is so in the arts because in 'life' villains from local criminals to world leaders seem the complete opposite to living life to the full.
Finally, I wish the actors had let the poetry reverberate with its own power sometimes rather than deliver it all with unvarying force and volume - but perhaps you need to do that outside on a rainy night.

2 Comments:

At 3:40 AM, Blogger Geoff said...

Pity about the rain, but I guess it lends a gloomy atomsphere - we went earlier in the week on a fine evening. I found the performance a bit flat somehow. Oh, it looks as you have the first convert to the conference - suzanne wants to come!

 
At 3:42 AM, Blogger Geoff said...

Last comment was at 11.42am. Think you have a slightly backward clock :-)

 

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