Review: Macbeth, with Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, at D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company
After a long wait, the production is finally here.
When D.C.'s Shakespeare Theatre Company hired Simon Godwin to be their new artistic director back in 2018, it signaled what they wanted from the company: A-list performances, unique stagings, and sold-out houses. They got it all and more in Godwin's production of Macbeth, starring Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma, now playing at a found space in D.C.'s Northeast.
Anticipation for this production has been mounting for over a year as it was announced last spring, Fiennes and Varma were known to be attached a few weeks later, and local audiences have had to wait for the show to finish its runs in Liverpool, Edinburgh, and London for the past few months. As the excitement grew, it became the hottest ticket in town.
Luckily for us, it was worth the wait. Although we all know the story of Macbeth, from the famous soliloquies and setpieces to its bloody iconography, Fiennes and Varma play Shakespeare's most self-sabotaging duo in a production that exceeds expectations.
Set in a landscape reminiscent of the familiar devastation that fills our news, Godwin's Macbeth uses the warehouse trappings to immerse the audience in a contemporary world from the moment you arrive. A camouflaged ensemble directs you to your seat and barks at you to prepare for a rollout.
The show starts when a bomb strikes.
From the rubble emerge the three witches (Danielle Fiamanya, Lucy Mangan, Lola Shalam - all three highlights), three nameless victims caught in the crossfire of a war that they aren't fighting. Their premonitions of Macbeth's fate come with the knowledge that their uniting force is death. It's a promise.
But first, as we all know, they tell him that he will be king. Though Macbeth finds this curious, his wife finds it enticing. It's easy enough, kill the king and take the crown. In many a Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis begins dreaming of this power for the very first time while his wife takes the offensive. But it's clear that Fiennes and Varma have thought of this before and this is the sign they were looking for.
It's also typically the murder of Duncan that sends Macbeth into a spiral of fear and regret from which he will never free himself. Fiennes's Macbeth, however, is a man with a history of mental health issues ("I have a strange infirmity, which is nothing to those that know me" he jokes in the banquet scene) and Varma's Lady is experienced in helping him through these episodes. But when she's the one encouraging the cracking, each no longer has someone caring for them. When he screws up the plan to murder Duncan, he's letting her down. When she has to follow up behind him, she smirks as she looks down at her own bloody hands.
The play, which runs a swift two-and-a-half hours, is a claustrophobic look into the mind of a man who always had this madman living inside him. Their moments of sanity are short-lived, cloaked in regal greens and purples (costumes consist of an expected design from Frankie Bradshaw - who also designed the anachronistic set) and played powerfully by both actors. While Fiennes starts the show upright and sturdy, he ends it in a state reminiscent of his Coriolanus - yapping, spitting, and falling apart. In the intimate 600-seat constructed theatre, Fiennes monologues directly to us while Jai Morjaria's lighting design shifts to signal anytime we find ourselves inside his deteriorating psyche. When he directs "full of scorpions is my mind" to his wife, we feel like the scorpions.
Fiennes is a marquee name for a reason. Though his career is most associated with great film villains, from his Oscar-nominated Nazi in Schindler's List to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in the children's fantasy series from She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the throughline of his career has been Shakespeare. He was Tony-nominated for his Hamlet, resurrected respect for Coriolanus, and worked with Godwin just a few years ago in an acclaimed Antony and Cleopatra. Now, his Macbeth joins them. It's an unhinged, vulnerable performance. Macbeth is a man trying so desperately to keep things under control, but his demise is messy and scary. Fiennes has no movie-star hesitations, he jumps right in - Shakespeare's verse becomes babble in his cries.
Varma is also known for her scheming performances and her ruthless and vengeful Game of Thrones character seems like a warm-up to Shakespeare's improved version of the same woman in Lady Macbeth. Though you may come to see her first half, it's her vulnerability after the crack that one takes away from this performance. When she stumbles out, never to be seen again, the audience is so quiet you can hear the A/C units blasting away. It's a terribly tragic moment that works entirely because of Varma's early charm.
That tragedy is a highlight of Godwin's production. From the murder of the Macduff family (Ben Turner as Macduff is excellent and under-used) to the revenge found in the play's climax, it's a bloody affair that doesn't have to rely on stupid magic tricks or over-staged justifications. It's just a well-directed, ensemble-supported, text-evidenced Macbeth. Along with Fiennes and Varma, Godwin has already brought Patrick Page and Kathryn Hunter to Washington, while next season will see Matthew Broderick in Babbitt and Hugh Bonneville in Godwin's staging of Uncle Vanya. STC is getting the most out of him and, as audiences, so are we.
Want to commission a review? Order from this list and you’ll get one in 30 days!