I wondered at the production of it; I wonder how they put it all together. There was so much precision timing involved, a need for characters to go from totally different places and activities to converging on a location in precisely the right moment to act out another scene together. And that venue, the abandoned school, was not small; they used four floors of it. I can't imagine what rehearsal must have been like. Or what directing it entailed. I guess they blocked it in pieces, though I suppose there was no way to see the finished product in its entirety.
I love the idea of it. It was basically silent actors going through a series of interlocking, highly stylized scenes in a cyclical pattern that roughly followed the story of Macbeth. The environment was enormous and detailed, and there was so many things to watch and see. The set dressing was gorgeous and so detailed, the way they constructed all the rooms to look like bedrooms, living rooms, gardens, the heath, a forest, a banquet hall. What effort, thought, and cost they must have put into it. I would have loved to have had the time to take a closer look at it all. I wished the lighting had been better, partially for this reason; I have practically no night vision, and I know it was supposed to be atmospheric, but I just couldn't see things well enough. I liked the masked element in theory-- it was really creepy to see lots of people standing around in faceless masks --but in practice it was kind of painful to wear over my glasses. Unfortunately typical. Ah, well. At least it made it easy to distinguish audience from performer.
Random stuff I saw, cut for spoilers-- I watched a ballroom with a fantastic '20s-style swing dance. I followed Lady Macbeth and Duncan, who were dancing partners, go up to Duncan's room, where Lady M bid him goodnight. Then he went into his garden, planted some seeds in earthenware pots, and found a playing card, a king, with a hole punched through its head. :-) Then he went back into his room, got ready for bed, and Macbeth came in and smothered him with a pillow. I then followed Macbeth back to his own room, his hands covered with blood (though I had no idea where from). His wife took off his clothes, pushed him into a bathtub, and washed him. He had a little freak out, which was creepy and cool, then smoothed himself out, got dressed, and went out to deal with the discovery of the body. Later, Lady Macbeth, in the "out, damned spot" scene got the same treatment in a room lined with bathtubs, pushed around by a tall, severe woman in a plain dress with slicked-back hair. I wonder who that woman was supposed to be. I also saw a man, naked but for a goat head mask, covered in blood, dance around in a strobe light. Lady Macduff had an interesting arc that I didn't totally understand, but she was an obsessive-compulsive who moved in strange balletic ways. I also loved how they did the banquet, backlit and in slow motion, with a cool representation of Banquo's ghost. I saw three men play cards in a speakeasy; didn't know who they were supposed to be, but I wondered if they were the murderers killing time before they killed Banquo. I watched the witches do a fantastic dance. The hotelier cut names out of guestbook with a razor blade, then put them in an envelope marked "M". Saw lots of people have freakouts in their bedrooms, then get a handle on themselves and get ready for their evenings.
I know Macbeth quite well-- been in it twice --and even I had a tough time sometimes figuring out what was supposed to be going on in the scenes. I enjoyed the puzzle, but i feel I got more out of the scenes whose story I grasped. I feel like I missed a lot, so I kind of wish there had been a way to know where to go so I could have seen more, but I enjoyed the wandering aspect of it. Each scene went through its cycle three times I think, which gave an interesting detached-from-reality feel, as if they were ghosts haunting the house. I kind of wish there had been a way to know where to go to see things, though.
Overall, a very enjoyable and fun experience, though I wish I had understood it better and it had been better-lit. Loved how detailed it was, and I'm glad that somebody was willing to go to all the time and effort to put something that complicated together.
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