If my memory serves me correctly, we saw this play as a matinee on the Saturday and then Twelfth Night in the evening. It might have been the other way around.
Janie and I are fans of Ibsen for the moral dramas; this play is very different – a fantasy poem of sorts, although grounded in Ibsen’s family experience. Wikipedia explains the play well here.
But who needs experts? Janie and I thought it was a very good production, so it was just that. Alex Jennings memorable in the lea but well supported by the whole cast.
In amongst the heave of getting Z/Yen started that autumn, Janie and I did make the time for a solitary long weekend in Stratford-Upon-Avon, during which we saw three plays.
Not exactly a rest cure…
…said Janie, when I latterly (c25 years later, October 2019) showed her the evidence of that weekend.
The evidence shows that we stayed at The Shakespeare Hotel that time; I think for the second and possibly the last time. We found the room a bit pokey.
Anyway, we saw this David Edgar play on the Friday evening and thought it superb. I’ve always been a fan of Edgar’s plays and this is a good example of his work.
Anyway, we loved this play/production, that’s for sure. The notion of art and culture fusing/transferring both from west to east and from east to west is more or less received wisdom now, but the debate in the play, especially while the southern slavic region of Europe was still in turmoil, felt very topical and of the moment in 1994.
Did we eat in Fatty Arbuckle’s that evening? Quite possibly, but unless more evidence turns up we’ll not know for sure.
Janie is not partial to Shakespeare, but this production directed by Adrian Noble with Derek Jacobi as Macbeth and Cheryl Campbell as Lady Macbeth was quite special and we both thought it very good.
I now learn that one of the three witches was Tracy-Ann Oberman, who went on (shortly after this production I think), to perform in NewsRevue/SportsRevue. Not our first sighting of her, that was in The Changeling at Stratford:
Returning to The Scottish Play, though, this is one of two productions Janie and I have seen; the other being the Tony Sher/Harriet Walter production to be Ogblogged “in the fullness”.
A couple of contemporaneous reviews survive on-line:
It seems that Janie decided to “give Shakespeare a go” with me (we have done a few in our time) but in truth she has never got on with Shakespeare. I have got on with Shakespeare but didn’t get on so well with this play and/or this production.
It is a very long play and in truth I don’t think one of Shakespeare’s best. My log records:
We didn’t go great guns on this one.
Good cast: Richard Johnson (Antony), John Nettles (Caesar) and Clare Higgins (Cleopatra).
This production probably helped to put Janie off The Bard, but fortunately did not seem to put her off me, despite the fact that (as I recall) the back-aching and thirst-inducing length of the play did little for our moods, especially mine.
Billington On Peer Gynt Fri, May 6, 1994 – 45 · The Guardian (London, Greater London, England) · Newspapers.com
