“MACBETH.”

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 1 March 1929, Page 2

“MACBETH.”

SHAKESPEARE’S GREAT TRAGEDY

AX ALL VN WILKIE PRODUCTION

Weird witches, dealings in the. black art, and stark tragedy were the predominant features in the great Shakespearean play “Macbeth,” which, was produced at the Opera House last night before a large audience by the Allan Wilkie Company. The story concerned Macbeth, a successful Scottish general, who heard three witches predict that he should be king. Incited by his wife he murdered his guest, King Duncan, who had just previously loaded him with honours. Macbeth, who became king, believed the witches' prophecy that Banquo, his late fellow-general, though not to he king, should be the father of kings, so he hired two assassins. Banquo was murdered on the eve of the king's great banquet, but his son Fleance escaped. The ghost of Banquo appeared to the king during the feast and so upset him that the festivities were abandoned. Having consulted the witches again, Macbeth was told that he should never be vanquished till Birnam Wood came to Dunsinane, his castle. Lady Macbeth fell ill, walked in her sleep, talking of the blood on her hand, and died shortly after. Macbeth, observing that the invading army of Malcolm, the eldest son of Duncan, was carrying boughs cur from Birnam Wood, saw the significance of the witches’ prophecy. He was killed in single combat by Macduff, whose wife and children he had caused to be murdered.

The tragedy was like a sketch. by a great master, in which everything was executed with rapidity and powex and a subtlety of workmanship which had become instinctive. The theme of the drama was the gradual ruin, through yielding to evil from within, and evil irom without. Macbeth, though from the first tainted with base and ambitious thoughts, yet possessed elements in his nature of possible honour and loyalty The contrast between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, united by their affection, their fortune and their crime, illustrated the character of each. Macbeth had physical courage but moral weakness, and was subjected to imaginative fears. His faint and intermittent loyalty embarrassed liim —he would have the gains of crime without its pairts. But when liis hands were once dyed with blood he did not withdraw them, and the same fears which once held him back now drove him on to crime after crime, until slaughter, almost reckless, became the habit of liis reign. His whole existence had become loveless and joyless. Lady Macbeth was of a finer and more delicate nature. Having fixed her eye on one end, the securing of Duncan’s crown for her husband, she accepted the inevitable means and nerved herself for the terrible night’s work. Having sustained her weaker husband, her own strength gave way, and in sleep, when her will could not control her own thoughts, she was piteously afflicted >by the memory of the stain of blood upon her little hand. At last the thread of her life snapped suddenly. Macbeth, whose affection for her was rea 1, had sunk too far into crime to feel deeply her loss. Banquo, the loyal soldier praying for restraint of evif thoughts which had entered his mind as they had entered that of Macbeth, but which worked no evil there, was set against Macbeth as virtue against disloyalty. Macduff was another ’loyal soldier, who fled from Scotland to escape the fate of Banquo. He was at first reluctant to join in the expedition against Macbeth, but was at last persuaded for the sake of Scotland to take liis part. The news of the murder of liis wife and family steeled him against Macbeth and made the feud with the king a personal one, which was not ended until the death of Macbeth. The greatest burden of last night’s production fell upon Mr. Allan Wilkie and Miss Hunter-Watts, as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The portrayal of these parts left little to be desired, and the pair rose to great histrionic heights in such dramatic scenes as just before and after tlie murder of Duncan. The scenes where Lady Macbeth sought to excuse her husband’s distressed mind at the banquetting scene, and also in the sleep-walking scene were among the best in the play. ’ Mr. Alexander Marsh depicted an agreeable Banquo. The other parts in a large cast were all well taken. The production of a tragedy of the dimensions of Macbeth is not an easy matter hut the Allan vYilkie company deserves special credit for the sound and all-round excellence of their performance.