★ Roundup: Photos and Reviews of Macbeth
Shakespeare's Macbeth, starring Elliot Cowan and Laura Rogers, has begun playing at The Globe. Here's a roundup of photos from the rehearsals and production, and links to several reviews.
Please don't hotlink these images.
Photo credit goes to Ellie Kurttz and Tristram Kenton.
The reviews are somewhat mixed. I get the feeling a lot of critics aren't keen on Elliot's voice and delivery of iambic pentameter. He faced similar criticism for his hybrid Polish/American accent in last year's A Streetcar Named Desire. Here are some of the reviews I found, along with snippets from each:
The Guardian: "Elliot Cowan plausibly shows Macbeth as a man drawn into a nightmare of his own creation, but his verse-speaking is erratic. When he tells his wife 'my strange and self-abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use' he barks the last two words at her as if she were deaf."
The Independent: "The Macbeths are a good-looking celebrity
couple in the pairing of muscular, well-constructed Elliot Cowan and pert, short-haired, slinky Laura Rogers. . . Cowan's on the edge, behaving oddly from the minute he murders Duncan. . . and once his mind is 'full of scorpions' he's lost. Cowan's voice is slightly fuzzy, but he tempers it with a falsetto, scary element as he hurtles towards the showdown in Dunsinane..."
Official London Theatre Guide: "Macbeth, in the form of Elliot Cowan, is an imposing, muscular leader of men, earnestly true to his King until his ambitious slinky wife (Laura Rogers), taunts him into becoming a monster."
Daily Telegraph: "With his rippling musculature and menacing stage presence, Elliot Cowan certainly looks the part of Macbeth but he should have spent less time in the gym and more with the voice coach. His delivery of the verse is clogged and inexpressive, and he only fitfully captures the pulse of Shakespeare’s iambics, or the thoughts and conflicting emotions revealed in the soliloquies. Cowan may be an incredible hulk, but intelligence and poetry are in meagre supply. . . But unless Cowan and Rogers dramatically raise their game, this Macbeth will be remembered as an enjoyably gory curiosity rather than a deeply felt human tragedy. "
The Times: "Elliot Cowan’s Macbeth is impressively monstrous by the end. I’ve seen deeper, more inward Macbeths, but not many. Considering that he is on a stage unsuited to the play’s intimacies, Cowan does very well. He is variously wary, restless, excitable, jumpy, desperate, formidable and sweatily, scarily nihilistic. You believe that, as he says, his mind teems with scorpions and that, as he also says, he has to harden to survive."
London Theatre: "Cowan has all the necessary physical qualities to convince of his prowess as a fighter even if his vocal delivery was rather quiet at times."
The Stage: "Elliot Cowan’s powerful, muscular but finely detailed Macbeth turns the ambitious villain into a driven, super-hero in total command of both the stage and Laura Rogers’ girlish Lady Macbeth, like an enthralled debutante at her first ball."
Evening Standard: "Elliot Cowan has a remarkable physical presence. It’s wholly convincing that, as we’re told before we see him, he could have 'carved out his passage' through the carnage of the battlefield. He’s virile and menacing, and his relationship with Lady Macbeth (Laura Rogers) is charged with combustible sexuality. Where Cowan convinces less is in his verse-speaking. There are some pleasing details, yet he fails to persuade us of Macbeth’s descent into the abyss of madness, and there’s a nagging feeling that his diction could be better - as though he’s recovering from a cold."
Daily Mail: " Caked in sweat and blood, Elliot Cowan's Macbeth, meanwhile, is stacked like Marlon Brando, with the clean-cut face of a Marks & Spencer model. Occasionally lapsing into Steven Berkoff histrioinics, Cowan is, by the end, fully possessed by the madness of his ambition, until he, too, is one of the gore-spattered zombies writhing in the pit."
What's On Stage: "...Cowan's Macbeth in particular seems to tip over into madness too easily - there's more sense of his court tiptoeing around the whims of an eccentric, a sort of Scottish Lear rather than a tyrant."
Financial Times: "These Macbeths are young, hot-headed and hot-blooded, stripping off as they plan regicide. Elliot Cowan is a strapping, handsome Macbeth: he brings vigour and charisma to the part but also conveys the torment of an unquiet mind."
Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe
21 New Globe Walk
Bankside
London SE1 9DT
April 23-June 27, 2010
Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Purchase tickets online
Please don't hotlink these images.
Photo credit goes to Ellie Kurttz and Tristram Kenton.
The reviews are somewhat mixed. I get the feeling a lot of critics aren't keen on Elliot's voice and delivery of iambic pentameter. He faced similar criticism for his hybrid Polish/American accent in last year's A Streetcar Named Desire. Here are some of the reviews I found, along with snippets from each:
The Guardian: "Elliot Cowan plausibly shows Macbeth as a man drawn into a nightmare of his own creation, but his verse-speaking is erratic. When he tells his wife 'my strange and self-abuse is the initiate fear that wants hard use' he barks the last two words at her as if she were deaf."
The Independent: "The Macbeths are a good-looking celebrity
couple in the pairing of muscular, well-constructed Elliot Cowan and pert, short-haired, slinky Laura Rogers. . . Cowan's on the edge, behaving oddly from the minute he murders Duncan. . . and once his mind is 'full of scorpions' he's lost. Cowan's voice is slightly fuzzy, but he tempers it with a falsetto, scary element as he hurtles towards the showdown in Dunsinane..."
Official London Theatre Guide: "Macbeth, in the form of Elliot Cowan, is an imposing, muscular leader of men, earnestly true to his King until his ambitious slinky wife (Laura Rogers), taunts him into becoming a monster."
Daily Telegraph: "With his rippling musculature and menacing stage presence, Elliot Cowan certainly looks the part of Macbeth but he should have spent less time in the gym and more with the voice coach. His delivery of the verse is clogged and inexpressive, and he only fitfully captures the pulse of Shakespeare’s iambics, or the thoughts and conflicting emotions revealed in the soliloquies. Cowan may be an incredible hulk, but intelligence and poetry are in meagre supply. . . But unless Cowan and Rogers dramatically raise their game, this Macbeth will be remembered as an enjoyably gory curiosity rather than a deeply felt human tragedy. "
The Times: "Elliot Cowan’s Macbeth is impressively monstrous by the end. I’ve seen deeper, more inward Macbeths, but not many. Considering that he is on a stage unsuited to the play’s intimacies, Cowan does very well. He is variously wary, restless, excitable, jumpy, desperate, formidable and sweatily, scarily nihilistic. You believe that, as he says, his mind teems with scorpions and that, as he also says, he has to harden to survive."
London Theatre: "Cowan has all the necessary physical qualities to convince of his prowess as a fighter even if his vocal delivery was rather quiet at times."
The Stage: "Elliot Cowan’s powerful, muscular but finely detailed Macbeth turns the ambitious villain into a driven, super-hero in total command of both the stage and Laura Rogers’ girlish Lady Macbeth, like an enthralled debutante at her first ball."
Evening Standard: "Elliot Cowan has a remarkable physical presence. It’s wholly convincing that, as we’re told before we see him, he could have 'carved out his passage' through the carnage of the battlefield. He’s virile and menacing, and his relationship with Lady Macbeth (Laura Rogers) is charged with combustible sexuality. Where Cowan convinces less is in his verse-speaking. There are some pleasing details, yet he fails to persuade us of Macbeth’s descent into the abyss of madness, and there’s a nagging feeling that his diction could be better - as though he’s recovering from a cold."
Daily Mail: " Caked in sweat and blood, Elliot Cowan's Macbeth, meanwhile, is stacked like Marlon Brando, with the clean-cut face of a Marks & Spencer model. Occasionally lapsing into Steven Berkoff histrioinics, Cowan is, by the end, fully possessed by the madness of his ambition, until he, too, is one of the gore-spattered zombies writhing in the pit."
What's On Stage: "...Cowan's Macbeth in particular seems to tip over into madness too easily - there's more sense of his court tiptoeing around the whims of an eccentric, a sort of Scottish Lear rather than a tyrant."
Financial Times: "These Macbeths are young, hot-headed and hot-blooded, stripping off as they plan regicide. Elliot Cowan is a strapping, handsome Macbeth: he brings vigour and charisma to the part but also conveys the torment of an unquiet mind."
Macbeth at Shakespeare's Globe
21 New Globe Walk
Bankside
London SE1 9DT
April 23-June 27, 2010
Running time: 2 hours, 50 minutes
Purchase tickets online