The Globe

Farewell then

Well yes, obviously we can never return to exactly the original style of things (for one thing - the style of acting now is very different). However I don't see the argument of "some things are different anyway" as being a good one to encourage further disparity. At least the experience was pretty similar before Rice started adding in 21st century lighting.

400 years ago Shakespeare's audience saw the plays in modern dress, not costumes from 400 years before. Peter Hall has pointed out the problems of so-called "authentic" performances where the audience have no cultural references to interpret the costumes and props.

If people don't like what Emma Rice is doing and choose to stay away from the Globe because of it, then fair play, there are things I won't go and see either because life's too short and finances too finite to spend time seeing something that experience has taught me I'm not going to enjoy. But the Globe has never been truly authentic, and to announce a boycott on authenticity grounds, rather than just not liking it right now, reminds me of when I was a child and wanted to stop going to Brownies, so I told my parents some really convoluted excuse about how the Brownie pledge said we were meant to learn about God and I just felt the whole thing was too secular.

Oh good! I saw the announcement and am unfortunately away Sunday. Really looking forward to this on iPlayer. (Unless I can find good enough train wifi?)

For Shakespeare's Globe to be truly authentic, it should have burnt down by now, so I presume you wish it to be destroyed by fire asap? Perhaps the wiring of the lights will spark, so you can then after all be pleased they were installed?

It has never been the slightest bit authentic. If the plays were performed in a way Shakespeare would have recognised, female parts would have been played by teenage boys, not adult me

The Globe re-tweets only the positive responses obviously... But some people ARE disappointed. Nobody's gonna count that though...

Review of the 2016 Shakespeare's Globe Macbeth
I tried to publish this review on the Shakespeare's Globe website Monday 19th September. It was immediately put "under moderation'' and is still waiting to be published.


I’m sixteen years old and have seen several versions of Macbeth. This one was my least favourite.
It was played as a comedy, which I don’t feel worked with the script at all.
If King Duncan is a clown, why do most of his thanes rally round him during the invasion?
Maduff shouldn’t be shouting ‘join in audience!’ in the scene where he’s told his wife and children have been murdered.
The porter scene was very well done, but it’s purpose had been taken away because there was no tension surrounding the murder of the king. Instead, people are laughing at Macbeth, on his way to commit regicide, shouting “Hear it not, Duncan.’’ Then later in the play, it’s impossible to hear Macbeth talking because people are laughing at the child waving his arms.
I felt the child just distracted attention from the main action without adding anything to the interpretation of the play. Having the child is one way of making sense of Lady Macbeth’s line, but it weakens Macbeth’s reason for wanting to kill Banquo and Fleance.
The whole play was a bit like that; full of ideas that don’t work together or don‘t work at all. It’s the kind of thing I would expect from an amateur production.
The witches make a good example of this. First, there are four witches in this version. Why? Three is a number that can’t divide equally, in this context it can be seen as an inversion of the catholic holy trinity, or a reference to the three Fates. Three witches also happen to be how the play was written. Then someone sang the witches’ lines for them, and it was blasted out though the amplified sound system. That destroyed any sense of interaction between the weird sisters and Macbeth. It also made the words harder to understand. I didn’t like the way the lines were cut to fit into the song; it diminished the presence of the witches. I quite liked the puppets, but the idea wasn’t continued, and it went downhill from there. The apparitions looked like a kid’s Halloween party, complete with foam bats. Banquo’s ghost would have made a good apparition, but instead it was used to block the view of Macbeth and the thanes in the banquet scene. At this point we could have been shown the reactions of Macbeth and the thanes, which I personally think is more important than having an impressive ghost. I found that this production seemed to prefer having an eye-catching show regardless of whether enough thought had been put behind it. The set included a lot of black metal things which didn’t have any role in the performance. No one even banged a sword against them. On the whole I found the set and costumes disappointing.
I would have liked to see some sort of visual recognition that the Globe is a replica Elizabethan theatre. The Globe is a unique and wonderful place to see plays; I don’t want it to pretend the space is like that of a more mainstream theatre.
A lot of skilled people worked on this Macbeth and it shouldn’t have gone so wrong.
I think the actors were miscast; Lady Macbeth’s weak stage presence was made worse by Macbeth’s shouting, and casting a brilliant comic actor as King Duncan doesn’t work. This production left me with the feeling that it was inconsistent, badly thought out and made with a disregard for the script and the theatre space.

Er, yikes again. Great review ( I wonder if the Globe will publish it on its website as it is somewhat critical ) but is this really what they have done with Macbeth.? For starters they should be scolded for misleading the young. Macbeth is on the GCSE syllabus and if this is the only Shakespeare production some people will ever encounter then what a terrible shame and secondly well, I'm aghast.

I must admit (my admiration of The Heff aside), I really liked the Young Vic one. Nice and zippy and I thought the dancing strangely made it a bit more disturbing.

Also, to be fair with the Globe I always go into it expecting comedy, no matter the play. I reckon they could stage 'Schindler's List' and manage to find a fair few laughs in it.