ΜΑΚΒΕΘ ΣΤΗ ΝΕΑ ΥΟΡΚΗ ΜΕ ΤΟΝ PATRICK STEWART

Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood who played Lady Macbeth

★ ‘MACBETH’ Patrick Stewart brings fearsome insight to the title role in Rupert Goold’s good and nasty production of Shakespeare’s tragedy. Though the show has enough flash, blood and mutilation to satisfy Wes Craven fans, it’s Mr. Stewart’s brilliance that makes it a must-see. With Kate Fleetwood (excellent and original) as his stained trophy wife (2:45). Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton Street, Fort Greene, (718) 636-4100; closes on Saturday.

The Macbeths, Brooklyn: Kate Fleetwood and Patrick Stewart.

THEATER REVIEW | 'MACBETH'

Something Wicked This Way Comes

By BEN BRANTLEY

The New York Times, Published: February 15, 2008

His thoughts stalk him like snipers in the shadows, and when they attack, it’s with a violence that leaves him shorn of defenses. Bloodthirsty enemies on the battlefield, double-dealing politicians of the court and would-be assassins at home: the Macbeth embodied with such fearsome insight and theatrical fire by Patrick Stewart has the wiles and the nerve to conquer such adversaries. What he doesn’t stand a chance against is his own mercurial mind.

Rupert Goold’s good and nasty interpretation of “Macbeth,” now chilling the Harvey Theater of the Brooklyn Academy of Music through March 22, has enough flash, blood and mutilated bodies to satisfy a Wes Craven fan. Set within a joyless, stark environment that resembles nothing so much as a morgue, this traveling production from the Chichester Festival Theater is also replete with eye-boggling technical effects that summon the Age of Stalin as imagined by George Orwell

in “1984.”

Still, all this sound and fury would signify, if not nothing, then not much more than yet another politically minded evening of Shakespeare in period drag were it not for the brilliant performance at its center. Mr. Goold, a fast-rising director in London, has clearly thought through his conceit of the play as a portrait of a totalitarian tyrant and the paranoiac world he engenders.

Ruth Fremson/The New York Times

Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood in "Macbeth."

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But there have been many fascist-themed versions of “Macbeth” over the years. What makes this one a must-see is Mr. Stewart’s thrilling recognition that his character is as close kin to the fatally introspective Hamlet as he is to power-wielding men of ill will like Richard III. His performance is the first I have seen to realize completely what the scholar Harold Bloom means when he calls this play “a tragedy of the imagination.”... [article continues]

ΒΛΕΠΕ ΚΑΙ:

Macbeth. Gielgud, London. THEATER. Michael Billington, Thursday September 27, 2007, The Guardian

Reviews roundup: Macbeth. After its sell-out success at Chichester's Minerva earlier this year, Rupert Goold's production starring Patrick Stewart has transferred to the West End's newly revamped Gielgud. So is the critics' verdict fair or foul? Chris Wiegand, Friday September 28, 2007, guardian.co.uk

Patrick Stewart Macbeth to Follow Is He Dead? Into the Lyceum. By Andrew Gans
and Adam Hetrick. Playbill, 26 Feb 2008

Patrick Stewart's brilliant, bloodthirsty Macbeth. By BAZ BAMIGBOYE - More by this author ». Daily Mail, Last updated at 12:05pm on 28th September 2007

Patrick Stewart interview. From Shakespeare to sci-fi and back again: Patrick Stewart on Macbeth, resurrecting his love affair with the London stage and Trekkies in the audience... BBC.co.uk.

Enter the Bloody King: Patrick Stewart's 'Macbeth' Opens on Broadway April 8. broadwayworld.com

Macbeth: Foul or Fair?">Patrick Stewart’s Macbeth: Foul or Fair?