Macbeth (Classic Stage Company) NYC Reviews and Tickets
Member Reviews (72)
See it if Doyle's "lean & hungry" staging moves like a stealth missile w/judicious pruning & economic ensemble igniting dark tragedy Leads outstanding
Don't see it if Doyle's usual clipped staging can cause grief (for purists) or confusion (for novices) but gets job done w/scenes of quick shocking violence
See it if Great acting by Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Love the thrust stage and CSC is an expert with it. Fun finding a witch or her words,
Don't see it if 9 actors play more than 25 roles but with almost same costumes. 2 great female actors play 2 1/2 male roles. . Set is a throne and... Read more
Critic Reviews (16)
CRITIC’S PICK "A Decent Man Turns Murderous Tyrant: A bracingly lucid Corey Stoll embodies Shakespeare’s thane who, step by step, cedes his soul to his own darkest impulses."
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2/5 stars: "Coldy lit and swathed in drab tartan, Classic Stage Company's Macbeth resembles an especially severe fall runway show. Color, emotional and otherwise, is out. Stage blood on the hands of its doomed thane (Corey Stoll) is the first sign of life in director-designer John Doyle's odd and funerary production."
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"John Doyle’s Blankie 'Macbeth' and Zawe Ashton’s Memorable 'for all the women…'"
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"Real-life spouses Corey Stoll and Nadia Bowers play Shakespeare's murderous couple, directed by Tony Award winner John Doyle."
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"Corey Stoll Is a Modern 'Macbeth' in a Medieval World: Classic Stage Company mounts a revival of the Scottish play."
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"Something Edited This Way Comes as John Doyle Directs Corey Stoll, Nadia Bowers in 'MACBETH'"
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"John Doyle's new production of 'Macbeth' is sleek, stripped down, and ready for action; having gotten one of William Shakespeare's darkest tragedies into fighting trim, however, he seems to have no idea what to do with it."
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"Corey Stoll begins well but, approximately 30-40 minutes into the piece, he lapses into a contemporary delivery of his lines that's soon followed by anachronistic gestures and body language. One suspects Stoll, who's a talented actor, has a Macbeth within him, but it's not this misguided production."
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3/5 Stars: "John Doyle directs Corey Stoll's title warrior as too full of the milk of human kindness."
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4/5 Stars: "The couple who slays together stays together? Real-life spouses Corey Stoll and Nadia Bowers star as Shakespeare's murderous Scots in John Doyle's production."
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"THE PLAY THAT MUST NOT BE NAMED: CSC’s minimalist staging of Shakespeare’s spookiest play takes the slippage between stage and reality to whole new levels."
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"There has been a recent trend to perform Shakespeare as minimally as possible and with as few actors as possible. However, the question arises what is gained? When the doubling of roles proves confusing so that when actors appear it is difficult to know who they are playing, what is the point?"
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"Though John Doyle breaks the rules in all the right ways, newbies to the play are likely to become confused at times by its gender-blind casting and the nine cast members who play multiple roles in this all-hands-on-deck production."
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"'If we fail.' 'We fail.' This is the rapturous CSC rendition's motto, and as directed and designed with a sparsity that would have made my college project a breeze, John Doyle mostly doesn't, plowing this tyrannic beast forward at a clip worthy of a war-time charge."
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"Unfortunately, these examples are the confounded decisions that plague this current production. "Less is more," could possibly be the mantra of Mr. Doyle's recent endeavors but this incarnation of 'Macbeth' is more or less distorted and inconsequential."
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"These choices rob the play of context, removing…the…process by which Macbeth…finds himself…ensnared in the web that leads to his accession and decline. The editing pushes the action forward in…leaps…providing little time to appreciate the matrix of political and personal circumstances."
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