SOURCE: Isherwood, Charles. Review of Macbeth. Variety 379, no. 6 (26 June 2000): 30.

In the following review, Isherwood praises Gregory Doran's Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) staging of Macbeth, singling out the portrayals of Antony Sher and Harriet Walter.

It appears that Broadway got the wrong Macbeth. On the same night that Kelsey Grammer's production was opening to dismal notices in New York, the Royal Shakespeare Co. gave the first of about a dozen performances of its acclaimed new version of the tragedy as part of the New Haven Intl. Festival of Arts & Ideas.

Both productions are stark, dark and streamlined, both are performed in modern dress and without an intermission. But if the basic conceptions are similarly hued, there's a world of difference in the execution. In contrast with [Terry] Hands' desiccated, lifeless Broadway version, Gregory Doran's staging for the RSC's Macbeth is full-blooded and intense, compellingly alive in virtually every scene...