SOURCE: Potter, Lois. Review of Macbeth. Shakespeare Quarterly 53, no. 1 (2002): 95-105.

In the following excerpted review of the 2001 Globe season, Potter returns a mixed evaluation of director Tim Carroll's Macbeth, approving of its unconventional setting as a contemporary formal event and its individual performances, while disparaging some of Carroll's directorial additions.

Tim Carroll's production of Macbeth was described to me as a failure, sometimes an “interesting failure”—so of course I was bound to be pleasantly surprised, and I was. Its basic metaphor seemed to be that of a New Year's or Halloween party, with the entire cast in tuxedos and long dresses. Paul Chahidi, one of the witches, explained in an interview that eveningwear “both provides a neutral palate and immediately suggests night.”¹ I wondered whether it might also be an equivalent to the Jacobean masque: performance plus social event. One of the witches' dances might have been...