Ashland 2009: Macbeth by William Shakespeare

Macbeth by William Shakespeare

The stuff of nightmares. Black magic. Murder. Ghosts. Madness. Death. Shakespeare's brooding tragedy digs into the dark territory of a man's shocking choices. Emboldened by the enigmatic visions of three witches, Macbeth and his lady slaughter their way to the Scottish throne, but attaining it brings no glory. Fresh horrors unfold as the prophecies of greatness turn out to mean, well, something else. Internationally renowned classical director Gale Edwards marks her OSF debut with a visceral production in which savage ambition eclipses civility.
Directed by Gale Edwards.  8:00 performance, August 13th, 2009.

If you’ve never seen/read Macbeth, click here for all you need to know.

                Having read and seen multiple versions of Macbeth over the years, I can promise that this will be the longest and pickiest of my entries about the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I’ll be picking at and commenting on little things. If you are planning to see this show in Ashland, don’t read this review until after you’ve seen it, because I don’t want to spoil the surprises for you. Also, as a warning, I really jump around a lot with my thoughts here.
 

Photo by Jennifer Reiley.  King Macbeth (Peter Macon) plots with his two murderers (James J. Peck, Trevor Hill).
 

                Costumes are always the first thing I notice about a play. I guess I just can’t help it; I studied fashion design for two years and my interest in clothes has never lessened. Director Gale Edwards and costume designer Murell Horton made some interesting choices for 2009’s Macbeth when they dressed their characters in a hodge-podge of military uniforms. At the beginning, Macbeth, Banquo, Duncan and Malcolm are all wearing crisp, fitted Naziesque jackets and pants. The soldiers look sharp and in control, and Duncan looks like a movie-perfect military leader. But as the play continues, the military dress shuffles through various eras and ultimately ends up resembling the loose camouflage rags favored by guerrilla warriors. The jumbled clothes made it impossible to date the production to a specific time period, and this drove some of the people in my travel group nuts. But to me it made sense. I think what the director was trying to do was use the soldiers’ uniforms to reflect the crumbling stability of Scotland. When Duncan ruled, the country was at peace (internally, anyway) and prosperous, and the neat, orderly appearance of the soldiers reflect this. But Macbeth’s seizure of the throne and the subsequent power struggles tear Scotland to bits. The deterioration of the country and the monarchy’s control over it is revealed in the soldiers’ clothes. 

                The women – all two of them, Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff – are just as random. Depending on her scene, Lady Macbeth wore the gown of a sultry diva from the 1930s or the glittering cocktail dress you’d expect to find on your boss’ latest trophy wife. She always wore bright red and deep scarlet in public, advertising her sensuous and outgoing nature with fabulous hair and a perfectly made-up face. But in that famous sleepwalking scene, she wears a pure white nightgown and her hair hangs wild. She’s completely naked of the façade she wears during the day, and her bleached, wan appearance reflects the disintegrating soul within. (Also, Crazy Sleepwalker Chic is probably a distant relation of Heroin Chic.) 

                Before I get into Lady Macduff, I have to make a quick aside. Artistic Director Bill Rauch is apparently into “colorblind” theatre. What I mean is that it doesn’t matter what you look like, if you can play a role it’s yours. I mention this at this time because Lady Macduff is played by an Asian actress, and if I remember correctly she was wearing a kimono-like outfit in her brief scenes.   I thought that was an interesting choice on the part of the director; why highlight her difference with an ‘exotic’ Asian costume? I can’t really think of a good reason, other than to point out “Hey! We’ve got a yellow face! Look! We’re DIFFERENT!” but I’ve really been dwelling on costumes and trying to pull meaning out of them for far too long, don’t you think? 

                So Macbeth was played by Peter Macon, and his interpretation of the character was very different than anything I’ve seen before.   His Macbeth is a CRAZY mother, controlled neither by wife nor witches but by his own, frenzied ambition. If you want bombast and spectacle, this Macbeth is happy to oblige. He is intense and commands attention from the moment he first steps onto the stage. The problem is that Macon’s emotions cannot move to greater depths because they’ve already started so high, and he has to maintain this energy for two hours. By the “tomorrow and tomorrow” speech he’s become almost something of a cartoon character; as he was dashing into the final battle Macon did this bizarre little kick that caused my entire row to burst into giggles. I don’t think that was quite the reaction he was going for. (A lot of lines were played for humor that I would not have expected. Some of them fell flat, like that kick I just mentioned, but others were executed beautifully. Lady Macbeth’s dry “You have displaced the mirth” during the banquet scene is delivered to perfection.)

                I wasn’t crazy about Lady Macbeth. Robin Nordli was adequate to her task; I think that she might have made a stronger showing if she wasn’t overpowered by Macbeth’s enthusiastic delivery. In fact, the chemistry between the two main characters never seemed to boil over, so I was never convinced that this woman had power over her husband. The “unsex me” speech was really underwhelming and her energy was rarely high enough to match Macon’s Macbeth.

                The one actor that really nailed his role was Kevin Kenerly as Macduff.   When he hears that his family has been annihilated by Macbeth’s murders, Macduff’s grief and horror is visceral.  It rips right into your heart and unleashes feeling like nothing else in the play. His desire to avenge his family was what really drove the final act for me.

                Oh, the witches. How could I fail to talk about the witches? The director chose to have six witches in this production instead of the usual three; the three crones of tradition were present, of course, but added were three young girl-witches as well, dressed like Wednesday Addams.   At first I was like “Dude, how stupid. What are these extra witches running around for?” but in the final scene, just before the stage goes black, a spotlight shines on the three young witches, who point at Fleance (son of Banquo) as he gazes directly at them. Well fuck. I thought to myself. That’s actually pretty brilliant right there. The struggle for power continues from one generation to the next. (After all, the witches predict that the sons of Banquo will sit on the throne of Scotland, but at the end of Macbeth it is Malcolm, son of Duncan who is crowned.) I was totally ready for Macbeth II. (So OSF, consider running Macbeth, Part II: Seed of Banquo. That would be rad.)

                I feel like I ought to be talking about the set (which had a rad spiral staircase and these menacing rock cliffs) and the production values, but I have really been rambling on and on here. So the short version: They were rad. Most excellent. I cannot complain about the production of the play. Special effects, appearance of the set, costumes, etc – I loved it. Even if it did seem a bit incongruous that men dressed in 20^th century military dress fought with swords, never guns, the overall world created by the play totally worked for me. In fact, in spite of my bitching I really enjoyed the play. It had energy. It was violent. It was bloody freakin’ entertaining. I just quibble because, well, I can.