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Witchcraft, murder, mayhem, suicide, cynicism and, finally, the tyrant’s head on a pike–Shakespeare really knew how to grab an audience. And despite a somewhat tedious first act, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s production of Macbeth ultimately gives this prurient material the treatment it deserves. The second act is splendid. Even the piked head looks good.
We all read this classic in high school: The great Scottish general Macbeth wins a major victory for king and country and, as he leaves the battleground, meets three witches who predict that he will soon be rewarded by the king, Duncan. They also say he will eventually become king of Scotland–and when the Weird Sisters’ first prophecy comes true, Macbeth contemplates hastening his political ascent by murdering Duncan.
He hesitates, but his enthusiastic wife henpecks him out of his scruples and onto the throne. After killing Duncan, he goes on to murder a wide variety of people, including the wife and children of his political enemy, Macduff. But the prick of conscience makes him constantly uneasy. He sees ghosts. He gets nastier and more despicable. Finally, he seeks out the Weird Sisters, who tell him he can’t be killed by any man “born of woman.”
Macbeth may be a good soldier, but he isn’t all that bright when it comes to personal choices. He doesn’t see the sinister trick the witches (i.e., the forces of darkness) are playing on him: Macduff, it turns out, was not “born” in the usual way–instead, he was from his “mother’s womb untimely ripped.” Ouch. So much for Macbeth’s security.
While the play is based on the life and reign of a real king, Shakespeare makes Macbeth out to be a much bigger heel than he really was. The real truth of the great tragedy lies in Shakespeare’s understanding of human nature: how an evil suggestion, internalized and reified, destroys the individual enthralled by it. Macbeth might never have turned to treachery, treason and sadism if the witches hadn’t suggested to him that he was “destined” for greatness. Their prophecy fulfills itself, and as the general’s ambition leaps over his conscience, the prophecy turns on him.
The first act of this local production is largely stodgy and stiff, the actors lined up like chessmen on scenic designer Scott Weldin’s magnificent set. Though Lynnda Ferguson’s powerful Lady Macbeth burns like ice throughout the first half, Charles Siebert’s Macbeth seems oddly disconnected from the passions of the play. Director Patrick Kelly makes the mistake of throwing a spotlight on him during a key monologue (“Is this a dagger that I see before me?”), an artificial effect that dims the speech’s considerable power.
But the production slowly gains momentum, and the second act almost never lets up. The passions flow like lava, and Siebert comes into the character with a force that is startling. Toward the end of the second act, Siebert delivers the single greatest moment of the whole evening. Lady Macbeth has killed herself, and in one of the most famous monologues in theater, Macbeth cynically reflects on the meaning of his life: “`It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” There is no hint of self-pity in Siebert’s brilliant reading; Shakespeare’s consummate vision of the nature of evil is crystallized in his performance.
There are problems with much of the casting. James Haskins’s Macduff has all the passion of a steel girder. The scene in which he learns his children have been murdered ought to break your heart. It doesn’t. Grant Sullivan’s King Duncan is practically invisible. And as Duncan’s son Malcom, Jeffrey Doornbos is sadly dull.
Still, Rick Long makes Macbeth’s fateful rival, Banquo, live–even as a ghost. Sarah Hartmann as the disgruntled Lady Macduff projects intelligence, complexity and wit. Thom Rivera gives a masterfully funny performance as Macbeth’s sardonic porter and doubles as one of the witches, an unusual casting choice that makes the audience deliciously uneasy. Rivera, Christine Barley and Sabra Malkinson alternately slither around the stage like snakes or dart like rats.
The fine set, made of projecting wooden beams reminiscent of an ancient Japanese shrine, contributes depth and texture to the staging. Its stark, masculine beauty reminds you of ancient architecture, evoking primeval beliefs and providing the perfect backdrop for the ethical questions that invest the play with its essential meaning.