To some extent you can’t really blame a director about to stage a William Shakespeare play for not getting everything right, especially a director about to tackle one of the best known works. So many hundreds (thousands?) of directors have already plumbed the texts for a new approach that discovering something fresh is a forbidding task. So it’s difficult to chastise John Doyle for how he introduces The Tragedy of Macbeth, which he’s redlined to 90 intermissionless minutes and simply calls it, as many understandably have before him, Macbeth.
As every Macbeth advocate throughout the past 400-plus years has been aware, the tragedy begins with three witches muttering over a boiling cauldron. So it doesn’t take too much imagination to conjure directors scratching their heads for a new way to treat the weird sisters.
Doyle sends out eight of the nine cast members to stand, four each, on either side of his long thrust stage to recite the opening lines starting with, “When shall we three meet again?” What? Eight people talking as if they were three. Which three? It’s an idea, all right, but not an edifying one.
[Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s ★★★★ review here.]
Those of us for whom this is our third or seventh or umpteenth Macbeth know what’s going on, but what about a ticket buyer who has never seen the play or has learned something of it and may even be looking forward to the witchy trio they’ve heard about? This get-go isn’t a good omen.
There are, however, several innovations in Doyle’s Macbeth that deserve praise before getting into production aspects that are less praise-worthy. As Lady Macbeth, Nadia Bowers is strong as the husband-baiting spouse. She’s completely convincing during her “unsex me now” plea and just as persuasive when it comes time to address that recalcitrant “damned spot.”
And Doyle has her do something earlier that is quite clever. Directly after she’s returned from planting knives on King Duncan’s slain attendants to incriminate them, she sits in full view of the audience washing her bloodied hands—and not cleaning them sufficiently. She insists that “a little water will wash away the evidence of our guilt,” but that she’s so very wrong about it is nicely foreshadowed.
There are several performances that work at various moments, the most rewarding coming from Barzin Akhavan as Macduff. His grief when learning his wife and children have been slaughtered is extremely moving, particularly his reading of the words “all my pretty ones.” Mary Beth Peil is a regal King Duncan, and as Malcolm, Raffi Barsoumian delivers the closing speech with appealing dignity.
Thanks go to fight director Thomas Schall for his handling of the knife-play when Macbeth (Corey Stoll) engages with Macduff and learns his foe is not of woman born and therefore the nemesis over whom, if the witches are to be heeded, he can’t prevail. The encounter is rough and tumble and entirely believable. It’s truly outstanding stage combat.
Which leads to Stoll as the Scottish play’s title character. A reliable actor, whom Woody Allen chose to play the celebrated macho Ernest Hemingway in Midnight in Paris, Stoll is surprisingly less reliable here. It’s as if he looked at the dialogue where Lady Macbeth tells him he’s “too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness” and decided she’s right. He seems to be portraying Macbeth as too full of 100% fat-free milk to bite into the role with conviction.
There are sequences when he does raise his voice, but too often he’s less than the accomplished warrior. He’s lying on the ground (Doyle must want him there) and/or holding his head in his hands. He falters on his delivery of Macbeth’s “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow” speech. It’s so attenuated that it feels as if it’s about to continue into tomorrow and then into the tomorrow after that.
As Doyle often does, he functions as set designer. With the thrust stage and the high-backed wooden throne occupying its far end, he keeps things focused on the action. Lighting designer Solomon Weisbard and sound designer Matt Stine make this Scotland a dark and ominous place where, as the script announces, “light thickens,” even if Macbeth doesn’t quite.
Ann Hould-Ward’s costumes are another matter. Everyone wears black and shades of grey. They clothes are accessorized by sheaths of thick, tartan-patterned fabric draped about the neck, shoulders and waist. Often the cast members remove these long pieces and fold them or toss them around like throw rugs. Worse, they frequently hang low, looking about to be tripped over. The concept undoubtedly sounded stylish, but the reality isn’t.
Observing a so-so Shakespeare play sometimes give me the opportunity to ruminate on elements I’ve never previously given too much thought. This time I contemplated the Macbeths as parents. Though children are never seen, Lady Macbeth does confide that she’s had an infant at her breast but would just as soon have dashed its head if that’s what was required for achieving greatness. Not the best example of maternal instinct. Indeed, the Macbeths give evidence of being so involved with each other that there’s no place in their connubial lives for children. Perhaps wherever the offspring are, there’s a dedicated governess with them.
Anyway, it’s something to think about when a production isn’t giving you enough. Which John Doyle’s Macbeth isn’t.
Macbeth opened October 27, 2019, at the Classic Stage Company and runs through December 15. Tickets and information: classicstage.org
