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Shakespeare sans inhibitions (or words)

A wordless "Macbeth' in New York

In
7 minute read
Luke Murphy, Careena Melia as the Macbeths: Sex, violence and a crush of masked strangers. (Photo: Thom Kaine.)
Luke Murphy, Careena Melia as the Macbeths: Sex, violence and a crush of masked strangers. (Photo: Thom Kaine.)
Here's a theater riddle: How many different productions of Shakespeare's Macbeth do you need to see in one season to feel you've really experienced the play? Answer: three, and still you may not feel satisfied.

This question isn't meant to be purposefully perverse. I've just sat through three different Macbeths in New York during the past three weeks (to be accurate, sat through two and walked through one). And I keep trying to fashion a composite "ideal production" in my head, selecting different elements from each one.

From the Brooklyn Academy of Music's April production, I'd choose Declan Donnellan's directing. From the overlapping Macbeth at the Theatre of The New Audience, I'd pick John Douglas Thompson's powerful performance in the title role. From Sleep No More, the absolutely bizarre "immersive theater" experience produced by Punchdrunk, I'd say the guts of the play itself.

For the above reason, I believe, Sleep No More has emerged as the most popular Macbeth of the current season (its run has been extended several times). But here's the curious thing: Sleep No More is performed without any text. Not one word is uttered throughout.

What does that say about how we're reaching audiences today with the classics? And why is this, of all Shakespeare's tragedies, being performed this year with such frequency?

Shrinking Shakespeare

Director Declan Donnellan has made some bold choices with his British Cheek by Jowl company (known for its innovative productions of Shakespeare's plays). He's cut the text of Macbeth to two hours, taking his cue from Shakespeare ("If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly").

He's shrunk the size of the company to a mere seven (with a chorus of five Thanes). He's eliminated the witches, conjuring them up as voices in the darkness in the play's first chilling moments. He's reduced the mis en scène to a stark black stage, devoid of props. He's eliminated color in the costume, clothing his characters in black.

The result is a beautifully spare, gracefully staged minimalist production, with the creepy chorus of Thanes haunting its shadowy corners, watching the Macbeths as they fall deeper into the vortex of power and crime.

The trouble here is that director Donnellan may have minimized too much. Gone are the daggers and the swords, gone is the blood, even. The murders are acted out in mime"“ rendering the violence too stylized, too abstract, blunting its horror.

A lady too high-strung

Gone, too, is the cold-blooded rendition of Lady Macbeth that fuels the action. The latter (as played by the usually excellent Anastasia Hille) comes across as too high strung from the outset, so that her ultimate descent into madness feels predetermined.

Above all, the role of Macbeth itself is minimized. Gone is his stature. He comes across as ordinary, indecisive, unsure why he's caught up in this relentless path of action.

Indeed, this slightly built Macbeth (played by the equally excellent Will Keen) seems surprised to be playing the role at all. Is Donnellan making a point that resonates today (especially in light of the recent Bush administration)"“ that even the most ordinary men can rise to power and wreak havoc if they are ambitious, deceitful, and corrupt enough? ("Alas our poor country, too afraid to know itself".)

Or, even more chilling, is Donnellan saying that unbridled evil is ultimately banal? If so, he may have taken the tragedy out of Shakespeare's play.

Herculean stature

In contrast, the Theatre for a New Audience production features a Macbeth of tragic/heroic stature in John Douglas Thompson, an African-American actor whose recent notable roles include Othello and the Emperor Jones. Once Thompson takes the stage, there's no taking your eyes off him. With his Herculean stature, deep voice and commanding presence, Thompson persuasively evolves from doubtful to ambitious to vulnerable to self-flagellating to irrational to fiendish ("I have almost forgotten the taste of fear").

Thompson's passionate performance contrasts with his icily seductive Lady Macbeth (the blond-braided Annika Boris), and together they make an electrifying pair. Their marriage "“ with its blinding sexual attraction and mutual lust for power"“ fuels the action to its dramatic conclusion of "blood will have blood."

Thompson's charisma provides heat to an otherwise conventional production, directed by Arin Arbus, that offers no surprises (save the male witches, a questionable choice). But no matter "“ this director wisely gives Thompson center stage and lets him speak Shakespeare's words, evoking a Macbeth of uncommon power, complexity and humanity. Thompson's "sound and fury" signifies far more than nothing— he gives us the tragedy of a man who could have been great had he not "durst do" the wrong thing, and succumb to his baser temptations.

On your feet!

And now, to our third, most maddening (and tantalizing) Macbeth: the one currently playing at the McKittrick Hotel to standing-room only audiences, and that's literal— for this Macbeth, called Sleep No More, requires the audience to be on its feet throughout the entire spectacle.

Sleep No More is the daring creation of Punchdrunk, a British site-specific company known for its innovative, "immersive" productions, where audiences are no longer conventional spectators but participants in the action. In the case of Sleep No More, Punchdrunk has taken over a row of empty warehouses on West 27th Street, knocked down walls, and created five floors of playing space to stage the crimes of the murdering Macbeths right before our very eyes.

You enter the building, check your belongings (and inhibitions and fears), don a mask (it's required), and proceed through a bar area into total darkness. You grope your way from floor to floor, room to room, with nothing but "exit lights" to guide you. No programs are offered, no talking is allowed— either by audience, actors, or the occasional masked usher whom you keep asking where the action is.

Bedrooms and bathtubs


It's all bewildering at first, as you wander from the fifth floor with its windowless rooms full of beds and bathtubs, down to the fourth floor with its secret libraries and creepy taxidermy, down to the third floor with its shadowy gardens (the only sound is the rumble of ominous thunder)— until you reach the lower floors, where at last you catch on to what kind of theater experience this really is.

There, if you're sufficiently nimble-footed, you'll find Macbeth, Lady Macbeth and the other characters as they reenact Shakespeare's story. You follow them as they dart from room to room, in and out of sight, and it's quite frightening, being part of a crush of masked strangers watching all that sex and violence as it builds to a horrific climax.

There's a lavish ensemble "dance of death" scene in a huge ballroom, followed by the naked Macbeths in bed, followed by the murders in yet another room, (I wasn't fast enough to catch up and see it), followed by a bloodied Macbeth in a tub being bathed by Lady M.

Felliniesque banquet


Finally, if your timing is lucky, you stumble onto a balcony looking out on a fantastical, Felliniesque version of the banquet scene, complete with Banquo's ghost. The banquet table is bathed in blood-red light, as actors freeze in a terrifying tableau. Macabre music pulsates, strobe lights throb, masked spectators gasp— and you feel like a character in Stanley Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut.

I fled that horrific scene and out into a clear, New York night, feeling a mixture of horror, revulsion, titillation and fascination. Was this production as much about our obsession with violence as it is about the Macbeths'?

At one point during the show I was stampeded by dozens of masked anonyms, pushing/jostling each other to get a better view of the bloodletting. Could this voyeuristic compulsion mask a communal guilt for past crimes we may have committed?

With its fleeting thrills, this production raises more questions than it answers. What about Shakespeare's humanity? What about his poetry?

Meanwhile, I'm going to see another Macbeth in a few weeks at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-on-Avon. Stay tuned.




What, When, Where

Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Directed by Arin Arbus. Theatre For a New Audience production closed April 22, 2011 at The Duke on 42nd Street, 220 West 42nd St., New York. www.tfana.org. Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Directed by Declan Donnellan. Cheek by Jowl production April 5-16, 2011 at Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Harvey Theater, 651 Fulton St., Brooklyn. www.bam.org.

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