“Macbeth” at the Wilma (1st review)

The Wilma Theater’s new Macbeth is concerned more with the struggle of an oppressed people fighting to overthrow tyranny than it is with the title character and his wife. Shakespeare would approve. He did, after all, intend this play as a tribute to the Scottish people and their king, James, who had just ascended to the British throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603. The Bard sought to satisfy public curiosity about Scotland and, simultaneously, to curry favor with the new monarch, whose associates claimed he was a direct descendant of the play’s hero, Malcolm.

To be sure, theatergoers mostly remember the ambitious wife who prods her husband to become a usurper and then a bloody tyrant. But more stage time actually is given to other characters, such as King Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, Macduff’s family and Duncan’s young son Malcolm, who defeats Macbeth and ascends the Scottish throne. The play’s most heart-rending scene takes place in Macduff’s home, where his wife, son and servant display humanity and humor even as they live in fear, and then are brutally murdered by Macbeth’s operatives.

Spies on bicycles

Surely this aspect resonated with the Wilma’s director, Blanka Zizka, who grew up in Communist-ruled Czechoslovakia. Zizka has directed a dark and oppressive production that emphasizes the tyranny. Again, this surely would please Shakespeare, who specified that every scene in the play, save one, takes place at night or on a dark, overcast day.

In this production, passersby— some of them on bicycles— and a guitar player on a bench may be spies for Macbeth, and the good guys live in dread of having their conversations overheard by them. This arresting point of view suffers from one negative side effect: less concentration on the emotions of Macbeth and his wife. Their disintegration wields less impact here, partly because, as hard as CJ Wilson and Jacqueline Antaramian work at their savage roles as Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, they don’t actually inhabit them.

(Permit me a bit of blasphemy: Shakespeare never adequately plumbs Macbeth’s transformation from a conventionally ambitious opportunist to a bloody tyrant. We are asked to leap from one horrible deed to a reign where Macbeth suppresses an entire population with multiple murders.)

Blame the high schools

The dialogue is delivered in a slow and steady pace, clearly articulated, a technique that lends the production an intellectual aura rather than an excitable one. The reason, I suppose, is that Macbeth is no longer required reading in high schools, and consequently many theatergoers need help sorting out all these characters and their relationships.

Designer Mimi Lien has created a multilevel set that spreads out the action and gives a sense of sweep. Sound designer Daniel Perelstein has provided spooky effects and music that reinforce the prevailing feeling of danger.♦





To read another review by Robert Zaller,click here.

To read another review by Jonathan M. Stein, click here.

To read a response, click here.