'Macbeth' at Villanova

Macbeth, however, lies under what Shakespeare calls a “foggy cloud.” Its atmosphere is steeped in a grim spirit world that continually shapes its action. This world fastens itself to Macbeth, who both seeks and is sought by it, and whose cues prompt him at every turn. We cannot be sure the spirit world is independent of him, but he is certainly caught in its toils. The agnostic playwright will not let us fully believe in the witches and spirits, but the dramatic visionary will not let us simply dismiss them. As in no other play of Shakespeare’s, Macbeth forces us to acknowledge a world beyond our ken.

Nowhere else in Shakespeare are we invited to a world so desperate and so exposed to evil. Iago’s motiveless malignity destroys Othello but does not threaten Venice; “something” is rotten in the state of Denmark, but its subjects have not yet felt the full yoke of tyranny. The elements to which Lear is exposed on the heath are terrible but not malevolent. Claudius and Gertrude are certainly a nasty power couple in Hamlet, but both acknowledge themselves as sinners.

A play without a hero

There is no redeeming feature, however, in Macbeth and his lady. Macbeth is a play without a hero, no matter how flawed; that is to say, without a protagonist capable of remorse or moral regeneration. Its heroes are its villains, and it is the sense of this that lays Scotland prostrate under the “hand accurs’d.” Nowhere else in Shakespeare, not even in Richard III, is the effect of tyranny so bleakly suggested: Scotland seems exposed not simply to a wicked ruler but to wickedness itself.

This distress is symbolized, and for the audience augmented, by the disruption of time. Nowhere else in Shakespeare is the sense of temporal dislocation, of sheer jumbling, so intense. The witches’ prophecy of what will happen becomes, for Macbeth and even more for Lady Macbeth, an unbearable impatience that it does happen. At the same time, the prophecy that Banquo’s seed will succeed him on the throne is a thing Macbeth must forestall at all costs, for it necessarily implies the destruction of his line.

Macbeth is a man in a terrible hurry, while at the same time wearied in spite of himself by the bloody work he must do. It is Lady Macbeth who pushes him forward, only to stumble at last herself; the evil she carries is too much to bear. While their purpose holds, though, this duo is a whirligig. It is only near the end that Macbeth, now alone, sees time as his very condemnation in the great “Tomorrow” speech, and “dusty death” — death in a world without honor — as its only terminus.

The lurid and louring spirit world

How to stage such a play? James J. Christy drives it at breakneck speed, with brilliant and sometimes blinding lighting effects, pounding sound design, and tautly choreographed action. This is in keeping with Shakespeare’s own temporal design in the play; the trick, however, is to keep as well the sense of the lurid and louring spirit world that is so essential to its effect. This is partly accomplished by distancing; the three witches, for example, appear hooded, their lines spoken in voice-over, and they perch on trestles at separated points of the stage. Another device is doubling: At key points in certain speeches, a shadow figure repeats a line or phrase, suggesting an uncanny echo. These accents deepen a sense of space without impinging on the pace of action.

There is doubling, too, of many of the roles, with the exception of the protagonists. This is common enough in Shakespeare, but an additional challenge for Christy was the limited casting resources of a university theater. This required female performers in some male roles, notably Elizabeth Meisenzahl as Macduff. Fortunately, Meisenzahl is not only persuasive as a grief-stricken warrior, but, as an accomplished stage combatant, she also gives as good as she gets (and, of course, ultimately better) in the fight with Macbeth.

Not for the squeamish

Kyle Fennie’s Macbeth is an imposing figure, as Macbeth needs to be. He is in a certain sense the plaything of the Fates, but if that is all there’s to him the play will not thrive. His ambition is real, and the witches merely open a path for it. When he realizes he’s been tricked by them and that the game is up, he stands and fights. Not for him the noble Brutus, falling on his sword; if he is going to hell, or oblivion, he is ready to take someone with him.

Likewise, Meg Trelease’s Lady Macbeth comes at you with no holds barred. Her mad scene is sometimes played as merely pathetic, as if she had turned into Ophelia at the end, but Trelease effectively alternates between pathos and the spitfire rage that is still unextinguished in her.

There’s a relish in villainy that marks the Elizabethan and Jacobean stage, and Shakespeare is as fascinated by it as any, even if he plumbs it far more deeply. The age also loved gore, and Christy supplies it copiously; instead of having Lady Macbeth try desperately to wash it off, he has her bathe in it in the belief that the water is pure.

Let’s just say that this is not a Macbeth for the squeamish. But it works.