Sunday, May 11, 2008

Big Mac

The set design for is very spare. The white tiled walls, smooth black floor, and bare metal appliances envision a bunker, a prison, or an asylum- all fitting for this play of blood, madness, and war. The stage is left visible before the curtain, perhaps so that we can contemplate it's clean but cruel sterility before chaos comes to call it home.

My excitement and anticipation for the show had been rising ever since finally getting tickets for the play during the week. From what I could see, the show was completely sold out but I luckily managed to get what I consider to be a good seat: first row of the mezzanine, near the center. I'm not too far away and I get a good, clear view of the entire stage. When the play began with a thunderous bang (literally), I was ready to go.

I came to see as the titular thane and I wasn't disappointed. MacBeth is a man who succumbs to raw ambition and is consumed by it, from the inside out, even as he must reap its bitter harvest. Stewart easily navigated MacBeth's fluctuating states of being: strong and powerful, weak and fearful, crazed, calm and contemplative.

Stewart was matched with as Lady MacBeth who provides the prod to push MacBeth to action and then becomes proxy for his madness. She was excellent also. I have no complaints about any of the cast*. They each do what the roles required. I must, however, give special praise to Christopher Patrick Nolan as Seyton and to the three witches, here transformed into nurses, whose physical but silent presences on the stage in key moments gave palpable life to the dark fates they had foretold.

While the play concerns itself with the power politics of medieval Scotland, the setting and costumes reflect a Stalin-era communist state. It's an interesting choice that works very well. It took me a few minutes of the first scene for me to reconcile the Shakespearian English to the much more modern look on stage but, once done, I was very comfortable with the fusion in styles.

By using a modern era, the play was able to use sound effects, such as artillery bombardments, medical instruments, and gunfire to accent the action, signal changes, or provide subtle ambiance. Images were also projected onto the back wall of the stage that heightened the drama. In particular, the video of blood flowing into water as Banquo's ghost arrived to confront MacBeth was an excellent use of the technique.

This was a great show and I'm glad I finally made time to see it. Playbill's Ruth Leon calls Stewart "the greatest MacBeth of my lifetime." While I don't have the points of reference to make that claim (this is the first MacBeth I've seen on stage), there is no doubt that Stewart puts on a riveting performance. His work, coupled with the rest of the cast, great stage, costume, and sound design, makes this a must-see play. I'm just happy I finally got to see it.


* A cast-related note: in one scene, Lady McDuff (Rachel Ticotin) was speaking and I thought to myself, I swear that woman looks like Melina from Total Recall. Sure enough, when I checked IMDB this morning, there she was. The Playbill doesn't mention it, or any films at all. Do the actors create those bios or does someone connected to Playbill or the theater do it?