For me, summer in Los
Angeles means free Shakespeare. The Independent Shakespeare Co.’s Griffith Park
productions are what excite me the most about summer. This summer they’re
putting on Macbeth, As You Like It, and one non-Shakespeare
play, She Stoops To Conquer, written
by Oliver Goldsmith.
Last night I caught
their production of Macbeth, and it
was fantastic. I was seriously impressed by this show, and that’s even with
having gone with high expectations. The cast is excellent all around,
particularly Luis Galindo, who is phenomenal as Macbeth. Also, there were
moments when Lady Macbeth had me spellbound, and that I think is a difficult
role.
The three witches
have a strong presence in this production, appearing in several scenes,
sometimes taking on the supporting roles of attendants and such. They’re
dressed in white, in great contrast to the rest of the cast, who are in dark,
somber colors. In the first scene they repeat “Fair is foul and foul is fair” to a drum beat. The rest of the
company joins in, marching in place, and this leads directly to the second
scene, where the Captain tells Duncan of the battle. The witches and others
remain on stage until the Captain’s wounds make him faint.
In Act I Scene iv,
when Duncan says, “O worthiest cousin,”
one of the witches stands upstage, watching. It’s interesting, because you
could take it that the witches are sort of controlling things behind the
scenes, or that they just enjoy watching their predictions come true. Either
way, you get the sense that they are part of a destiny that is inescapable.
When Banquo embraces Duncan, he actually lifts him.
Lady Macbeth seems
ambitious from the start. Also, interestingly, there is an air of magic about
her. In Act I Scene v, she creates a circle on the floor with small stones. And
it is one of the witches who acts as messenger, telling her the king is coming.
Lady Macbeth then steps into the circle for “Come, you spirits/That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here.”
When Macbeth enters, he embraces her within the circle, which is great,
symbolically binding them.
This production has
many excellent moments. In Act I Scene vii, Lady Macbeth breaks a bit after “I have given suck,” as if the memory of
their mysterious child is still difficult for her, and Macbeth holds her. This
is such a wonderful moment, as it brings Macbeth to his wife, and this is after
he has decided against their plan. But after this moment, he is once again
ready to proceed. It’s interesting, because Lady Macbeth seems so honest and
vulnerable in that moment, that Macbeth of course has to embrace her. But you
could also wonder if she did this purposefully to bring Macbeth around again to
the plan.
It is one of the
witches to whom Macbeth says “Go bid thy
mistress, when my drink is ready/She strike upon the bell” (in Act II Scene
i). So again it is the witches that attend upon Lady Macbeth. In Act II Scene
ii, there is the sound effect of an owl prompting Lady Macbeth’s line. It’s one
of the few things that felt unnecessary. Later in that scene Lady Macbeth is
excellent when making the decision to take the daggers. What an incredible
moment.
In Act II Scene iii,
the Porter comes from the audience to answer the knocking. He pees into a
bucket, and then breaks out of Shakespeare for a bit to explain what the word
“equivocate” means. I always have mixed feelings about adding modern jokes to
Shakespeare’s works. In very small doses, it can work – like just a word or a
look, a nod to the audience. In this production, this goes on a bit long, with
him borrowing an iPhone from an audience member to look up the word, and then
dropping it into the piss bucket. Of course, if you are going to throw in some
modern humor, this is the scene for it (and I do love this actor – he was
particularly wonderful as Falstaff in Merry
Wives a couple of years ago). At the end of that scene, two of the witches
bring suitcases on stage for Malcolm and Donalbain.
In Act III Scene ii,
Macbeth frightens Lady Macbeth when he says his head is full of scorpions. This
is another wonderful moment between these two, and they do a great job showing
the changing dynamic of their relationship. (By the way, in Act III Scene ii,
Macbeth says “scorch’d the snake,”
not the emendation “scotch’d.”) In
the next scene, it is the Porter who plays the third murderer.
A bit of color is
added to the costumes when Lady Macbeth wears a green dress with a purplish fur
for the banquet scene. Banquo does appear, rising from beneath the table, in
this production. There is also a bit of interesting staging with his head
appearing as a course.
There is an
intermission, coming after the line “We
are but young in deed” at the end of Act III Scene iv.
The second half
begins with Act III Scene vi (Scene v being cut, as usual). The two men hold
newspapers, those being the source of the information they share with each
other, and with us.
In Act IV Scene i,
the witches’ cauldron is a silver trash can. Rather than have the appearance of
the apparitions, each witch drinks from the cauldron and then speaks the
apparition’s lines, as if channeling the spirit. Then when the witches say “Come like shadows,” they give Macbeth a
drink. The witches then circle him as the procession of kings that Macbeth
sees.
There is another bit
of color added, with Lady Macduff’s purple dress. The last lines from this
scene are cut, when her son, having been stabbed, says, “He has killed me, mother.” I think Act IV Scene iii is a tough
scene to do well, but this cast’s Macduff and Malcolm do a really good job with
it. The three witches surround Malcolm when he talks about how he is worse than
Macbeth. He then dismisses them with a small gesture when he’s ready to reveal
his true intentions to Macduff. Macduff is absolutely perfect in the scene
where he learns of his wife and children’s deaths.
In Act V Scene i,
Lady Macbeth sleepwalks onto the stage from the audience. Interestingly, the
Doctor embraces her before he says her malady is beyond him. She responds to
his embrace, taking him to be Macbeth. This works to make her situation even
more heartrending. And then, just before she says “What’s done cannot be undone,” she seems perhaps to come out of her
spell, seeming to really see the Doctor and the Gentlewoman for who they are.
Is she still asleep, or is she offering this truth from the safe guise of
sleep? It’s a really wonderful moment.
Seyton is the Porter
in this production, and after he tells Macbeth that Lady Macbeth is dead, there
is a nice long moment before Macbeth gives that famous speech. (Though now that
I think of it, Macbeth might have left out the first two lines and begun with “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow.”)
The fight between
Macbeth and Macduff is done really well, with lots of blood. In this production
Macduff finally kills Macbeth far upstage and does not cut off his head. So
when he has the line about Macbeth’s head, he indicates the body. The three
witches are present at the end for Malcolm’s speech, and then remain on stage,
one of the witches saying, “When shall we
three meet again?” And that is the last line of this production, ending
where it began, as if perhaps to suggest that the troubles are not over.
This was an excellent
production. If you haven’t seen it, I believe there are ten more performances
between now and August 31st.
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