“Macbeth”: Day 3, Play 3, Theatre Eddys Goes to the 2019 Oregon Shakespeare Festival

William Shakespeare

How much do we actually control our own choices and fates in the decisions we believe we are making independently, or how much do we become the puppets of others’ suggestions they have purposely implanted within us to lead us in directions they desire?  In the current Oregon Shakespeare Festival production of Macbeth, my impression is that Director José Luis Valenzuela implores us to examine the influencers of our daily choices in life – messages that we may receive from sources unexpected but that take hold of our psyche and drive us do things that we otherwise would probably never have considered.  In our world, the double-double-toil-and-trouble “witches” we encounter might be the constant bombardment of talking heads’ opinions on TV, the peppering of ads and supposed news items among our Facebook messages, or simply the popular trends we perceive we must follow in order to be liked and accepted. 

In the world of the Macbeths as created by this director’s choices, ever-present weird sisters watch over the diabolical unfolding of a king’s murder by the usurping Macbeths, of more murders by them to try and retain their illegitimate power, and finally of their own much-deserved demises.  Throughout, it appears that the Macbeths are in fact under a spell, to the point of almost hypnotized, as they go from one evil deed to the next.  And as they and the courtly others around them appear in a mixture of modern dress (trench coats, cocktail dresses, frayed jeans) and of the robed and armored dress we more associate with the Scottish king’s actual era (costumes designed by Chrisi Karvonides-Dushenko), the message is more than clear that José Luis Valenzuela wants us to see the messages of this Macbeth as those that are of today and not just of some long ago, mostly mythical era.

With that powerful, seemed intention of this production so noted, some aspects of this Macbethdo not always measure up to past productions I have seen, either here in Ashland or on other stages.  Part of that has to do with the uneven performances of the Macbeths themselves.  In the story’s early stages, Danforth Comins’ Macbeth is clearly the soldier’s soldier in his demeanor, his delivery of lines, and overall low-key approach.  There is nothing suggesting royalty, which is in itself a powerful way to meet this Macbeth.  When he is near his Lady Macbeth (Amy Kim Waschke), there is no doubt the two are clearly passionately in love, with a returning soldier’s lust and a wife’s desire born of his absence. 

However, as he relates the weird sisters’ predictions to his wife, as they plot their responses, and even as they conduct the initial murder of the visiting Duncan, too often both Macbeths continue to deliver lines in almost monotone – with little variation, drive, ambition, or even evil intent.  Missing from Lady Macbeth, for example, is the overly ambitious, convincing push that sends her husband off to his murderous act.  Even after the initial murder, emotions of the two seem muted and actions feigned.  With the three witches watching on the sidelines and often continually moving their arms and hands around them, how else are we to interpret but that the Macbeths are actually not that much in control of what they are doing but are simply following through the motions set out for them by other powers that be?  At times, it seems that their joint and individual too-tempered, too perfuntory delivery of lines come during moments especially crying for more believability of intense emotions felt – be they expressions of murderous satisfaction; of panicked terror of deed just done; or of bloody lust for further acts to secure their just-found royalty.

Fortunately, as the bloody deeds mount and as madness sets in for both Macbeths, each actor finds ways ever increasingly to leave an impression more lasting on us as audience.  King Macbeth’s crazed sighting of Banquo’s ghost during a dinner party, Lady Macbeth’s hands that cannot be washed of the blood she keeps seeing, and Macbeth’s “out, out, brief candle” soliloquy near the end of his reign and life are all performed with emotional fears and feelings that we can finally actually see, taste, and feel.  It is in those moments, however, that the play’s prior scenes of the Macbeths become even more lacking – scenes delivered without enough conviction, nuance, and blood-thirsty drive.

The weird sisters themselves (Robin Goodrin Nordli, Miriam A Laube, and Erica Sullivan) – for all their ghastly appearances and other-worldly behaviors – are too often a distraction of what is happening around them.  Because they are usually either somewhere on stage providing their own reactions like a kind of Greek Chorus through vivid facial expressions, nonverbal communication and looks among themselves, and body movements, I found myself often drawn to them and away from the interactions of the Macbeths or of others.  Their oft-presence in metal cage-like structures that move from scene to scene around the outdoor Elizabethan stage is difficult not to be a prime focus of one’s attention, even when much more important events are occurring center stage.

Whether alive as he skeptically listens with Macbeth to the witch’s initial predictions – one of which involves him and his progeny – or returning from the dead as an unwelcome ghost at the Macbeth’s dinner table, Al Espinosa excels as Banquo with a presence distinctly defined in tones, words, and physical stance.  Likewise, both Lady Macduff (Michele Mais) and Macduff (Chris Butler) leave us almost breathless in their separate scenes of grief – hers first of being seemingly abandoned by her husband before watching her son murdered in front of her eyes and his on hearing of the murders of his wife and children.  Chris Butler is particularly stunning in both his paused gasps of “All my pretty ones?” and his stunned silence of disbelief before his enraged promise of “front to front bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself within my sword’s length of him.”  Michele Mais is also a commanding, evil Hecate as she towers in her golden crown of the underworld as the queen of the witches, making clear her intentions to ensure Macbeth has a false confidence that will seal his own mortal fate.  

In a lighter note, Rex Young not only plays almost like a modern CEO the attractive, but ill-fated King Duncan, but he is also hilariously wonderful as a Porter who uses a thundering knock, knock, knock at the gate as a chance to show his comic genius.  As he ventures up to bemused audience members, he welcomes first one to the household an equivocator as one ”who committed treason enough for God’s sake” and then another as an English tailor “come hither for stealing out a French hose.”  The selected patrons as well as the rest of us seem thoroughly to enjoy Mr. Young’s clowning and Shakespeare’s trademark of including comic reliefs in tragedies and histories otherwise full of blood and death.

For the Macbeth uninitiated, there is much to be garnered and appreciated from this large, multi-leveled OSF production.  For those of us who have seen multiple Macbeth’s, the director’s choices are certainly thought-provoking if not always totally satisfying.  While the key roles of the Macbeths may not in this case measure up to those we may have seen previously, there are enough moments of their madness as well as noteworthy performances by those they murder (or who will eventually lead Macbeth to his final doom) that all is not lost in witnessing yet one more time Shakespeare’s flow of much blood for the sake of having and retaining power.

Rating: 3 E

Macbeth continues through October 11, 2019 in the Allen Elizabethan Theatre at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  Tickets are available at www.osfashland.org.