'Macbeth': tale told that signifies something

In Peter Oyston's production of Macbeth, the Dramat mainstage show at the University Theatre, the sound and the fury are never in question. They show up in the form of an enormous cast, a pair of Highland dancers, the clopping of horses, and the echo of distant drumbeats, a stop-motion battle scene, and a whole coven of witches. The play conjures up a fine, gloomy spectacle, and yet, in its mad rush to depict the rapid rise and fall of Macbeth, there is the sense that it should have lingered more on the human complexities of individual characters and less on their ability to run across a stage.

COURTESY YALE DRAMAT Reggie Austin, BK '01, and Tracy Appleton, JE '01, hold hands before daggers.

The play begins with two events that are not in the script but set up the motivation for Macbeth's pursuit of power. As one group buries a child's body at the front of the stage, another rushes up a cliff at the rear in a wild war charge—Macbeth is a warrior, but he is also a man who has lost a child, and the anger from the latter event fuels a violence similar to that of the former. The sudden juxtaposition, largely wordless, inspires a sensory impression that lingers throughout the play.

Oyston, who also designed the sets, has envisioned the whole production with wise minimalism, suggesting the macabre with lights, shadows, and striking images rather than elaborate pyrotechnics. Bagpipes, snippets of Gregorian chant, and the distant rushing of footsteps are the only non-verbal sounds. The dark figure of a witch lingers behind a silk screen at the back, witnessing and perhaps controlling the action, as Macbeth seizes the throne and then kills everyone who gets in his way.

On a sensory level, Macbeth is remarkably effective, shifting effortlessly between foggy heaths and a castle that genuinely feels haunted. The eerie grace of the witches bookends the first half, with Hali Augusztiny, CC '03, Emily Bloom, DC '02, Ran Aubrey Frazier, SM '03, Samantha Lazarus, BK '02, Tony Melson, PC '00, and Nell Rutledge-Leverenz, PC '03, moving in concert like the fluttering of dead leaves. Every so often, as though seizing on prey, a witch glides to the front of the stage, plucking dissonant strings on a gutted piano like a harp to heighten the atmosphere of uneasiness. Chipo Chung's, TC '00, Hecate, the leader of the pack, is a spellbinding creature who floats sinuously through the air and seduces simply with a well-wrought gaze.

Reggie Austin, BK '01, who is enticed to "vaulting ambition" by the prophecies of this strange crew, portrays a convincingly stalwart Macbeth with regal bearing and, by the end, a palpable derangement. But he never really makes the part his own, speaking the lines without conveying their effect on his tortured psyche; his pronunciation is fast, confident, yet not spirited. He and Tracy Appleton, JE '01, as a lovely, pale, histrionic Lady Macbeth, rule the vassals, but not the play.

Often Macbeth conveys a sense of forward motion without stopping to consider the details that propel the action. As Macbeth and Lady Macbeth ascend and descend the two platforms that comprise the only scenery, they seem to be rushing headlong into a destiny that is too well rehearsed to be unsettling. Mac-beth's hallucina-tions after he murders King Duncan (a commanding Ryan Karels, BR '00) to gain the throne do not communicate the spontaneity necessary to make terror believable; the dagger that he sees before him is one that he has clearly seen before.

Theater

Macbeth Produced by Melissa Rose Barton Directed by Peter Oyston Fri., Feb. 25; Sat., Feb. 26, 2 and 8 p.m. University Theater $10, $5 students

Daniel Larlham, SM '00, as Banquo, on the other hand, makes Shakespeare's language flow like human speech. He does not declaim it, but presents each new bon mot as though he had just thought of it and recognized how clever it was. He becomes the most sympathetic character onstage, and his slow realization of the connection between the witches' augury and the sudden death of Duncan is relayed as a series of clear yet subtle gestures.

The other actors populate Scotland with a slew of colorful characters, even if the experience of watching them is a bit detached. J. J. Lind, SM '00, plays a brooding, if off-kilter, Macduff who inspires genuine pathos; the scene in which he bursts into tears after learning about the death of his wife and children at the hands of Macbeth is the emotional high point of the play. Jeremy Strong, TC '01, as Malcolm, has a strong voice and great stage presence, but, like Austin, he projects the language better than he emotes it. As he describes the requirements of a kingship he feels unprepared to receive, the fact of his careful diction supercedes the meanings of the words: "justice, verity, temp'rance, stableness,/Bounty, perseverance, mercy, lowliness."

On the whole, Oyston's interpretations add to the drama. The Porter, who provides a comedic interlude to all the slaying in Act III, is divided into two characters, Mr. Porter (Manuel I. Negron, PC '99) and Mrs. Porter (Lauren Popper, ES '00). A knock at the door hilariously interrupts them from coitus rather than just inebriation. Similarly, the sight of soldiers masquerading as trees when Malcolm's troops prepare to dethrone Macbeth at the end is staged as a military ballet accompanied by chanting and drumbeats. Like many other moments, it conveys a beautiful, if removed, approach to a classic play that succeeds best when it "struts and frets its hour upon the stage" without noticing the time.

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