'Snares of Watchful Tyranny'

I HAVE TO ADMIT THAT MACBETH might have something to do, these days, with electronic sound apparati, but there's no need to push the point. The relevant equipment is certainly not the stuff they use backstage at the Loeb, although those toys would tempt anyone to tyranny, and I sometimes think, have put the electricians in charge over there. But I only mention this as a warning: Director Emily Mann seems to have kept the play mostly honest, except for a few damned spots like the prophetic mike in the witches's cauldron or wherever the hell the unintelligible thing is hidden. Aside from these few squawky, drumming irritations, the show is true and solid, as forceful and well gestured as David Gullette in the title role.

At least this hero begins by listening to the witches instead of hunting them. The ladies in question are the highlight of some uniformly fine costuming: in their white bathing caps and long rough robes they could be either flappy vultures or vulturine flappers, squealing and chanting their prophecies. They meet with one who is first a military man, Gullette is at pains to show, bold and strong but careful and considering nonetheless. He is still liable to fear--but fear of things within, of his own doubts and all those teeming visions. Gullette handles his role in a way that suggests St. Peter exhibiting perfect control over his great rocky body--and especially those direct commander's hands--while the struggle of conscience and denial goes on beneath his bald pate. Then the crown covers that spot and all sign of the saint is gone. Fear itself takes over the command, but with no less skill or strength than made Macbeth a hero in suppressing the revolt against Duncan. Especially fine is the scene where the king persuades and instructs the two murderers concerning the death of Banquo and his son whose end is needed, he explains, "Masking the business from the common eye for sundry weighty reasons." The two identically costumed soldiers are reminiscent of Rosencranz and Guildenstern in their ignobility: the king alternately wheedles and bullies them. "I will advise you where to plant yourselves, Acquaint you with the perfect spy o' th' time."

There is the essence of a very fine interpretation of Macbeth's relation to Lady M. here, but it tends to get trampled underfoot as the play progresses, largely due to lack of clarity in Marianna Houston's over-strident presentation of the queen's role. The returning soldier clasps his wife passionately to him, and we have a fairly good idea how she might be persuasive with him, but too many chances to confirm this in the dialogue are missed. There is a power in such moments as when Macbeth roughly rubs his lady's belly with the words "Bring forth men-children only," that the queen doesn't match. From the moment when she first dances out across the stage bearing the good news of the witches's predictions in a letter from Macbeth, we have the image of a woman full of intense passion that seems to have neither source nor real direction and her subsequent scenes are disjointed as a result. The lady doesn't even go after those spots very convincingly, nor seem particularly haunting in her sleepwalking.

Her part seems smaller than usual as a result and in general this is very much a team production. Its strengths lie in the unpetty pace with which it progresses, in the deft handling of the interludes, especially that of the wonderfully bawdy drunken doorkeeper, who might however try to get his lines out from under his intoxication more cleanly, and in the elaborate staging. The setting is not particularly inspired, but it works, in such scenes as Macbeth's slow progress up the stairs which enclose the stage front to Duncan's chamber, or the massing of figures in the several group scenes. And the special effects people do very well with difficult material: Banquo is as ghostly as anyone could ask in a green light, posed behind Macbeth's chair like Christ in The Last Supper. And the procession of silhouetted kings that show Banquo's line to be are reassuring because young Malcolm seems too wimpy to prove right royal, after having been put on at the end. With Birnam Wood, alas, all we get are a few streaky branches being figurative on the backdrop screen, and I do have to quarrel with the wild but unconvincing head that attends the witches in their first scene, gets bubbled in the cauldron, and then shows up again in Macduff's arms as that of the damned usurper.

And there is still, always, the reassurance of the last scenes: the hellhound turns and meets his end, the new king comes to the throne intent on the needed repairs "of calling home our exil'd friends abroad, That fled the snares of watchful tyranny," and mending his country.--But this is a good enough production to let the words get beyond it: there's no need to Macbirden it more with any newer meanings.