Trouble in Scotland

THERE ARE LOTS OF SWORDS in this Macbeth. Daggers, too. Those crazy Scots eat with them, greet with them, play with them and, of course, kill with them. Swords everywhere you turn, and you can never be sure who will show up next with one, friend or foe, ghost or wife.

This particular version of hell is brought to you by director Vincent Murphy, who gave us an intriguing interpretation of Sam Shepard's Curse of the Starving Class last spring at the Suffolk University Theater. Many elements of the Murphy style have carried into this Boston Shakespeare Company production, most notably a preference for stylized gesture and loose body movement that suggests an undercurrent of sexuality. From Shepard to Shakespeare is quite a leap, however; and whereas the looseness provides some fine moments (a giddy Macbeth sprawling pitifully on the ground while plotting Banquo's death), the stylization produces tiresome histrionics (Macbeth: "O! full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife." Macbeth clutches head, presumable to show us scorpions) redolent of countless mediocre productions of Shakespeare. Most of the BSC actors lack the intensity to pull it off.

Sexuality and swords--an ancient metaphor, and one that becomes tiresome about halfway through the evening. Yet it helps create a shaky, violent world in which fact and fiction, murder and loyalty, blur dangerously. When the king's party enter Macbeth's castle to spend the fateful night, young Donalbain screams and falls to the ground with a dagger in his side--just kidding, of course. Banquo's ghost strolls in and pours himself a nice, long draught (rather bloody, actually) at Macbeth's banquet. The messenger warning Lady Macduff of impending doom tries to seduce her after her moody adolescent son has told her to find a new husband. You can't trust anyone around here.

This technique works to good effect towards the end of the play, with paranoia lurking deep within Birnam Wood. Nothing can make up, however, for the dreariness of the first half; for despite Murphy's good intentions, this Macbeth is submerged--swords and a few actors not-withstanding--by its company.

THERE ARE, first of all some problems of logistics. While set designer Kevin Roach's Scotland is convincingly stark and metallic, too many ramps and staircases reduce the downstage area to the size of a sandbox--no room for conspiracies here, much less natural movement. Craig Sonnenberg's costumes, though effectively timeless, look too much like Bill Blass designs for a Himalayan expedition. The Apollo XI footwear especially renders normal activity difficult.

The BSC has heretofore restricted itself largely to the comedies, which might account for the lack of emotional clout which mars the acting in this production. (We should at least give the company credit for attempting such a dark work, something the American Repertory Theater has yet to do.) Performances begin to fray at the edges of the company: Lloyd Morris portrays a terribly sappy Malcolm, and Henry Woronicz as Banquo has too much of that Ewell Gibbons pleasantness to be credible in this nuthouse. The weird sisters, too, seem strangely mundane, more like a couple of Cockney flower girls who got lost on the heath than witches.

Good news, though, comes in the form of Kirsten Giroux as Lady Macbeth. With legerity and a crystalline voice, she appears at first like a sweet '20s flapper and turns savage with frightening speed, manipulating her husband with thinly disguised sexuality. But the unmitigated passion which drives her can go just as easily the other way, into fear and insanity, and she crumbles beautifully, back into the flapper and beyond into girlhood. Searing her hand on a candle flame, she tragically reminds us of an inner power that once tried to unsex her but never succeeded.

Bill McCann, as Macduff, starts weakly--see if his "Horror, horror, horror!" doesn't make you giggle--but gives a fine sympathetic portrait of this confused man. He is both savior and fool, diehard and blowhard, and when informed of the murder of his wife and children must "feel like a man." But he can't in public, so he just stands there, horrified, perplexed by this mad order which forces one to substitute country for family and torn by the guilt of leaving home. For once, words fail him, and the effect is illuminating.

All the good effort goes for naught, however, because of Richard McElvain's one-dimensional Macbeth. This is a pouty shlep of a thane--Felix Unger with broadsword. Again, it works fine in Act Five, when his "life's but a walking shadow," but we are bored mercilessly beforehand. How this guy gets to be king is certainly beyond comprehension. If he has vaulting ambition, then Ronald Reagan has naturally black hair.

SO THE PERFORMANCE really has to fall flat. Macbeth depicts one man's willing excursion into hell, which means that he must start this side of it and must have some reasons for taking the trip. McElvain gives no hint of this, and we cannot sympathize with his unraveling as we can with Lady Macbeth's. Lost is the tragedy and ambiguity, replaced by a melodramatic "good guy wins." We're rather glad to see the creep done in.

All of which wrecks the intentions of director Murphy. For he would have us believe that Macbeth is more a victim than a murderer. The danger lurks not in the man but rather in the cold, gleaming sword and the emotions it stirs when placed in the man's hand. It's like letting grown men play with nuclear missiles, only in that case they don't have to worry about ghosts coming back to bother them.