Strutting and Fretting Upon the Stage (For Three Hours)

Let's lay our cards on the table right off, shall we? There is something very bizarrely askew with the Loeb Main-stage's present production of Macbeth. In a show which otherwise seems to have all the right elements, Saturday's performance changed from Shakespearean tragedy into something just short of the bizarre with the attitude of the main player Macbeth himself.

It's difficult to explain exactly what comes across as so odd in the performance of Pablo Colapinto '99 as the doomed Thane.

Colapinto's Macbeth seems to have two basic styles of diction: shouting and petulant muttering. The first, which appears in most of his earlier scenes, entails Colapinto's roaring his lines very loudly and in evident agony at the ceiling, the audience, the other characters, or whatever happens to be handy. The goal, evidently, is to convey Macbeth's anguish and guilt. This is in itself not really so objectionable. Histrionics is a forgivable flaw in a performance that calls for intense extremes of emotion.

But where Colapinto's performance leaves the realm of the comprehensible and becomes downright baffling is the second mode in which his Macbeth operates: the petulant. In delivering his lines, Colapinto seems to shift abruptly from shouts of anguish to the persona of a cynical, self-centered adolescent. Speaking in a tone of mingled peevishness and self-pity, he proceeds to recite Macbeth's lines as though he's whining at Fate for giving him such a hard time.

It's mind-boggling to observe Macbeth making the great speech of Scene V.v funny. Examining his fingernails, eyebrows raised in annoyance, Colapinto draws out the vowels as he declaims, with the injured air of one making a justified complaint, "Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow/ Creeps in this petty pace from day to day / To the last syllable of recorded time..." Whatever the intent behind this kind of performance may be, its effect is to make Macbeth appear to us not as a "tragic figure" slowly cracking under his weight of guilt, grief and paranoia, but rather as somebody enjoying a private joke.

The immediate reaction to seeing such a performance would normally be to assume that the lead actor is simply incompetent, and doesn't "understand" that Macbeth is supposed to make you unhappy instead of amusing you. The problem is that this interpretation doesn't jive with the other facts of the production. Macbeth's director, Monidca Henderson '99, and two of its producers--Nick Saunders '99 and Sam Speedie '99--are all theater veterans with several successful Shakespearean productions behind them. One can hardly imagine that they would have produced a Mainstage play--especially one whose other elements are so rich and effective--while simply failing to notice all along that there was something wrong with the main character.

Is this whiny near-hysteria of Macbeth's conscious effort on somebody's part, then? Have we been handed somebody's idea of a deliberate re-reading of the character--a postmodern comedy, perhaps, along the lines of a Tom Stoppard play? If this is the idea, it doesn't seem to be working. The rest of the production interprets the text at face value; as a result, the bizarre behavior of Colapinto's Macbeth gradually renders its audience unsure whether any given line or scene is meant to be interpreted as straight drama or as comedy. The audience starts to greet dramatic scenes and speeches with nervous laughter about halfway through the play, with the result that important tragic scenes are undermined, and the emotional effectiveness of the play collapses.

Consider, for example, Scene IV.ii, in which we meet Macduff's wife and son for the first time, watch them engage in a tender family scene--and then are forced to watch in horror as they are murdered by Macbeth's soldiers. In this production, the pantomime of a soldier stabbing the child (played by Aaron Goldberg '01), his cry of "He has killed me, mother!" and his immediate collapse into lifelessness was greeted by the audience with a burst of laughter.

It is difficult to believe that this is the reaction that the play's producers wanted to provoke. The problem is that whatever the reason behind Colapinto's self-centered, petulant rendition of Macbeth--be it poor judgement, a deliberate attempt at experimentation, or sheer incompetence--it undermines the drama and terror essential to the play. By subverting Macbeth's atmosphere of tragedy, Colapinto's performance ultimately prevents the production from generating the fear and explosive emotion which the play is intended to evovoke. To take the Aristotelian approach, it denies us the catharsis of tragedy. To use layman's terms, it's boring, frustrating and confusing. Either way, a Macbeth played straight seems as if it would have been the better choice; at Saturday's production, Colapinto may have been enjoying a joke, but the audience didn't seem to come away amused.

It is truly unfortunate that the question of Colapinto's performance hangs over the play, because its acting and production values are otherwise quite strong. The rest of the cast ranges from competent to excellent: Christina Voros '99 is a standout as the doomed Banquo, combining the dignity of a soldier and officer with a serious, perceptive humanity that makes one mourn her character's death. Emily Bishop '99 holds her own in the linchpin role of Lady Macbeth. While this particular production subordinates Lady Macbeth to Macbeth himself, Bishop does a good job of showing us the ambition and the ruthlessness of her character; her increasingly strained expression in the banquet scene of III.iv is simultaneously funny and painful to behold. And her sleepwalking scene in V.i is exquisitely performed. It is one of the few scenes in this production which seemed to stir any real emotional reaction.

The heavy cross-casting, which may initially provoke skepticism, turns out to be a fine idea; the women who play the Thanes of Ross and Lennox--Erin Billings '00, in a strong supporting turn, and Mary Pagones, respectively--are, like Voros's Banquo, stolid, sober figures who maintain the dignity and slight aloofness which characterize the statesmen. Dressed in identical black man-tailored suits, the thanes move through the play like almost interchangeable cogs in a state machine; Voros's more personal characterization of Banquo is what makes the character so much missed. Andres Ramos-Nolasco '99 plays a rather flat Duncan, and Noah Feinstein '99 appears at the end as a swashbuckling, hyperemotional Macduff. Becca Lowenhaupt '99, who plays several minor roles, makes a remarkable impact in her scene as the drunken, half-asleep Porter called upon to open Macbeth's gate for a pair of messengers. Her brash physical comedy is as effective here as it was in her role as Bottom in last spring's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and had the audience in stitches.

The set design is artistically suggestive: the oppressive weight and opulence of Macbeth's medieval stone castles has been admirably conveyed by designer Roxanne Lanzot '99 with two moving arches, swinging doors, a pole and a curtain, a single rough-hewn dais at the back. And the shifting light cast onto the Loeb's backdrop pulls us quite compellingly into a world of perpetual twilight, as the pale red sun and the round white moon become difficult to distinguish from each other. The play also uses the simple but effective trick of a changing color palette to express a shifting emotional atmosphere; the black and white of Macbeth's and his Lady's original clothing and castle is transformed into a solid, eye-aching mass of red when Macbeth becomes king--an effect especially striking in the banquet scene of V.i., which is one of the few wholly successful scenes of the performance.

And while any interpretation of the Weird Sisters can be viewed as controversial, given both the ambiguity and the importance of these figures to the play, this production's use of them is both creative and effective. In terms of the plot, the director opts to show us the witches manipulating events--putting words into the mouth of the "bloody captain" in the first scene, showing up as mysterious messengers and delivering accounts we're not sure are true, carrying away what seems to be Lady Macbeth's baby in the prologue to the play.

In visual terms, the Sisters (Rachel McGregor '00, Fay Ferency '99, and Josh Cohen '97) are well cast. Clad in black, naturally, and wearing satyr masks of white make-up, with their hair twisted and gelled into unnatural little projections, they look like a cross between elves and goth ravers. The Sisters' numbers are executed with a maximum of modern-dance movement to accompany them, and they play some marvelous tricks with a large black satin blanket.

There was, incidentally, one very serious technical problem. When Macbeth returns to the Weird Sisters in Scene IV.i for their prophecies about his future, the prophecies, which are delivered by conjured apparitions, come through loudspeakers; the sound is so garbled that if you don't already know the text, you're not going to pick up on what they're saying, which makes the ensuing two acts considerably more difficult to understand.

The play has an extremely solid team of supporting actors, producers and designers. In the best of all possible situations these would be able to work together to form a harmonious whole: a terrifying, powerful and uncanny Macbeth. Unfortunately, as it stands, the figure at the center is not operating on the same wavelength as the rest of the production, knocking this version of Macbeth seriously off-kilter.

The quality elements of the production can't redeem this fundamental problem; the character of Macbeth is so central to the drama that his presence, and in this case, his imbalance, influences everything around him. Until the play's actors and producers can agree on an interpretation that will both work on all levels of the play's performance and agree with the text on which it is based, this version of Macbeth will be--if you'll forgive the irresistible reference--but a walking shadow: a poor player indeed

It is truly unfortunate that the question of Colapinto's performance hangs over the play, because its acting and production values are otherwise quite strong. The rest of the cast ranges from competent to excellent: Christina Voros '99 is a standout as the doomed Banquo, combining the dignity of a soldier and officer with a serious, perceptive humanity that makes one mourn her character's death. Emily Bishop '99 holds her own in the linchpin role of Lady Macbeth. While this particular production subordinates Lady Macbeth to Macbeth himself, Bishop does a good job of showing us the ambition and the ruthlessness of her character; her increasingly strained expression in the banquet scene of III.iv is simultaneously funny and painful to behold. And her sleepwalking scene in V.i is exquisitely performed. It is one of the few scenes in this production which seemed to stir any real emotional reaction.

The heavy cross-casting, which may initially provoke skepticism, turns out to be a fine idea; the women who play the Thanes of Ross and Lennox--Erin Billings '00, in a strong supporting turn, and Mary Pagones, respectively--are, like Voros's Banquo, stolid, sober figures who maintain the dignity and slight aloofness which characterize the statesmen. Dressed in identical black man-tailored suits, the thanes move through the play like almost interchangeable cogs in a state machine; Voros's more personal characterization of Banquo is what makes the character so much missed. Andres Ramos-Nolasco '99 plays a rather flat Duncan, and Noah Feinstein '99 appears at the end as a swashbuckling, hyperemotional Macduff. Becca Lowenhaupt '99, who plays several minor roles, makes a remarkable impact in her scene as the drunken, half-asleep Porter called upon to open Macbeth's gate for a pair of messengers. Her brash physical comedy is as effective here as it was in her role as Bottom in last spring's A Midsummer Night's Dream, and had the audience in stitches.

The set design is artistically suggestive: the oppressive weight and opulence of Macbeth's medieval stone castles has been admirably conveyed by designer Roxanne Lanzot '99 with two moving arches, swinging doors, a pole and a curtain, a single rough-hewn dais at the back. And the shifting light cast onto the Loeb's backdrop pulls us quite compellingly into a world of perpetual twilight, as the pale red sun and the round white moon become difficult to distinguish from each other. The play also uses the simple but effective trick of a changing color palette to express a shifting emotional atmosphere; the black and white of Macbeth's and his Lady's original clothing and castle is transformed into a solid, eye-aching mass of red when Macbeth becomes king--an effect especially striking in the banquet scene of V.i., which is one of the few wholly successful scenes of the performance.

And while any interpretation of the Weird Sisters can be viewed as controversial, given both the ambiguity and the importance of these figures to the play, this production's use of them is both creative and effective. In terms of the plot, the director opts to show us the witches manipulating events--putting words into the mouth of the "bloody captain" in the first scene, showing up as mysterious messengers and delivering accounts we're not sure are true, carrying away what seems to be Lady Macbeth's baby in the prologue to the play.

In visual terms, the Sisters (Rachel McGregor '00, Fay Ferency '99, and Josh Cohen '97) are well cast. Clad in black, naturally, and wearing satyr masks of white make-up, with their hair twisted and gelled into unnatural little projections, they look like a cross between elves and goth ravers. The Sisters' numbers are executed with a maximum of modern-dance movement to accompany them, and they play some marvelous tricks with a large black satin blanket.

There was, incidentally, one very serious technical problem. When Macbeth returns to the Weird Sisters in Scene IV.i for their prophecies about his future, the prophecies, which are delivered by conjured apparitions, come through loudspeakers; the sound is so garbled that if you don't already know the text, you're not going to pick up on what they're saying, which makes the ensuing two acts considerably more difficult to understand.

The play has an extremely solid team of supporting actors, producers and designers. In the best of all possible situations these would be able to work together to form a harmonious whole: a terrifying, powerful and uncanny Macbeth. Unfortunately, as it stands, the figure at the center is not operating on the same wavelength as the rest of the production, knocking this version of Macbeth seriously off-kilter.

The quality elements of the production can't redeem this fundamental problem; the character of Macbeth is so central to the drama that his presence, and in this case, his imbalance, influences everything around him. Until the play's actors and producers can agree on an interpretation that will both work on all levels of the play's performance and agree with the text on which it is based, this version of Macbeth will be--if you'll forgive the irresistible reference--but a walking shadow: a poor player indeed