Word: birnam
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...which it heightens the audience members’ senses, making them aware of every element surrounding them. Sight and sound nearly always play a role in theater, but here smell becomes crucial—the rotting dinner in the Macduffs’ dining room, the crisp trees of Birnam Wood, the wood-chip floor in the basement speakeasy. Touch also plays its part—you can rummage through desks or pick up a letter Macbeth wrote to his wife. These new sensations create a world, one that is in turn mystifying and unsettling...
...Cozzens’ production has clearly made the effort to overcome those challenges. As the show is mounted in Hilles Library, it recalls the words of the valiant Macduff in Birnam Wood: “put on in/Industrious soldiership...
William's carefully chosen and meticulously directed choices bring the play up to date in a generally tasteful and effective manner. Macbeth delivers his "dagger soliloquy" under the influence of alcohol, and Shakespear's Porter becomes his soused bartender. Moreover, Birnam wood does not come to Dunsinane as camouflage of war, but rather through its use in the manufacture of the enemy's weapon...
...said Sun Tzu, the great 4th century B.C. Chinese strategist whose prize pupil turned out to be Mao Tse-tung. The Greeks understood that principle when they set sail from Troy, leaving behind only a large wooden horse. Macduff knew it when he disguised his soldiers with branches from Birnam Wood as they marched against Macbeth. In World War II, the Allies created a phantom First U.S. Army Group, outfitted with rubber tanks and canvas landing barges (courtesy of the Shepperton movie studios). Its swirl of fake radio messages about an impending invasion at Calais helped keep the entire German...
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...