Word: macbeth
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...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
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...